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Riches and Dangers

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 4, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 5.

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Riches and Dangers

PRESIDENT-ELECT Woodrow Wilson said to the Chicago Commercial Club, January 11: “I am not indicting the banking methods of America. Our banking system does not need to be indicted; it has been convicted.” And the New York “World” points out that one member of the powerful triumvirate that controls the monopoly of credit in the United States has been the one who has convicted it. The Pujo Committee of Congress has been bringing out some very interesting facts in its investigations of the money power. One of the men who was upon the witness-stand for two days was George F. Baker, chairman of the First National Bank of New York; and he admitted, in response to questions, that in fifty years his bank, which had started with a capital of $500,000, had made $86,000,000. He admitted, we are told, that he was one of two chief financial lieutenants of J. P. Morgan, the “great general;” that he personally bought control of the Chase National Bank, and turned it over to the first security company, the holding company of the First National. He admitted the familiar system of “interlocking directorates,” and the frequent bank consolidations; nor could he name any American company flotation of $10,000,000 or more issued in recent years through any other house than J. P. Morgan & Co. or one of its eight associates and allies. This group was doing the big business of the country. From testimony given in the New York “World” of January 13 we quote:
“Question: Is there any doubt of the fact that there has been of late years a vast and growing concentration of credit in the hands of a few men?”
Mr. Baker’s answer was: “Well, there is a GREAT AMOUNT OF MONEY that has come together here more or less concentrated.”
“Question: I suppose you would see no harm in having the control of credit as represented by the control of banks and trust companies, still further concentrated? Do you think that would be dangerous?”
“Answer: I think it has gone about far enough.
“Question: You think it would be dangerous to go farther?”
“Answer: It might not be dangerous, but still it has gone about far enough. In good hands I do not say that it would do any harm. If it got into bad hands it would be very bad.”
“Question: If it got into bad hands it would wreck the country?”
“Answer: Yes; but I do not believe it could get into bad hands. . .
“Question: You see the peril in that, do you not?”
“Answer: Yes.
“Question: So that the safety of the country lies in the personnel of the men?”
“Answer: Very much.
“Question: Do you think that is a comfortable situation for a great country to be in?”
“Answer: Not entirely.”
And this is the testimony of one of the important men in the great money control of the country. Mr. Baker does not consider that it is in “bad hands,” and yet Mr. Morgan, the “great general” of the group, could use millions of the United States money just as if it were his own! And the journal quoted from pertinently remarks: “A power that in ‘bad hands’ would be ‘very bad,’ and would ‘wreck the country,’ is a power too great to rest in the hands of Messrs. Morgan, Baker, and Stillman, excellent as they feel their motives are. A situation not ‘comfortable for a great country to be in’ is a situation a great country must change. It can not leave its safety in the personnel of the men at the head of the clique of bankers.” And it is true, too, that “no feature of monopoly is more repellent than the monopoly of credit.”
Credit seems to be good at first. It invariably works out evil at last. And so God’s Word foretelling this very condition 2,500 years ago, and nearly 2,000 years ago repeating it, in the prophecy of Habakkuk and in that of James,—the very conditions which exist now,—of how men would heap to themselves the riches and the credits of the country, until they were left alone in the earth, and of the awful recoil, reaction, revolution, which would be sure to follow, that would topple the thrones of many kings into the dust. God has forewarned us concerning all this, but we doubt very much whether President Woodrow Wilson will be able to make any decided change.