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BY In South Dakota Pandemonium Reigns TOM AYRES the Financial pandemonium reigns in South Dakota. The. of the local banks and unload their bad paper on There are something like sixty million dollars of these rons of the bank are permitted to deposit money prediction made to me last September, by a former memgovernment, cannot save the day. The paper held by funds, for which the banks have been paying less than check against their own deposits, but cannot draw the bank is just as valuable as are the farm assets-but ber of Congress and one of the heaviest bankers in this 2 per cent interest. Under the terms of the bill, credit money they had no deposit before the state took hold state, that half of our banking institutions would close no more. So it is practically worthless. In one instance could be extended only for productive purposes, all spectheir doors within the year, seems about to be verified. -that of the failure of the First National at WessingThe Sioux Falls Trust & Savings Bank is theref ulative loans being expressly prohibited. The business He declared that if the banking laws were enforced, more closed, but the state of South Dakota is running ton Springs, which was one of the rottenest of the long was to be conducted at cost. than half of our eight hundred banks would be forced to line of recent failures—overtures are being made to debank. This approximates an experiment in communi The bankers fought the bill, spending not less than positors to take ten cents on the dollar for their claims. liquidate at once. One bank right after another is failwhich would have been considered as rank treason, forty thousand dollars to defeat it. The Republican and BANKRUTCY COURTS ing. More than sixty have failed within the year. Among than a year ago, when the Bill for a state bank was Democratic parties each fought it. Both parties were these are the First National and First Trust banks of COURTS BOOMING ing fought by the Republican machine, the Republic liberally financed for the purpose. The president of the Mitchell, with liabilities of over a million dollars. This politicians, the Democratic politicians, the capital While the banks are thus popping everywhere, a steady Farmers Union, John W. Batcheller, joined the bankers occurred about two months ago. Now comes the Sioux press and the president of the Farmers' Union. stream of broken farmers are crowding the bankruptcy and politicians in opposition to the bill. Falls National Bank, with deposits of two and a half courts. And this, in spite of the agreement of most of ALL ILLUSIONS Of course, the people got what they voted for-bank millions, and the Sioux Falls Trust and Saving Bank, the lawyers, made with the banks over a year ago, not VANISHING with deposits of five millions. The Sioux Falls National failures. They are now bitterly repenting their folly. to take bankruptcy cases of the farmers. This closed Meantime the illusions of the farmers and work Bank, the James River Valley Bank at Huron, the Sioux They would vote for a State Bank now because they have shop agreement of the lawyers and bankers does not are rapidly passing away. They take kindly to the Falls Trust & Savings Bank, and one of the largest discovered that the state® banks which were said to have work. There are enough honest lawyers who are scabgram of the Farmer-Labor Party, favoring a five-y banks at Parker (the latter through evident high fintheir deposits guaranteed by the state, are not SO probing on the system, SO that the farmers are having that extension on the payment of farm debts, and land ance), are the toll within one week. The failure of small tected. The guarantee is simply that of the associated much relief, in the cases where they can raise enough the users-which they regard as their only hope for banks no longer attracts attention. These failures are money to pay the court costs. banks. They assess themselves 25 cents on every hundfuture. I have a letter from one farmer who has alre no longer "news." In the case of the Sioux Falls NaAll of this is making a profound impression on the red dollars, to pay the depositors in failed banks. Every started the slogan, "If we, cannot get a stay, then, tional Bank, managed by John W. Wadden, of Madison, bank keeps its proportion of this fund in ITS OWN minds of the farmers and industrial workers. And it is heck, we'll never pay." formerly president of the State Bankers' Association, the taking the starch out of the retired farmers and townVAULTS, SO as to make sure that it will have the money Sioux Falls papers covered the story in less than five Reverting to the loss of their land through forec people of small means. All their conventional ideas about to pay its depositors when it fails. It is a great joke, in inches of space. ure, it is common to hear the expression that if the sacredness and stability of the capitalist system are this time of crisis. There is about $400,000 in this fund, United States had never sold an acre of land or allo The panic among depositors has naturally become and the banks that are open have the fund. There is being rudely shaken. They are becoming ready to listen acute. Many are quietly withdrawing their funds and an acre to be homesteaded, there would be no mortga more than five million dollars tied up in failed banks, and to talk of a change of the system. And the fellow who purchasing U.S. Certificates of Indebtedness; others are the number of failures is increasing every day. A fine shouts warning against the red flag, the Third Internafarms, and no tenants-except tenants of the gove prospect for depositors. purchasing postal money orders, express money orders, ment, who could remain through their lives, and be tional and Communism, will get the same kind of a laugh W and travellers cheques. They have completely lost faith tain that their children would have land to use The state and its counties have millions of dollars dewhich that sort got, just after the Russian revolution, in the banking institutions. Auctioneers report that purthey passed on, and be unmolested by any money loa when they thought they would scare the farmers out of posited in the banks. Nobody knows just how much loss chasers at sales are paying with cash. the Non-Partisan League by calling them Bolsheviks. THE LESSON has been sustained already. or where the end will be,
