All man-made wealth is subject to inevitable decay. Aristotle said, "Labor produces all wealth," but the product has no sooner left the laborer's hands than it begins to perish. The vital energy that produced it must follow to preserve it from the ravages of time.
Take the life, the vital part, from the body, and corruption begins. So with all that has been produced, withdraw the vital force and ruin immediately follows. The vital energy must ever be present and active to preserve it.
Fruits and grains and provisions of all kinds for human food rapidly perish. The laborer must be continually active, producing and preserving, or the race would be starving in a fortnight. Even the miraculously bestowed manna became corrupt in a night. It had to be gathered day by day.
Flocks and herds need the shepherd's care. They are subject to disease and natural enemies and are short lived, so that however large and strong, and healthy the herd of cattle, or the flock of sheep, it would be soon scattered and lost to the owner without watchful care.
Tools and instruments of production, great or small, if used, soon need to be renewed, or if unusedperish even sooner. Neglected they speedily decay. The locomotive left unattended on the track would soon be utterly useless from the destructive elements of rain and heat, frosts and sunshine.
The palace, that floats on the ocean, would be a prey to barnacles, to winds and waves, to shoals and rocks, and would soon disappear, without the constant hand of intelligent vital energy to direct and preserve it. Houses untenanted and uncared for soon decay. Leaks unstopped, broken windows unrepaired, and vermin unrestrained, soon make them unfit for habitation. Farms and plantations go back speedily to weeds and wilderness when uncultivated. Great cities like Babylon and Nineveh are soon so covered with dust that we have to dig to find their ruins.
Decay is written over every form of man-made wealth. There is needed constantly the touch of the laborer for its preservation.
Gold, silver and precious stones are the least subject to decay. They are not, however, made, but found, and simply refined and polished. The indestructibility of silver and gold have made them the money metals of the world, quite as much as their rarity, their beauty and malleability. In them wealth could be stored and moth and rust would not corrupt.
But even gold and silver will disappear. The thief will break through and steal. They must be, therefore, carefully guarded. The tax or levy of thegovernment for its part in the protection must be met, so that even gold and silver must also gradually slip away.
Decay is upon all wealth and the hand of the laborer must be ever present for its preservation.
This law is universal. Even the Divine Creator must continue to uphold his creation. His sustaining hand cannot be withdrawn. He must preserve by his power and ever guide and direct, or disorder and chaos will ensue.
Usury or interest presumes to ignore this order of nature and demands not only that the borrower shall resist this tendency of capital to decay, but shall also pay a price for the privilege.
That any one should undertake to care for and preserve the property of another without compensation is unreasonable, but that any one should voluntarily pay a premium for the privilege can only be explained by misguided judgment or a perverted moral sense.
No one would be responsible for, and care for and pay tax upon the money of another and himself get from it no return. Trustees and administrators receive, and feel they earn, a commission for this caring for the property of others.
When this wealth is in the form of a tool, or manufacturing plant, the responsibility is greater. The owner asks that it be preserved perfectly. There must be no decline in value, from new improvedmachinery, and all accidents must be made good; if destroyed by fire, it must be rebuilt. To take this for a year or term of years, is a responsibility no one would feel justified in assuming in justice to himself. He would be using his own vital force to preserve the perishable property of another.
A man has a farm, fertile and well improved, and well stocked. He is to be absent for a time. He asks as a favor that another watch it with care, preserve the stock in condition, if any die, replace them, and in short, so preserve that he shall have the farm at his return, just as fertile, the stock just as young and valuable, the implements unworn and no signs of decay on the buildings; if any burn, rebuild them. This would be a favor only the kindest and weakest of neighbors or friends would undertake, and what no man would be justified in asking of another. This is loaning without interest and this is the borrower, who pays only the principal and no increase.
The usurer says, Care for my property and pay me for the opportunity. Keep it intact. Make good every loss and return to me an increase which you by your energy and effort may produce.
The rates of interest greatly vary. The average in the United States is about seven per cent., by statistics of the government only recently issued. At seven per cent., interest paid annually or added to debt for ten years, the debt is doubled.
