True Democracy

Congress received a neat roasting last week:

“The British Colonies are a source of revenue to the Crown. The Philippines have been in our possession for over 25 years; we have spent over $750,000,000 in developing them, but they have returned no revenue. How much consideration would a British Governor General receive were his domain to show a deficit for 25 years?

“Yet the economic resources of the Islands are inexpressibly and inexhaustibly rich. Indeed, they have what not only the United States, but every country needs for the cultivation of industry; valuable woods of various kinds, including, of course, the rubber tree; sugar plantations, coconut groves, orange, banana and pineapple farms. The waters teem with fish. Cattle are successfully raised. The land is fertile. The climate benign.

“Cecil Rhodes in South Africa and Hughes in Australia, pioneers, worked like Trojans for their government, but what American pioneer in the past 25 years has received the backing of our government in the development of the Philippine Islands? In these days of overburdening taxation is it not worth while to stop and consider how this enormous area could be made a source of revenue?

“It has been said that Congress is a national inquisitorial body for the purpose of acquiring valuable information, and then doing nothing about it. So it seems!”

Was it some bitter editorial writer or acrid political economist who penned these words? So it would seem. Not so. This was a paid advertisement, published by one of the large banks of Manhattan — the Harriman National Bank.

It is extraordinary that such a traditionally conservative institution as a bank should choose such a mode of expression; and extraordinary that it should denounce such an established institution as the Congress of the U. S. Already one can hear radicals ejaculating : “We are accused of attacking our institutions ‘but here is Wall Street,* the conservative banking interests, doing the same thing with impunity!” As a matter of fact, the radicals can have less honest objection to such a mode of procedure than if the Harriman National Bank spent its money in devious ways to buy influence at Washington or to subsidize the press to print its views vicariously. It is logical that, with the progress of Democracy, the “moneyed interests,” like all other interests, should appeal to the voters for support. It is noteworthy, a true sign of Democracy, that even a beginning of such a thing should have taken place. When we have complete Democracy in the U. S., all business interests will directly advise and urge the people on political questions.

*The Harriman National Bank is situate on Fifth Avenue at 44th Street, about three miles from Wall Street.