ON THE DEFENSIVE
On The Defensive GEORGE F. BAKER reluctantly admits that the existing concentration of wealth may be dangerous to the country. Baker is known as "the biggest man in Wall Street, next to J....
...For this constructive work, what has the State Superintendent done as a regent on the managing board...
...He has apparently not caught the spirit of this new department which aims to carry out to the people in shops and factories that kind Of knowledge which they can use...
...How constructive and effective has he been in the actual administration of the university...
...His own standard of admission to the University was expressed in one of his letters to the newspapers when he said that a bright boy of eighteen who had done good work in the grades but who had not attended a high school could complete the college course in four years...
...Who ever heard anything of his approval of the service of even a single department...
...Where a Divorce is Needed IN NO OTHER COUNTRY than the United States are the banks allowed to absorb in speculation the capital belonging to legitimate trade...
...They are calm, but grimly determined...
...Students of the subject agree that there is something radically wrong in our business methods and banking laws making possible this frequent recurrence of business epilepsy...
...Doing almost nothing on the board where he might have done something, he has tried to arouse popular prejudice against the State University...
...Acute panics...
...But he ought to know that it is economy in the spending of several millions of dollars annually for the state government to employ the very best trained ability...
...not to mention the injury to students who attempted work they were not prepared to carry...
...His chief concern is the question of the University inspection of high schools and the addition of another high school inspector to his own force of six inspectors and the complete control of the high schools by the State Superintendent, as well as the control of the admission of students to the University...
...The importance of this can not be overestimated...
...But what they admit is not news to the public...
...But practical financiers, as well as students of the subject high in authority, offer different testimony...
...Our banks cannot really serve legitimate business if they are permitted to remain under the domination of—and continue to serve, primarily, the needs of—promoters and speculators...
...The answer to that question will be given in these columns in a series of brief articles, of which the following is the third...
...A few short years ago such admissions coming from such men, would have been startling and sensational in the extreme...
...He seems to hold that the state government should bar out from its service every man with a special training in the University...
...He has also tried to secure another high school inspector for his own office...
...Commercial banking and legitimate business are about to come into their own...
...A State Superintendent with such an idea and in politics and with con-trol of admission to the university would lower the scholarship of the university, would compel the state University to do ordinary high school work and would subject that institution to any State Superintendent who wanted to play politics...
...The city superintendents and principals in their annual associations of 1909 and 1910 adopted resolutions strongly declaring for both inspections of the high schools,—by the State Superintendent and the University...
...England, France, and Germany have long recognized and maintained a distinction in banking that this country must recognize and maintain if our national business integrity is not to be destroyed...
...What record has he made during these ten years...
...Two legislatures have refused to strengthen what may easily be made a political machine in the office of the State Superintendent...
...Every important step to serve the interests of the people was taken outside the initiative of the State Superintendent and taken in almost every case without help or hindrance by him...
...He apparently does not appreciate the movement to discover and develop ability and skill among all classes and to awaken new hopes in every bright boy and girl and workman in Wisconsin...
...Well-informed people, everywhere, have known of the existence of this all-powerful financial oligarchy, ruling credit, transportation, industry, and the nation itself...
...They are successfully operating 1181 groups, however, with a total membership of 1,324,000 members.— Christian Sci-ence Monitor...
...The Smiles That Came Off ADDRESSING the Chicago Commercial Club, Woodrow Wilson said, "I am not drawing an indictment against the banking system—" But the smiles that overspread the faces of bank presidents in his audience faded and the applause that interrupted the speaker died out when Wilson ended his sentence with this— "That already has been convicted...
...2. The service by the agricultural college at the University has been rendered with little or no help from the State Superintendent...
...The State Superintendent has not shown so much interest in economy as in the extension of his own power...
...It has become more and more "The Instrument of the State" for all kinds of public service...
...Most taxpayers want economy in public service, but they will not be deceived by carping criticism...
...the rise and fall of stock markets do not affect the legitimate channels of business...
...This can never be safely passed over to any political department...
...His record as a University regent for ten years is almost a blank...
...One suspects the cry of "domination" when it comes from a man who wants all the power in his own hands...
...During the last ten years the University has made direct advances in practical service to the people...
...He has never shown full appreciation of the importance of the thousands of rural schools as a system to serve the economic interests of the farmers...
...And they are not going to quit until the Money Power is destroyed...
...That there should be rise and fall in national prosperity is in accordance with natural law...
...His main effort to please the farmers has been to attack the state University...
...He practically holds that it is dangerous for men trained at the University to serve on the state commissions and to make investigations and reports to the committees of the legislature...
...The normal schools and colleges of Wisconsin have the same power, which is essential to scholarship and good work...
...He fails to recognize that men in the University will never be called into the public service except on the summons by the Governor and members of the legislature who are the direct representatives of the people...
...European nations do not permit government banks to engage in promotion...
...still the damaging admission remains that conditions in the realm of high finance are such that if a "bad" man should happen to come into power there would be oppression and tyranny beyond description...
...The people know...
...It was the good sense and sound judgment of the American people that averted national bankruptcy...
...He has apparently heard little or nothContinued on page 9 ing of the experiments, plans and associations to increase the production of wealth upon the farms of Wisconsin...