The usurer or interest taker says, You take thishundred dollars and care for it for me for ten years and then bring me two hundred dollars. Take this wheat and this corn and in ten years bring me back just twice the amount. Take these horses and these sheep and cattle and care for them for ten years and return them just as good as they are now, and other horses, cattle and sheep in equal number, which you have produced in these ten years.
Take this shop with all its tools and implements and care for it so that in ten years you can return it to me in as perfect order as now, and also build me with your labor and energy another shop, just like it, and equip it in every way just as complete as this, and on my return give both to me. Take this farm, fertile as it is, with its buildings and animals and implements, and preserve them perfectly, not a thing shall decay or decline in value; make good every loss, and at the end of ten years return it to me and also another farm which you have earned during these ten years, of equal acreage and fertility, equally improved with live stock and implements.
The usurer gains the preservation of his own perishable property, and he gains also the product of the vital force of his victim.
This law of decay is a natural limitation to the accumulation of any producer. As decay begins at once, a part of the vital energy must be expended in the preservation of that already produced. As the accumulations increase, more energy is required forits preservation, and less remains for active production. Time does not relax his work of ruin, and the resisting energy must be constant. The tendency to decay is such that soon the energy required to preserve that already gained leaves none to produce, and the accumulations must cease.
To this point the rich fool in the parable had come. He had abundance accumulated and the problem was to preserve it, until he could consume it. "This will I do, I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."
The usurer hands his goods to another to build the barns and keep for him, while he is free from its care; and, more, he requires of his victim not only that he shall preserve, resisting all decay, but that he shall actually pay him for the privilege.
Had the rich fool not lived in his day, when usury was a crime, but in this age of folly, he would have apportioned his goods among his foolisher neighbors upon interest, to keep for him, and then not only he, for "many years," but his posterity forever, could be at ease, eating, drinking, and making merry. The silly borrowers would supply all the needs of his endowed family, for the privilege of caring for the goods.
The debt habit of mind is the disposition or tendency to look to things we have not as necessary to our success: To yearn for other opportunities and other means than those we have in our hands: To feel helpless without them and willing to incur debt to secure them. The independent, self-reliant disposition takes account of its own powers and opportunities and means, and plans with these to accomplish the very most. This old self-reliant, independent spirit, that scorned debt, has largely passed away. To incur debt is now the common habit and has become respectable.
All evil-doers encourage and stimulate the particular fashion or habit or appetite or passion on which they thrive. Usury thrives on debt. If no one was in debt then usurers would be harmless. It is this debt habit that gives them the large field for their operations and secures to them their harvest.
The agreement to pay interest preserves for a time the feeling of independence that would be wounded by receiving a loan as a favor. There is usually a feeling of joy and elation in the borrower that confidence in him is so great, and his credit is so high, that he can be entrusted with a loan.
By incurring a debt there seems to promise the opening up of opportunities that have been denied, and a possible field for the successful exertion of his pent up energies.
The present intended use of the loan, too, seems so attractive and profitable, and the buoyant, hopeful spirit does not doubt that the loan can be easily and promptly repaid.
The temptations to debt do not come to the vicious and idle and worthless, but to the most worthy, industrious, talented, reliable and enterprising, those who will be the most productive in their fields of effort. Its very approach is flattering and therefore so hard to resist.
A bright, intelligent, noble young man with high aims and worthy purposes yearns for an education, but the opportunities seem to be denied him; but there is a fund at low interest at his service.
A lively, energetic young man, with industrious and economical habits, is anxious to engage in business; his youth, character and energy bring the loan to his feet.
The young man with pure yearning for domestic life and a home, with a reputation that is above reproach and of commendable energy and thrift, has a home pressed upon him, to be paid for in long-time payments. He can fill it with furniture "on the installment plan." With intellectual taste, he can fill hislibrary with just the books he desires "on the installment plan." Is he musical in his taste, he can fill his parlor with musical instruments "on the installment plan." His needs and tastes can all be gratified at once by incurring debt. To avoid debt there must be a determined and unremitted effort to resist. Few have been able to escape. The aggregate of private indebtedness can not be told.
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 municipalities 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 assessed 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 assurance 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 constituents 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 standalone 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 arsenic in small doses, but arsenic 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, municipal, 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.
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 accumulation 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.
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 thepurchaser 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.
