Usury Part 12

Few manufacturing plants are free from debt. They are usually carrying all the load their credit enables them to secure. Railroads and other corporations are under bonded debts that tax their trade to the utmost to sustain.

Counties and munic.i.p.alities have caught the contagious habit. Bonds are issued to build school houses, town halls, viaducts, water-works, and pave streets.

There lies on this table a list of all the cities in this great land, the United States, with their number of inhabitants and their bonded debts. There are but six small cities in the long list without debt.

In some the amount is enormous, the city debt in cases running up to one hundred and one hundred and fifty, and two hundred dollars per inhabitant. That is, there is a city debt on each man, woman and child of two hundred dollars. On this amount interest must be paid, twelve dollars per year, one dollar per month for every man, woman and child.

There lies also on the table a report of the financial condition of the nearest great city. It is rendered in a cheerful mood and declares the city's credit "tip top." The indebtedness is eight millions, but the a.s.sessed valuation of the city is so high that two million more bonds can be issued before the limit of indebtedness is reached as established by the general law. This is regarded as a most favorable showing and the a.s.surance is given that all the contemplated public improvements can be pushed without interruption. There is no thought of stopping until the extreme limit is reached.

This habit extends to the churches and benevolent enterprises. There is scarcely a church that is not paying interest on some debt. Local societies are often greatly hindered in their work. A benevolent agency of one of the largest and richest denominations issued a piteous appeal to their const.i.tuents for help, declaring that the interest on their debts amounted to one thousand dollars per week.

The debt habit has seized the nations and the most enlightened. This is so true that debts are, in pleasantry, spoken of as a sign of a nation's progress. These aggregate billions are rapidly increasing.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer says the debt of England was reduced five hundred millions in twenty years. To the astonishment of all the world, the United States began to pay her debt, eighteen hundred million, in thirty years. But these stand alone among the nations.

The national debts do not grow less, but are rapidly increasing. Both the United States and England are now increasing their indebtedness each year.

The world has gone debt mad. It has become a great harvest field, ripe for the usurers.

Debts may at times be unavoidable. They may at times be positively beneficial. There may be times when the system is in such a condition that it is necessary to take a.r.s.enic in small doses, but a.r.s.enic has no place in the menu of a healthy man. So debts may be necessary to those who have fallen into decay or have been unfortunate, but they should find no place in the normally healthy financial conditions of an individual or incorporation or nation.

Debts make no man the richer. A man is no richer when he has secured a loan, than he was before. Paying debts makes no man poorer. He but relieves himself of the property of another.

Paying a national debt destroys no wealth. If owed at home, it is but a transfer from one hand or pocket to another.

Adjusting the world's debts, private, corporate, munic.i.p.al, or national, the world would remain as rich and productive. Not a material thing would perish. No man would suffer the loss of any right or of any property, but it would be the destruction of the device by which the usurers appropriate to themselves the productions of others.

Freed from this debt habit of mind, and the independent, self-reliant disposition replaced, this anomalous condition would disappear; the producer would receive again his full earnings and the great army of parasites, that has grown up, and that feed so richly on the labors of others, would be compelled to turn producers or perish.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE BORROWER IS SERVANT TO THE LENDER.

Solomon's declaration that, "The borrower is servant to the lender,"

was spoken without reference to usury. Loaning upon increase was not lawful in his day, and was condemned by him in his proverb, "He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will have pity on the poor."

A loan binds the borrower to the lender though he pay no increase.

There comes a sense of subserviency and subordination that can not be thrown off.

He becomes steward of another's goods, and frees the owner of their care, but they remain subject to the owner's order. The preservation of goods hinder any great acc.u.mulation by any single producer, but if he can be freed from its care, then all his energies can be used to continue production. Many find it as hard to keep property as it is to earn it.

The hunter or fisherman takes with him his lackey to carry his game.

If game is plentiful and the hunter successful, he would, otherwise, soon be compelled to discontinue his hunt from the burden of fish and game. But, freed from that care and burden, he can continue his hunt indefinitely. So, the borrower, even when he pays no interest, as a lackey, without wages, cares for the earnings of the lender, leaving him free to continue his earning unhindered.

A valet cares for the clothes of his master until he calls for them.

The borrower, without interest, as a valet, without pay, cares for the goods of the lender until he needs them.

The independent spirit of the borrower is not immediately lost. The servile spirit and conscious sense of bondage may not be felt at once.

Likely the first sensation on receiving a loan is an elation bordering on ecstasy.

