Click image to open full size in new tab
Article Text
# FAVORS POSTAL BANK
Postmaster General Meyer
Receives Unique Letter.
# AN IOWAN'S BREEZY VIEWS
Likens Proposed Scheme to "Sweet
Song" From Beyond.
# HAS "KANNED" HIS MONEY
Tells the Story of One "Bills" Carler
at College and Points
Out Moral.
Cabinet officers are accustomed to have
words of all sorts hurled at them in let-
ters, though the honeyed voice is about
all they usually hear. Occasionally a
bouquet comes in an epistle, and Post-
master General Meyer has recently re-
ceived one of that sort, which was se-
cured by a reporter of The Star as a
literary curiosity, for it might have been
written by Old, Gorgon Graham when he
penned "The Letters of a Self-made Mer-
chant to His Son."
Dr. J. A. Wailes of Mystic, Iowa, who
sent the letter, had his upbringing in
Kansas, near the soil, and his experience
of early western banks was not of the
happiest. It apparently affected his vo-
cabulary, for he does not lack the power
of expressing what he feels.
But he can speak for himself, for here
is his letter to Mr. Meyer, just as he
wrote it:
Has a Sweet Sound.
"Dear Sir: Herewith I send you a
clipping from the Kansas City Weekly
Star that sounds to me like a sweet song
from life's other side-with your picture,
which you must return. I am going to
frame it and hang it in my office (unless
you send me a better one).
"I have been a strong advocate of a
postal bank for many years. Thirty-
five years ago, when I was a boy, I
worked on the Atkinson, Topeka and
Santa Fe railroad in Kansas, and de-
posited the first money I ever had in
the First National Bank of Lawrence,
Kan. The bank busted and I lost-More
than fifty other boys who worked with
me done the same. What the effect was
on the others I can't say, but it put a
damper on me and caused me to squander
and waste my wages for ten years.
"When Gov. Hoch lived at Florence,
Kan., and edited a little paper there, the
grasshoppers ate my crop, my brother
in Iowa sent me $50, I put $25 in the
Florence Bank. Old Pete Aller run away
with all the money. Three years after he
was caught in Connecticut and brought
to Kansas and was sent up for twenty
years. About eighteen months ago my
brother, a carpenter at Plano, Ia., hid
$60 in the old round oak stove. His wife
filled it full of waste paper and burned
it up. A smart Alec (a neighbor) said
it served him right. Hains (the same
Smart Alec) put $1,100 in the nearest
bank, the Farmers' & Drovers' Bank of
Seymour, and lost in less than a year.
"When me and my wife started in life
we run a boarding house in a labor
camp. I tried to get the boys to save
their money and get ahead by depositing
it in bank. The answer was always the
same. 'No dam bank can blow himself
on my money.' You see they lack confi-
dence, and their lack of confidence is well
founded, and in view of my own experi-
ence and observation I had to go way
back and set down.
Conspicuous by Absence.
"Well, I have just heard of a good old
friend who has dropped his little wad of
$800 in the Chariton, Iowa, bank, that
went busted a few weeks ago. My sister
in Kansas has money in a bank that in-
vested in warehouse and cold storage
stock in Kansas City. They are looking
for the money, the promoters, the 100,000
cases of eggs and other things galore
that said to be stored there, all of
which are very conspicuous by their ab-
sence. I have my money kanned up. Can
you blame me for it? Does the bankers
and others who scold us think we are
all a peck of fools? Give us postal banks
that is absolutely safe and every dollar
will come to the surface, as it should-
when a safe place is provided, and there
will be no more hoarding. Even if you
restrict deposits to $5 it will save more
men, women and children, and make
them independent, self-respecting law-
aviding citizens. I am a democrat, but I
have got so interested in Roosevelt that
I went to Keokuk to see and hear him
speak. If he strikes out from the shoul-
der for a postal bank in his message I
will vote for him if I have a chance.
"Whoop It Up, My Good. Dear Friend-
You are engaged in the most humanitarian
work of any man on earth today, as well
as the most economic business move. We
don't kneed more money-too much now
-You see with cheap silver coined in dol-
lars at private mints that no one on
earth can tell from the ones made by
Uncle Sam, the country has become in-
flated, and that is hurting no worse than
the panic.
Iowa Prices.
"Horses are selling here at $150 to $200.
Not worth over $75 to $100. Overcoats
and gowns in our shop windows $20 to $30,
not worth over $5 to $10. Land in Iowa
at $100 to $125, dear at $40. In Kansas,
$75 to $100, dear at $25. Our people are
crazy. When Bill went to College Pap
gave him money enough to take him
through. He blowed it. Pap pumped in
more. Bill blowed it again, and Pap kep
right on pumping in till he was tired,
then he went down to see what was all
the trouble. He kicked Bill through the
glass front of a saloon and wiped up the
sidewalk with him. If Uncle Sam, in-
stead of pumping in more money every
time the Wall St. Wind Bag bursts will
do as Pap did, and give us a P. O. Bank
with equal distribution and less cach-peny
advertising. fake lies through the U. S.
mails, fewer slot machines, we will be all
