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desirability of the object had in view is distinctly emphasized. The delegates from the South American Republics pointed out this consideration in their arguments in support of the resolution I have quoted. They looked north and saw a great manufacturing nation in need of raw material, and they fully realized that their people needed the manufactured goods we produce, and which are now supplied by England and other nations.

BOUNTY PAID TO EUROPEAN BANKERS.

This condition of commerce is injurious both to the United States and the southern Republics. Over and above the loss of the reciprocal advantages which trade affords, we are paying a large bounty to European bankers for effecting our exchanges for us, because we have not the means of making them ourselves. With suitable machinery for exchange established between the countries of the American continent we would save a large amout of commissions paid to English and continental bankers and direct large streams of profit to American financial centers which now flow to European markets. Under existing conditions we are compelled to suffer this loss in addition to the indirect injury we sustain, for the president of the National Association of Manufacturers in his recent report well says:

There are abundant reasons for the belief that the commercial interests of the United States in South America would be greatly benefited if they were independent of England in their financial transactions.

In the report of the committee appointed by the International American Conference to consider and report upon this question, it was declared that there was not in the countries represented in the conference any organized system of bankers' exchanges, or credits; for instance, they said drafts upon the United States were not obtainable at all in many of the markets of South America, and in most of them are only saleable at a discount below the sterling equivalent. In like manner, drafts upon South and Central America are practically unknown in the money markets of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago, and Boston. Necessarily, therefore, the merchants who import goods from these southern countries make their exchanges through English bankers' credits. We pay for the goods we buy by remittances to London or the Continent to cover drafts drawn in the exporting markets against European letters of credit, and we pay 1 per cent for the privilege of doing so, which might be saved, as well as interest and commissions, if we had an international banking system so developed as to afford a market for drafts drawn against letters of credit issued in America, such as now exists for drafts drawn against European letters of credit. One of the delegates from South America said if a merchant from Argentina wished to send goods to the United States he must ask the one to whom he sends the goods (consignee) to authorize him to draw upon some bank. The consignee has to send him a letter of credit on London, because there is no bank there that can issue a draft, nor would the merchant know what to do with a draft if he received it, as there are no banking institutions to which he could sell such a bill of exchange. The consequence is that the banker in London must be paid à commission of 1 per cent upon the amount simply for placing his name upon the paper.

Another delegate, observing the necessity for branches in the South American countries, argued very cogently that the banks in those countries have no relations with each other, nor have they any knowledge of the operations of each other. There is, for instance, no way of

knowing in the Argentine Republic whether a draft drawn by the Bank of Costa Rica is valid or not. Likewise a draft on the Bank of Mexico might have some difficulty in being accepted in any of the South American Republics, because its solvency would not be known in those countries. But with branches established in every section the International American Bank could draw on its branches anywhere with perfect knowledge and implicit confidence. The obvious result would be the dissemination of knowledge of the standing of merchants and business men in the commercial centers of the several countries and the promotion of that confidence indispensable to that commercial association and intercourse which carries on its wings blessings to all concerned.

BANKING FACILITIES STIMULATE TRADE.

As money is the great instrument of association among men, States, and nations, so any extension of the facilities for making money avail able and supplying media of exchange, such as banking operations afford, always quickens the currents of trade and stimulates intercourse among merchants in the same and likewise in different States and nations. Putting capital into banks, at least to the extent of meeting all reasonable demands, has ever been and always will be a distinct benefit to business.

AMERICAN CAPITAL SHOULD SERVE AMERICANS.

Nor can any one assign a reason why the transactions between the United States and South America should be effected through England. Is it a suitable thing that the United States, with her great abundance of capital and her competent financiers and great merchant princes, should stand idly by and see European countries carrying off the advantages of international exchange and putting us in the position of dependents upon European bankers for effecting our financial exchanges with the countries of the American continent? Americans should enjoy the profits of whatever they can do with American capital, and any machinery they lack to enable them to enjoy these advantages should be at once supplied.