The usurer's slave is cheaper than the chattel. It requires less wealth to secure an equal amount of service. A loan of five thousand dollars at theprevailing rate of seven per cent. will bring to the usurer more than one dollar, clear gain, for every working day. That is as much as any one man, not professional or specially skilled, can hope to produce with that amount of capital, after caring for himself and his home. The borrower secures the lender from all loss, he largely relieves him from oversight, he directs his own labors, supports himself wholly; if sick, he supplies a substitute that the service does not stop, and when from the infirmities of age he is no longer able to give the required amount of service, one dollar per day, he returns the loan in full, which may be bound upon another victim, and thus continued forever.
In the days of chattel slavery labor was not so cheap. The price of a strong, faithful young colored slave, and the value of the tools for him to use, and the proportionate part of the plantation necessary for him to work, was about equal to the above loan. Then he must be clothed and fed; his work must be directed; if sick his labor was lost, and he must receive medical and other care; all risks of harvest from drouth or flood must be incurred by the owner, and the slave's term of service was limited by his death, when his purchase cost was lost, and there must be an outlay by a new purchase. One chattel slave could not bring his master such enormous returns.
Not only does financial slavery exact more labor for the amount invested, but it is more heartless thanchattel bondage. The master had a personal interest in the slave he bought. His health and strength was an object of his care and his death a great loss. There was also often a mutual affection developed, as is sometimes found between a man and his horse or affectionate dog. There was sometimes real unfeigned mutual love. The master had a tender care over his slaves in their sicknesses and in their decrepit age, and sorrowed at their graves. The slaves were inconsolable in their grief at the death of their master.
The usurer has no personal interest in his slave. He has no care for his health or his life; they are of no interest to him. He may live in a distant state and has no anxiety about those who serve him. Their personal ills give him no concern. When they die, there is no loss nor any additional outlay required; the bonds are simply transferred to others, and the service is not interrupted.
Many faithful, industrial and honest borrowers are unable to return the loan. It is as difficult to retain property as it is to earn it. New inventions, new processes, new methods, new legislation and the changing fashions and customs, often sweep property from the shrewd and careful. "Riches make themselves wings; they fly away." If for any cause the borrower fails there is scant sympathy from the usurer. He charges him with being deficient in business management and thriftless. If the yoke ofbondage galls and becomes so painful that in his distress the debtor turns from the struggle in one direction to struggle in another in hope of relief, he calls him fickle; and if at last, after a long and hard service, he is unable to return the loan in full, he calls him dishonest. His ear is deaf to the voice, "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free."
There are those in debt yet struggling against hope to be free. They are slaving at work, but making no progress toward relief. The crisis must come. In the race with biting usury that knows no rest, night nor day, year in and year out, that knows no sickness nor delay, that keeps step with time, there is but one possible result. There can be but one final result, though the debtor may have a start far in advance, but if in the race it has become neck and neck, the end is near. Usury will sweep on with full wind, and unslacking pace, when the debtor falls exhausted. There is comfort, however, though the race be lost, for the distress of poverty is less than the agony of hopeless debt.
The old and ruined, who have lived honorable and industrious lives, who have endeavored to do their part in all the relations of life, yet have been in the slavery of debt all their days, and when their powers began to fail were stripped of the earnings of years, and besides, are compelled to bear the name ofdishonorable debtors, are the most worthy of sympathy of any the world knows. The decrepit old chattel slave had hope of a home until the end, and a decent burial, but the debtor has nothing, not even an honorable name.
The young, who are yet free from personal debt, should be warned, and should not permit themselves to be beguiled by any of the allurements held out, nor by flatteries. As one prizes his independent spirit and freedom from the dictation of others, as he desires a successful life and a peaceful old age, he should avoid debt. As a Christian, who desires unrestrained Christian fellowship, whose benevolence will be from the kindness and love of his own heart, as one who wishes to bless all he meets, and to leave a name associated only with hallowed memories, he should avoid debt.
"Owe no man anything, but love one another."
