Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Mr. Cox. They are not known in Brazil as an incorporated body at all. They are governed by the laws of Brazil. If that is not the truth then you have the charter of the United States, a law of Congress extending its authority into Brazil?

Mr. BROSIUS. In this way: The concession will be conferred, the power would be conferred, upon certain persons engaged in carrying out the provisions of this charter to operate under the provisions, conditions, and limitations of this charter in Brazil. That would be the extent of the concessions.

Mr. FOWLER. They never could exceed the limitations that their charter fixed in any country.

Mr. Cox. I see where we pull apart. In my opinion this charter in the United States would have no more power in Brazil than any act we passed in Congress.

Mr. HILL. Unless they recognized it.

Mr. FOWLER. Would not that be equally true of a corporation in London?

Mr. Cox. Certainly.

Mr. FOWLER. I have had experience in reference to that, and the action of the corporation was bound in the court, and the court passed on the charter acting in London, although it was incorporated in America.

Mr. Cox. Now let me illustrate that again. You have a treaty with France to-day under which a Frenchman who comes here can acquire real estate and send it down to his heirs. That does not grow out of anything except the treaty. That is where it is agreed to. Now you and I go to Brazil and say, "We have a charter in the United States." They say, that is all right. Now if Brazil will incorporate a charter of the United States as a part of the charter conferred upon us and make it their law, then you can operate under that. That is the reason they register charters throughout all the States, and the power is conferred by the respective States. A charter in the United States has no more effect in Brazil than any act we pass in Congress, unless the Brazilian Government adopts it as a part of its legislation. Therefore I say that these gentlemen go to Brazil and they do not make their authority of the United States part of their law, and have asked for personal privileges and rights and Brazil confers them. You can hold real estate. You can do just as you please with your branch there if you violate no law of Brazil.

Mr. Cox having concluded his remarks, Mr. Calderhead addressed the committee as follows:

STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM A. CALDERHEAD.

Mr. CHAIRMAN: When this bill was under consideration here last session, I think it was the original intention to ask the opinion of the Comptroller of the Currency, and it was also then proposed to get the Attorney-General to give us his opinion as to the constitutionality of this measure. I said then the most serious objection I had to it was a political objection, rather than an objection to the legal form of it or any legal question that might arise under it. I said that then, and I still say I do not believe you realize what a tremendous objection from the people you would raise by the attempt to incorporate 13 men-the men named here—into a private bank in the United States.

Mr. BROSIUS. Suppose half were Democrats and half Republicans?

Mr. CALDERHEAD. It is not a question of their politics.

Mr. BROSIUS. How can it be a political question if it is not a ques tion of their politics?

Mr. CALDERHEAD. Politics will make its appearance after you have incorporated any thirteen millionaires into a bank, and Mr. Hill's admission is a frank one, that these men appointed commissioners are interested in international commerce. Naturally they will be subscribers to stock. They must be subscribers to the extent of these $5,000,000. They may be subscribers to the extent of $25,000,000. Every name mentioned here is a name prominent in our country as the name of a millionaire. I want to say that I have not the slightest feelings of envy toward them as millionaires. I respect them and admire their genius as captains of industry in the land."

Mr. VAN VOORHIS. These gentlemen named in the bill may act as commissioners and not become stockholders or incorporators.

Mr. CALDERHEAD. Certainly, that is true. None of these men may become stockholders; none of them may have any personal or financial interest in the bill. That is true under the bill, but it is as Mr. Hill says, each one of these men is engaged in a vast industry, interested in international commerce and the most natural thing will be for them to see that the bank is incorporated by themselves subscribing for the stock, and so be members of the corporation?

Mr. BROSIUS. I would like to ask whether it is not to the interest of this country that men should be largely engaged in industry?

Mr. CALDERHEAD. Of course it is; but that is an entirely different question from the question as to whether they shall be incorporated or not. I think if you will be patient I will be able to answer the inquiries you will want to make.

I have not the slightest objection in the world to the greatest international commerce we can induce, in the same way we build up our internal commerce, but I do not want to drift away from the idea that I proposed to you in the first place-that the whole United States is in a condition of unrest. The underhalf of the country believes that it is injured, and injured largely by the power of aggregated incorporate wealth. They actually believe it. They believe it to such an extent that over large areas of this country they need nothing but a leader of ability to give us local insurrection.

