CHAPTER XXI. 



THE SUB-TREASURY PLAN. 



BY HON. HARRY TRACY, LECTURER NATIONAL FARMERS' ALLIANCE AND INDUS- 

 TRIAL UNION, EDITOR Southern Mercury, DALLAS, TEXAS. 



BEFORE beginning a discussion of this plan I will give the original 

 bill in full, as it deserves to be handed down to history. 



H. R. 7162 is the official designation of the bill introduced by Hon. 

 John A. Pickler of South Dakota, embodying the demand of the 

 Farmers' Alliance and Industrial Union, which was referred to the Com- 

 mittee on Ways and Means. Its title is, " A bill to establish a system 

 of sub-treasuries, and for other purposes," the full text of the bill being 

 as follows : 



" SECTION I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 

 United States of America in Congress assembled, That there may be established in 

 each of the counties of each of the States of this United States, a branch of the 

 Treasury Department of the United States, to be known and designated as a sub- 

 treasury, as hereinafter provided, when one hundred or more citizens of any county 

 in any State shall petition the Secretary of the Treasury requesting the location of a 

 sub-treasury in such county, and shall, 



" i. Present written evidence duly authenticated by oath or affirmation of county 

 clerk and sheriff, showing that the average gross amount per annum of cotton, wheat, 

 oats, corn, and tobacco produced and sold in that county for the last preceding two 

 years, exceeds the sum of $500,000, at current prices in said county at that time, and, 



" 2. Present a good and sufficient bond for title to a suitable and adequate amount 

 of land to be donated to the government of the United States for the location of the 

 sub-treasury buildings, and, 



" 3. A certificate of election showing that the site for the.location of such sub- 

 treasury has been chosen by a popular vote of the citizens of that county, and also 

 naming the manager of the sub-treasury elected at said election for the purpose of 

 taking charge of said sub-treasury, under such regulations as may be prescribed. 

 It shall, in that case, be the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to proceed without 

 delay to establish a sub-treasury department in such county as hereinafter provided. 



" SEC. 2. That any owner of cotton, wheat, corn, oats, or tobacco may deposit 

 the same in the sub-treasury nearest the point of its production, and receive therefor 

 treasury notes, hereinafter provided for, equal at the date of deposit to eighty per 

 centum of the net value of such products at the market price, said price to be deter- 

 mined by the Secretary of the Treasury, under rules and regulations prescribed, based 

 upon the price current in the leading cotton, tobacco, or grain markets of the United 

 States; but no deposit consisting in whole or in part of cotton, tobacco, or grain 

 imported into this country shall be received under the provisions of this act. 

 336 



