MR. FARMER: And do you mean to say with this vast, almost incalculable increase of production and wealth and consequent increase of banking resources, there has not been a single step taken by the National Government to facilitate it?
MR. BANKER: Mr. Farmer, there has not been a single change made to facilitate the handling of this vast business. On the other hand, there seems to have been such a profound ignorance on the part of Congress, or such an abject fear, lest they might aid business, that every progressive movement of a legislative character has been left to the states, which have given us laws as varied as Jacob's coat of many colors; indeed, rivaling the fifty-seven varieties of the famous pickle man.
Not only have they left the banking business to just "grow up" like Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin; but the Government itself has been one of the greatest obstructionists to the national growth of our banking business in its interference with the natural movement of the money of the country which by every economic law, and business right, belongs in the channels of trade, and not in the strong boxes of the Government.
MR. MANUFACTURER: That is absolutely true. I was greatly impressed only yesterday by a statement made by the Secretary of the Treasury right on that point of Government interference with current business by withdrawing money from circulation and piling it up in the vaults of the treasury. In the light of what we have learned during our talks, it is simply appalling; indeed, it does not seem possible in a civilized country.
Secretary MacVeagh says in the outset, "No reform of your banking and currency system can be adequate which does not take the United States Treasury out of the banking business," and then adds:
"When the independent Treasury system was established the idea was that all the funds of the Government should be stored in the Treasury vaults in the form of money, just as the mediæval war lords kept their treasures in strong boxes. The independent Treasury system was established in troublesome financial days, when the State banks were not the safest places for the deposit of money. The people decided that the public funds must be kept in Government vaults for safety.