There are American banking houses doing foreign business, it is true, to some extent, but what are not controlled by foreign influence are totally inadequate to meet the needs of our exchange with countries south of us, and the only way to put ourselves in a situation of independence in international finances at all commensurate with our resources, our power, and our rank among the nations is to establish an international bank in the United States with branches in the South American Republics operated under concessions which we are assured by the representatives of those countries will be cheerfully granted.

The committee of the International Conference referred to say in their report:

Your committee believes that the best means for facilitating the development of banking business, and generally of financial relations between the markets of North, South, and Central America, as well as for improving the mechanism of exchange without calling on any Government whatever to exceed its functions, would be the passage of a law by the United States incorporating an international American bank, with ample capital, with the privilege on the part of the citizens of the several countries in the conference to take shares in such bank pro rata to their foreign commerce; which bank should have no power to emit circulating notes, but which should have all other powers now enjoyed by the national banks of the United States as to deposits and discount, as well as all such powers as are now possessed by firms

or private bankers in the matter of issuing letters of credit and making loans upon all classes of commodity, buying and selling bills of exchange, coin, bullion; and with power to indorse or guarantee against proper security, and generally to do whatever can be done by the great banking firms who are carrying on their business without the aid of corporate charters under the laws of a general partnership.

With such an international bank established, with branches in all the Republics on this continent, there would be a stimulation of intercourse, commercial and financial, such as would surprise those who are content to transact American business through European bankers and are satisfied that Europe should buy from us and reship the same goods to South America at a profit which we are too slow or stupid to secure for ourselves.

NEW FIELDS FOR INVESTMENTS.

Capitalists north and south would have new fields for investments. The loans of the United States might find new markets this side the Atlantic. At least we would not be confined to English syndicates when we found it necessary to farm out the Treasury of the United States to keep up our gold reserve. There might at least be some competition in the borrowing markets, so that we would be no longer left at the mercy of a single Government when we needed money.

So of all classes of securities, State, municipal, and corporate. A new field would be open for investors in all the countries from which great advantages would flow and which can not be secured by any other means so certainly and so speedily as by the establishment of suitable facilities for exchange between the republics of this continent.

AN INTERNATIONAL COIN.

But this is not all the benefit we might hope to have from the extension of our commercial and financial association with the republics of this continent. It will easily be remembered what importance was attached to the adoption of an international coin for use in the several countries represented in the international conference. I have no doubt that the establishment of an international bank and the increased intercourse which would follow between the United States and South America would hasten the adoption of an international silver coin which would confer lasting benefits upon all the countries of this continent. The discussions in the conference made demonstrably clear the desirability of this consummation. Distinct expression was given by the delegates from South America of the serious difficulties experienced and the great losses suffered by the silver-using countries in their commerce with the gold-using countries on account of the great fluctuation in the value of the white metal. The delegate from Bolivia regretted that there could be so little commerce between his country and the United States, in part because of the enormous discount on Bolivia money in this country. They paid, he said, for the petroleum, cotton stuffs, hardware, agricultural implements and machinery imported from the United States by drafts on London, the cost of which was so great that their Bolivia money was reduced to nearly half its value.

Without elaborating this consideration, it is obvious enough that more intimate relations with the Republics south of us, both commercially and financially, will help to the consummation of an arrangement by which a common international silver coin may be adopted for common use as a legal tender between these countries at an established

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relation with gold, whereby silver would be available in the discharge of obligations between the countries concerned, thus conferring reciprocal benefits upon all the countries of the American continent.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL OBJECTION.

The objection made by some to this measure based upon a supposed constitutional limitation of the power of Congress in the premises is not in my opinion at all tenable. It is provided inter alia in article 1, section 8, paragraph 3, of the Constitution, as follows:

The Congress shall have power nations.

to regulate commerce with foreign

The constitutional meaning of the words "to regulate commerce" has been so frequently and so fully considered by the courts with such force of reason and amplitude of learning that I may well be excused from the task of enlarging upon the subject in this connection. Remembering that the Constitution is an instrument of enumeration rather than of definition, it is obvious enough that the extent of the power is limited by the meaning of the words in which it is granted. Story, in his Commentaries, says:

The subject to be regulated is commerce. Commerce is something more than traffic; it is intercourse. It describes commercial intercourse between nations in all its branches and is regulated by prescribing rules for carrying on that intercourse. To construe the power so as to impair its efficacy would defeat the very object for which it was introduced into the Constitution.