That is the truth about it. That is the political storm that will follow the attempt, direct or indirect, to incorporate the men who are named here into a private bank with a capital of $5,000,000 or $25,000,000, and the plea that it is done for the benefit of international commerce will not answer that mob-for it is a mob-and all that it needs is some commanding genius to lead it. If the leader happens to have the military instinct, it means civil war. That is a large word to use and I know you may think I am a little extravagant in making a statement of that kind, but I know the temper of the men who have this animosity toward men who are rich. It arises partly out of their envy and partly out of the distress of the men who are poor.

Mr. HENDRICK. The large bulk of those people believe, too, that the wealth has been brought about largely by legislation.

Mr. CALDERHEAD. Yes; they have been taught to believe it. I do not believe it. I think the same law has governed Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Armour that governs me and my neighbors; that the same opportunities in life have been open to all of us, and if a man has the genius to gather together men, to organize industry and business, and make gain and profit for himself, we must remember we might have done what

he has done; but this underhalf believes it was not because of their personal ability and not because of an apt opportunity, but because of legislation which made it possible for them to amass their fortunes, to aggregate this vast wealth.

I know that it is stated as a fact that it is not five years since the fellow who invented the pneumatic tire for the bicycle was a comparatively poor man, and now he is worth $15,000,000, clear of his interest in the factory, and the law incorporated the factory. I know it took great inventive genius to invent that pneumatic tire and still greater genius and skill to make the machinery which operates in the manufacture of the pneumatic tire.

As I have said, that factory is now incorporated. This under half of our population loses sight of the fact that the man discovered an invention for which there was a great demand, and that he had the skill to muster workmen around him and the skill to call to his aid the inventive genius of the country.

The only things they see are the law incorporating the company, and the profits of that company under which this man has accumulated a fortune of $15,000,000, and they answer to you that no human being can earn $15,000,000 either in five years or a lifetime. They believe it. They are taught that, not as political faith but as political axiom.

That is one instance. Another instance is the invention of the button fastener on children's shoes. The man who invented this was a poor shoemaker. Now he sells a package of these for about 45 cents that contains 144 gross of the fasteners. The shoemaker who uses it does so because it saves his time and because his customers would rather have the buttons fastened on that way. Yet the fellow who invented that is worth $4,000,000, and an incorporated company built the factory and manufactures the button fasteners. The company has grown immensely wealthy and in a perfectly legitimate manner. But this underhalf of the country sees nothing in that except that the law incorporated a company for the manufacture of those things which are an article of necessity to their poor children's shoes, and out of it the man became worth his millions in less than twenty years.

Mr. HILL. Would you stop incorporating companies?

Mr. CALDERHEAD. Oh, no; I would not. But you make it still more prominent when you say that here are men who have accumulated vast fortunes, and that you will directly or indirectly incorporate them with power to put their hands on the commerce in and out of the country and tax a profit for their benefit. That is the point. I admit it will be for the national welfare to have some agency instituted that would increase our international commerce, but I tell you it is a political mistake, a blunder-which I think is said to be worse than a mistake-and it is something more than that. It is unwise statesmanship, with the underhalf of the nation entertaining this sentiment toward incorporated wealth for you now to incorporate an international bank with the intention that it shall have power to levy a tribute on exchange upon all purchases and sales that are made between America and other countries. Mr. Cox. Without competition?

Mr. CALDERHEAD. Without competition. I admit you pay that tribute when you pay foreign exchange. Yet it has not become a matter of prominence, and so has not affected the spirit of the people. You propose to do this thing in the face of this vast sentiment that is now stirring the nation throughout and at a time when you have not yet passed the crisis. That is the objection I have to it and why I can not vote for it.

In the next place I then said to you that this country is accustomed to the national banking system, but there are a good many men in the country who do not think it ought to have been established and who think it ought to be abolished now, and they are generally the same men who think the Government ought to issue all the currency and be responsible for it. I have no sympathy with their faith, for I believe in the national banking system myself, and at least one half of the nation does, probably a little more than that; and the people are accustomed to it and rely upon it and take its currency as money without question. You can expand the national banking system so that it can transact this international business and the people will accept it, and this portion of the people that is complaining will not have a new cause of complaint. Would it not be just as easy for you to say that the national banks of the United States shall have power to subscribe to stock for an international bank, for the purpose of dealing in international exchange, as for you to say that Mr. Armour and Mr. Bliss and the others named in this bill shall have power to be incorporated as an international bank? And why not do that thing? Why not make the international bank a part of the national banking system, directly connected with and dependent upon it? Why should you now, in direct competition with the national banking system, establish eight private banks for that is what the eight branches will be-with the power of the Government, so far as it is conferred upon them in this charter, with the influence and prestige given by this charter to eight private banks within the United States to enter into direct competition with the national banks of the United States in receiving deposits and making discounts.