The poor man who is offered a loan is usually greatly delighted. There is hope of relief from the limitations and restraints that have been as a wall round about him. The loan seems to throw down these walls and give him an opportunity to secure greater results and achieve success. But the delight is transient and the sense of greater liberty is brief. The prison walls are down, but the debt holds him like a ball and chain. He has only exchanged one restraint for another worse; he has leaped from the pan into the fire. The spirit loses its hopefulness and independence and becomes servile and cringing.

Milton represents our first parents, after their first sin, as intoxicated in delight, but the consciousness of their degradation and shame soon followed. So the first sensation from a loan is of relief and hope; the future looks bright, but the sense of subjection to the lender is sure to follow.

He forfeits the free, independent, self-reliant spirit that scorns dependence upon any man. He only looks the whole world in the face, who owes no man a cent.

CHAPTER XXIV.

USURY ENSLAVES THE BORROWER.

Timon of Athens said, "No usurer, but has a fool for a slave."

The borrower without usury loses his free and independent spirit and becomes cringing and servile, but when interest is paid it increases the severity of the servile service.

The lackey must not only care for the game taken, but he must add to the bag from his own hunting. He not only cares for the fish his master caught but must add to the basket from his own catching. The valet must not only perfectly preserve the clothes of his master, but must add to his wardrobe.

The borrower of the usurer must protect and preserve every farthing in value of the property or goods, and must also increase the amount.

The estimate put upon the mental condition of the person who will submit to such an imposition, by "Timon of Athens," must be admitted as fairly just, for a heathen. From the almost universal practice of usury, and the vast numbers enslaved, we must also admit that Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, knew what he was saying, when he slyly called us all fools in his proverb, "A wise man's heart is at his right hand but a fool's heart is at his left."

The object of the usurer in making a loan is to secure the service of the borrower; it may be called a favor, an opportunity, an accommodation, but that is its purpose and its effect. It may be called capital or a tool for production, but the appropriation of the service of the borrower is the result sought and secured.

To secure the service of a horse, there must be an outgo of wealth in its purchase price and in its harness and the vehicle. The service received is the return, the compensation for the payment made. That is money invested and repaid in service. The price was in accordance with the service the animal would be able to render. For more and better service a higher price must be paid.

There must be an expenditure to secure the service of a chattel slave.

The purchase price must be paid and the tools and material or plantation must be supplied before his services are available. The price paid is in accordance with a reasonable estimate of the service the slave will be able to render during life. The outlay is made in consideration of an equivalent in service.

A loan is made for the same purpose and secures the same result. The price of the horse or slave must be paid before the service can be claimed. The loan must be made before there can be a pretext of a claim upon the services of the borrower.

There is this difference, however, that the purchaser pays for the services he expects to receive; he makes a real outlay for what is to be given him. The usurer pays nothing, he does not give a farthing; he makes no outlay; he merely changes the deposit from the bank vault, or his strong box, to his victim, and requires from him such an ample security that it is as safe in his hands as remaining in the vault.

That he has bought the service of the borrower as another bought the service of the horse or chattel slave is untrue. He has given no equivalent. He retains every farthing of his wealth safely deposited with his victim. The service he receives does not diminish the value of his property nor discharge any portion of his claim.

The usurer, like all those who appropriate the labors of their slaves, claims that he is a real benefit to his borrower. He has given him an opportunity of advancement that he could not otherwise have had. He points to him possibly with some degree of pride, especially if he seems greatly prospered. The owner of colored slaves pointed to his well-fed and well-clothed and happy people, merry in their cabins, and made a claim that was equally plausible; that these people are far better off and far happier than they could be in freedom.

Their well-kept, happy, care-free condition did not make them freemen.

They were slaves, though they may have been happy. They were slaves, though they preferred bondage to being their own masters. The usurer's prosperous victim is not therefore a freeman. Though he should prefer debt to independence, that does not make him free.

No one prefers to be in debt. Debts are chosen as the least of the evils. The natural resources are occupied and the opportunities of life are denied. Lands and all tools of production are withheld and the horns of the dilemma are debt or privation. The independent spirit shrinks from debt until the struggle of life becomes desperate, when he turns to the other evil and is enslaved.

This is not a temptation that comes to the idle and vicious. They could not secure a loan though they tried. An indolent, dissipated and vicious chattel slave would not find a purchaser in the market.

It is the industrious, virtuous and economical young man that is of value to the usurer, and the better his character, the greater his worth. For this reason their virtues are cried up to the usurers, as the favorable qualities of the chattel were presented in the slave marts. To secure a loan is an evidence of confidence in his business ability, and an evidence of the appreciation of his character. It is a flattering compliment, and promising relief to a condition that seems hopeless, he permits the yoke of bondage to be fastened upon him.