bank currency and a plea for the repeal of the 10 per cent bank tax." It is as follows:

I am one of the delegates from the Chamber of Commerce of Richmond, Va. My city is a large commercial center that is absolutely unique in this, that it survives with all the financial conditions against it. Our prosperity is of the "neither poverty nor riches" degree, scripturally commended, but we feel there should exist in the law itself no bar to greater prosperity and greater growth. I speak for those who demand the repeal of the 10 per cent bank tax.

FINANCIAL HISTORY OF RICHMOND.

I am familiar with the financial history of Richmond, having entered banking there immediately after the war, when the fires of the "evacuation" were still smoldering. I have witnessed the struggles of my people, and I became convinced in the sixties that the national banking currency system was wholly unsuited to us. With the scarcity of money and no currency to command, our slender assets soon disappeared, interest ranging, for ten years after the war, from 12 to 20 per cent.

I have seen, with exceptions so lamentably few as only to prove the rule, every old-time merchant, miller, and planter forced to the wall. That we have survived as a community comes from the great economy of the people, taught by adversity; but the condition throughout the State is deplorable and unfair. Hence it is not to be wondered that Virginia was ranked early in the recent campaign among the "doubtful" States.

VIRGINIA NOT LACKING IN HONOR.

And I will interpolate just here, not from political motives, for I have never held a political office-I have never drawn so much as a witness fee-but from patriotic motives. What I have to say is this: Those who attach to the word "doubtful" the suggestion that Virginia is lacking in honor are mistaken, and this committee should not approach the subject they have in hand in that spirit. Though a sound-money man myself, I am no better, nor am I as good, as thousands of my fellowVirginians who embraced the cause of silver-serious, earnest, forceful men who are desperate for relief. This committee must close its ears to the cry of dishonor and probe for and remove the grievance.

ROBERT E. LEE ON REPUDIATION.

My State is never reflected upon that I am not angered, knowing as I do the honesty of her people and their acts. Gen. R. E. Lee, possibly in this very room, in March, 1866, before the "Reconstruction Committee," when questioned as to the feeling of his people on the payment of their private debts, the national debt incurred in prosecuting the war, and even the Confederate debt, concluded a most interesting colloquy with the words, "I have never heard anyone in the State with whom I have conversed speak of repudiating any debt," having previouly stated, to use his own words, "simply from his knowledge of the people that they would pay all debts."

And he did not judge them amiss. Already prominent Virginians had assembled at Richmond and assumed the entire State debt of Virginia, and it was after 1870, when Mr. Gilbert C. Walker was made governor of Virginia, that they set apart any of it for West Virginia to pay; and later, under the awful pressure of the funding bill, when readjustment was mooted, it was fought for years, and though familiar with the facts myself I am pleased to be able to quote from so distinguished a man as our late minister to Spain, Dr. J. L. M. Curry, that "90 per cent of the taxpayers voted throughout for full payment."

AN INSUFFICIENT CURRENCY.

Satisfied that her position was due to the unequal distribution of an insufficient currency, I obtained from the Comptroller the condensed balance sheets of the national banks of the several States and culled the information I needed. It is presented herewith, showing the capital, surplus, and national-bank note issue, the population (1890), and the electoral vote of each State, as follows:

TABLE A.-Status of the national banks as of May 7, 1896, as regards capital, surplus, and notes issued.

To present this paper is to demand currency reform. The grouping of the States is convenient for reference. Observe that Massachusetts has $29,800,000 notes and Mississippi $200,000, and the 22 Bryan States (see Statement B), with ten times the population, have $5,000,000 less notes than Massachusetts. Rhode Island with 325,000 people has $7,000,000 notes, the same number as the nine Southern States with nearly 12,000,000 inhabitants, a per capita of $20.29 in the first instance and 60 cents in the last, and so on.

WHAT THE SOUTH DEMANDS.

Figures may be given that do not ask but demand relief from the present currency system. It does not suit a majority of the people, and as far as the South is concerned we stand for repeal, not of the nationalbank act that is so satisfactory to some parts of the country, but the repeal of the act that gives it a monopoly to our great detriment.

TABLE B.-Population, electoral rote, and status of national banks in the States that voted for Bryan, as of May 7, 1896, as regards capital, surplus, and notes issued.

NOTE.-Population, capital, surplus, and notes expressed in thousands-that is, three ciphers

dropped.

My interest in the currency question has not been superficial. It has long been my habit to scrutinize the Comptroller's reports, always to find the system unsatisfactory and demanding some reform. I give now the report of November 10 of the condition of the banks on October 6, 1896:

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

OFFICE OF COMPTROLLER OF THE CURRENCY,
Washington, D. C., November 10, 1896.

TABLE C.-Abstract of reports made to the Comptroller of the Currency, showing the condition of the 3,676 national banks in the United States at the close of business Tuesday, October 6, 1896.

Inasmuch as the banks can have but two resources-the input of the stockholders in the shape of capital (and surplus) and the input of the depositors-I restate the report, eliminating all cross entries, rediscounts, loans of banks to each other, exchanges for the clearing house, which should be charged against deposits, etc., and, most important of all, the account of the Government with the banks, i. e., the Government bonds held by the banks, the premium, redemption, and reserve fund on the one hand, and the national-bank notes and Government deposits on the other. From it we see that, far from

supplementing them, there is a heavy drain upon the resources of the banks, demonstrating that as the note issue increases the available assets diminish.

TABLE D.-Restatement of Comptroller's report showing status of the national banks as of October 6, 1896.

Now the restatement will bear close study. In the first place, the national-bank note issue, $210,000,000, just reaches $3 per capita, an