...Ebb and flow are inherent to the life of the body politic as to the life of the individual...
...It was manufactured by the speculative bankers of Wall Street...
...4. Superintendent Cary has devoted his chief attention and efforts to abolish the University inspection and accrediting of high schools...
...They have the Money Power on the defensive...
...It has been assumed in Congress and elsewhere that panics are necessary evils...
...And George M. Reynolds, president of perhaps the biggest bank in Chicago,—the same Reynolds who in December, 1911, confided to his fellow bankers, in conference assembled, that he was one of the twelve men who constitute the "Money Power"—this Mr...
...to January 1, 1913...
...And yet in a series of letters given to the newspapers, for nearly three years he has aimed destructive criticism at the University...
...But not a spark of excitement...
...He is again seeking reelection to this important position at the head of the public school system...
...Who has ever heard from the State Superintendent any strong commendation of this work which has received the approval of thousands of workers in the state, as well as the admiration of the foremost public men of the nation...
...Everybody knows about the State Superintendent's attack on the University...
...Both as a University regent and as State Superintendent, he has not measured up to the powers and possibilities of his office...
...We do not want domination by the State Superintendent any more than we want domination by the University...
...He now has six inspectors of schools in his department...
...3. In see of his letters to the public, Cary complains about a "University-State...
...With one or two exceptions, he did nothing and opposed nothing...
...In both the Senate and the House there will be emphasized the pressing necessity of divorcing commercial hanking from speculative banking...
...Because of the strict separation of stock gambling from banking business the market centers of Europe do not know the fluctuations in interest rates common to New York...
...He simply looked on...
...He probably really believes that the liberties of the people of Wisconsin were endangered by the appointment of B. H. Meyer on the railroad rate commission, of John R. Commons on the industrial commission and of a few graduate students on the railroad and tax commissions...
...Why Wisconsin Needs a New State Superintendent For ten years C. P. Cary has held the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction...
...Superintendent Cary doubtless knows of places where doctors still pull teeth and carpenters still draw plans for important public buildings...
...but restrict them to the legitimate field of facilitating commerce...
...The State Superintendent wants to control all school inspection and also the admission of students to the University...
...and it has been asserted that these same convulsions have taken place periodically in the great nations of Europe as well as in this country...
...His criticisms have not in the main been aimed at the cost of the University to the state...
...Attacking the University SUPERINTENDENT CARY has been a regent of the University ex-officio from January 1, 1903...
...Congress will in the near future-come to grapples with currency and banking legislation...
...Is the State Superintendent playing politics and trying to drag the University into politics...
...In the states of California, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and others, the University controls the admission of its students...
...What has he done as a regent by his votes and by resolutions...
...Do the proceedings of the board show that he urged by his votes and resolutions any important improvement...
...What has he done on the Board of Regents during all of these ten years to remedy conditions which he has so openly criticized in the newspapers...
...Unlike George W. Perkins, trust builder and new party organizer, who eulogizes his erstwhile partner, Mr...
...such as we experience, are not known...
...As a regent, Superintendent Cary has not been identified with any movement of direct benefit to the farmers...
...The people cannot afford to let any one have complete control of their high schools...
...III...
...He generally voted with the majority...
...The State Superintendent does not seem to recognize that complexity in the industrial system compels complexity in our state government and that this demands the best trained service to protect the rights of the people...
...Baker is known as "the biggest man in Wall Street, next to J. Pier-pont Morgan...
...Reynolds says: "I believe that concentration to the point it has already gone is a menace...
...It was plain to every thoughtful citizen that the panic of 1907 had no relation to normal conditions...
...THE GERMAN co-operative societies are not striving to overthrow general economic conditions...
...Morgan, and waggishly evades an expression of opinion upon the Money Power, these two financial giants, Mr...
...But that this young, healthy, growing country should go mad financially every few years is unnatural and unnecessary...
...R. A. Seligman, professor of political economy, Columbia University, says: "If we compare our economic history with that of Europe, we observe that acute financial crises have there almost passed away...
...Although he hastens to reassure us by declaring that in his opinion, the present control of money and credit is in "good" hands (his own hands hold an astonishing share of it...
...Speculative banking and privileged business are to be driven out...
...We want complete control of the high school by the community with inspection from any source,—the University, the State Superintendent, the colleges or the normal schools...
...1. He, has given no effective support to the University Extension Department which now enrolls about 5,000 student workers in all parts of the state...
...The State Superintendent seems to have little faith in definite, practical training for special lines of service...
...THE AVERAGE - AMERICAN consumes 82 pounds of sugar each year and only 10 pounds of that ration is now produced in this country...
...England had had no severe convulsion since 1866, and in France and Germany also the disturbances are more and more assuming the form of periodic industrial depression, rather than of acute financial crises...
...Reynolds, met the issue—each after his own fashion—when cornered...
...Baker and Mr...
...These men go to all parts of the state and it may be presumed that in meeting the city and county superintendents of schools, members of the annual school board conventions and other persons, they are not disloyal to the interests of their chief...
...There is great interest, to be sure, in the testimony of Baker and Reynolds...
Vol. 5 • January 1913 • No. 4