Why should you do that thing? You first offend the discontented people who complain of the conditions of life, and then injure your friends who transact the internal commerce of the country. Are not the national banks of the United States as competent to furnish exchange as any bank in Europe? What is it that has given the Bank of England the power over the commerce of the world, which it has by reason of the fact that it furnishes the exchange? More than one hundred years' commerce with the rest of the earth has taught all mankind exactly what a pound sterling is, but our uncertain finances for the last thirty years have not taught the world what the unit of money in the United States is.

But there is another thing to remember and it goes back almost to the beginning of things. It was a part of my parental training that a man ought to be a whole man within himself and stand four square to the world alone. The American family grows up upon the idea that every member of it is independent. The wealth, the property, that is accumulated in that family is distributed by law to the heirs, and each one takes his proportion and is a separate and independent man, and is not responsible for the traditional honor of the family.

In Europe the matter is different. Property is transmitted by the laws from father to the first son by the law of primogeniture. The first son becomes the head of the family by reason of the fact that he inherits the property. The traditional honor rests upon him and has to be maintained, and is one of the strongest bonds for integrity in business. To him all the other members of the family look, and to the maintenance of his honor they all look, and he selects some other brother or member of the family and sends him to South America and plants him in a branch bank. Behind him are centuries of inheritances of honor and good faith, and in the care of this younger brother there

is this same honor, and there is an obligation upon him to maintain it. The ancestral property is inalienable, and its income can be reached, and all this gives the branch bank standing and credit there. Business is easily transacted there.

In America the first son inherits but one share. He has no family honor to maintain in the same sense that the Englishman has nothing but his own manhood, and it is not made known to men until he has lived a lifetime and transacted business for a lifetime.

Now, the consequence of that is that the men in England who send their sons or relatives to foreign countries to establish banks have less risk in the matter than if you or I select our brother or partner. Our brother or partner has nothing but a pecuniary interest in the venture. He has no family traditions of honor in the same way the Englishman has back of him. The care of that good name is not a bond upon him, except so far as it is a matter of personal affection. It is a traditional bond upon the part of the Englishman who goes into business there.

The result is that our man who goes abroad for business is alone; our people have not established branch mercantile agencies or branch banks in any other country for the banking business. Our name is not known there. We have not a bank in America that has a name thirty years old with a branch planted in any other new country on the earth. Mr. HILL. Oh, yes; we have-in the tea trade and in the hardware trade. Our name is known in China and Japan.

Mr. BROSIUS. There are plenty of business institutions in this country that are a hundred years old.

Mr. CALDERHEAD. The tea trade does not go back beyond the year 1850 with Japan, I know, nor beyond that in India.

Mr. BROSIUS. These houses that have been established much longer than that certainly have branches.

Mr. CALDERHEAD. I suppose some mercantile houses have branches; but the banking houses of England were known in China one hundred years ago and in Brazil one hundred years ago, and all these hundred years have been doing business there, while the banks in America that are known in Brazil have been incorporated since the war. Nearly all the American establishments which have gained any foothold in South America have practically been built up in the United States since the war, but they have not established banks there.

In the next place, exchange upon England is freely received in South America in payment for goods, because England has its agency there ready to receive it. The sons of England are there. They are acquainted with and known to the men who are selling the goods. There is no need that their names shall be added to the exchange draft on England in order to make it pass at a parity; they have the machinery of exchange in their hands. Why?

Has any banking establishment of New York planted an agent in Buenos Ayres, or Rio de Janeiro, or any other city in South America-a banking agent with concessions and permission to transact business there, with authority to make acquaintance there, to solicit business, and carry it on there? Can you name one? I think it was a part of Mr. Brosius's argument this morning that while there were sixty foreign. banking houses in South America, there was not an American banking house there. Is it any wonder that American exchange is not accepted there?

Now, if it is the duty of each individual in our national life and in our national Republic to take care of himself and be himself a whole

« AnteriorContinuar »