26 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



If banks are safe, it is because they are officered by such men. 

 It IS better to put on each individual the burden of finding out 

 this honest man, in order to deal with him, than it is to delegate 

 the search. 



There are no safer sums than the majority of srrall loans, such 

 as are made from man to man in the [irocessesof small enterprises. 



The moral element comes to the front in such cases. There is 

 an element of personal faith in them worth more than any mere 

 pride of financial honor that rales on 'change — more secure, joro 

 ianfo than the property values of the greater capitalists. 



When men have been trained to find an honest and capable 

 individual, they may be expected to be able to find corporations 

 of timdar character, if there is advantage in dealing with corpora- 

 tions. But to create corporations with an implied understanding 

 that by them the poor are to be relieved from the exercise of 

 m< ral providence, is an ethical blunder on its face, and we might 

 have expected from it just whet the history of savings banks in 

 this country shows, failure distinguished, conspicuous. 



But there is a moral fault lying behind the one discussed. Now 

 that we have had so many dissisters with savings banks, every 

 body has fallen to work to devise some doul le-sure, iron-clad, 

 adamant-bolted system of safety for the poorer classes. 



AVe might pause on our way to ask who the poor are for whom 

 we are to make such certain provision. 



"Where is the dividing line between the poor and the rich? 

 Perha[>s it is where the insurance companies draw it so that a 

 man who cannot swell his wants to upwards of a thousand dollars, 

 shall be regarded " hors de combat financier.'" 



AVe in Illinois have passed a statute that no savings bank shall 

 receive on deposit more than four thousand dollars from one 

 individual. 



Socitty then to compensate a man for his inability to borrow, 

 will step in and insure the safety of his loans to these amounts. 



AVhy is it not the business of society to help a poor man bor- 

 row as well as to help him to lend ? 



But the moral question comes up: is the selfishness of the 

 poor to be insured? 