The late Justice Miller, in his work on the Constitution, says:

Traffic and trade are comprised of a great many elements, so far as the means are concerned by which and the persons by and between whom they are carried on.

Still more explicit is the language of the Supreme Court in McCall v. California (136 U. S., 104):

Commerce includes the fact of intercourse and of traffic and the subject-matter of intercourse and traffic. The fact of intercourse and traffic again embraces all the means, instruments, and places by and in which intercourse and traffic are carried on at those places and by and with these means.

To exclude from the power the regulation of the means of exchange and the use of credit in carrying on foreign commerce would imply that foreign commerce in the constitutional sense is limited to barter or exchange without the use of the great modern agency of credit. The admission that a suitable mechanism of exchange between countries facilitates foreign commerce, and no one denies that, is a concession of the entire ground of contention, for the purpose of the power to regulate is to facilitate, and any means that facilitates must therefore be included in the power to regulate.

Whether an international bank is a suitable means of facilitating foreign commerce is not a judicial but a legislative question. The decision of Congress on that question can not be reviewed by the courts. Congress may choose any means suitable to carry out a granted power. All means appropriate and not prohibited, if the end be within the constitutional mandate, are constitutional. This principle is nowhere more elaborately considered than in McCulloch v. Maryland. From that magazine of judicial learning I deduce some observations which carry the substance if not the words of that justly celebrated decision, and which apply as well to an international as to a national bank.

If any one proposition could command the universal assent of mankind, we might expect it would be this, that the Government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of

action. This would seem to result necessarily from its nature. It is the Government of all; its powers are delegated by all; it represents all, and acts for all.

POWERS CONFERRED BY THE CONSTITUTION.

The nature of the Constitution requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves.

Is it denied that Government has its choice of means or that it may employ the most convenient means, if to employ them it be necessary to erect a corporation? The power to create a corporation appertains to sovereignty, and is not expressly conferred on Congress. The Government can not be restrained from creating a corporation as a means for performing its functions, for the reason that such an act is an exercise of sovereignty.

The power of creating a corporation is not an end for which other powers are exercised, but a means by which other objects are accomplished. In California v. Pacific Railroad Company (127 U. S., 1) it was declared that Congress has the power to construct or to authorize individuals or corporations to construct railroads or national highways from State to State and that that authority is essential to the complete control and regulation of interstate commerce.

Congress is empowered to make such laws as may be necessary and proper for carrying into effect the powers conferred on the Government. The word "necessary" does not exclude the choice of means which are appropriate. Necessary means are any means reasonably calculated to produce the end.

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The Constitution does not prescribe the means by which Government shall execute its powers. Future exigencies could not have been foreseen, and must be provided for as they occur. The Constitution does not restrain Congress or impair its right to exercise its best judgment in the selection of measures to carry into execution the constitutional powers of the Government.

Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution, are constitutional. (McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheaton.)

Keeping these principles in mind and remembering that the international bank authorized by this bill has no other purpose than to facilitate our foreign commerce by affording improved means of exchange between our own and other countries, you can hardly fail to see that the measure is entirely within the warrant of the Constitution. If, however, there still lingers in any mind a doubt of the soundness of the views I have only suggested without elaborating, it will certainly be removed by an examination of a few of the leading cases in which the question has received judicial consideration, notably the cases of Gibbons v. Ogden (9 Wheaton, 196), United States v. Holliday (3 Wallace, 417), People v. Brooks (4 Denio, 469), Brown v. Maryland (12 Wheaton, 445), McCulloch v. Maryland (4 Wheaton, 316), Legal Tender Cases (12 Wall., 457), Juilliard v. Greenman (110 U. S., 421), Veazie Bank v. Fenno (8 Wall., 533), National Bank v. United States (101 U. S., 1).

In conclusion I submit a few selected expressions of view to fortify

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