Moses, Solomon and the prophets connect usury with the oppression of the poor. For this reason many have thought the divine prohibition of usury applied only to loans to the poor. By careful attention we will find that its evils are not confined to the immediate participants in the transaction. In the natural operation of economic laws the ultimate burden rests upon the poor. It is clear that when each member of a community contributes his portion to the common welfare the burdens are equally distributed. When any one fails to contribute his proportion the burdens are made heavier for the other members, and the burdens increase as the number increases of those who for any cause fail to contribute their part.
This is true in the family home life. When every member of the household is able, and with cheerful willingness does his full part for the family support and comfort, the burden is equally distributed. Let one member of the family be in any way disabled and his duties must be performed by others. If several are disabled the burdens upon the others may be greatly increased. If any are indolent the burdens are made heavy upon those who are industrious.
The same is true in the larger family, the community and the state, for political economy is but enlarged home economy. The burdens are lightest when every one contributes his full share to the general welfare. When any are idle the duties become heavier upon those who are faithful.
Usury makes it possible for many to live upon incomes from their property. They are not classed, nor do they class themselves, among those who are personally productive. This makes it necessary for the poor, those who have no property, to produce more in order to house and clothe and feed the community.
But those non-productive persons are consumers and are the most active consumers. They make heavy drafts upon the energies of others. They become extravagant in their habits and the spendthrifts of the world; while in proportion to their extravagant habits there must be severity and simplicity in the habits of the industrious and productive, on whom the support of the community rests.
The world does not grow richer nor are the conditions of life for one class eased by the extravagance of another class.
It is sometimes said that the idleness and the wasteful habits of some are for the benefit of others because they make a demand for more work. It would give the lumberman and nail-cutter and carpenter and glazier and plasterer and painter more work to callback the fire department and let the house burn, but that is not the way to house the houseless. Extravagance is wasteful destruction of property.
"It is insisted upon both moral and economic grounds that no public benefit of any kind arises from the existence of a rich idle class. Their incomes must be paid, though inconsistent with the public good. To illustrate, the London and Southwestern railroad contemplated a reduction of fares in cars of the third-class. It was defeated because it might reduce the dividends. The poor could not be relieved lest it should reduce the incomes of the idle."—Ruskin.
That family is happy and prosperous in which every member contributes personally his portion to its support and comfort. That condition affords the highest measure of relief for all. It is unfortunate if there should be an idler in the home who, as a parasite, feeds on the industry of the others; it is a double misfortune if that idler proves a spendthrift to waste the thrifty gatherings of the diligent. The same economic principles make it necessary for the highest good of every individual in the community that each shall contribute his personal part. "If any will not work neither shall he eat." If any insist upon eating and yet will not work, it imposes an oppressive burden on others to compel them to supply his table.
Again: The limiting of production is a hardness to the poor. Their welfare requires the largest possible product along every line of human needs.Over-production is a term of the trade and means only that the supply has become so great that it cannot be sold at prices satisfactory to the trade. But as the prices fall the market broadens. Consumption increases with the increasing abundance, and that which it was not possible for certain classes to enjoy now comes within their reach and may become possible to even the poorest. There never can be an over-supply of fruits and vegetables and grains and meats and shoes and clothes and salt and oil and fuel and houses until the wants of the poorest are supplied. Their welfare requires that there shall be no restraining of the supply until they come out of their huts into houses; until they can shed their rags and dress in clothes both comfortable and attractive; until their tables are supplied with nutritious food; until they have the means of discovering and cultivating their æsthetic nature by shaking off the repellant conditions in which they are mostly compelled to live.
The practice of usury restrains the supply by freeing so large a part of the people from the necessity of active productive effort by the incomes from their properties. Many born to wealth have never felt the necessity, and have never made an effort nor turned a thought along productive lines. The world has lost all that they might have added to the world's supply for human needs. Many, who have been successful in accumulation early in life, retire from active work while yet in full vigor, because they are relieved ofthe necessity by the income of usury or increase, and the most valuable portion of their lives is lost to the world.
Production is further limited by the demand that it shall yield an increase on the property employed. The shop is shut down when the goods cannot be sold at such a price as to pay a satisfactory profit on the investment. The shop stands idle until the stock is depleted and the demand raises the price of the goods and then the shop is again opened. The workmen could go on with their work, supplying the world with their goods, bringing the price down until within the reach of the poorest, but it is the owner of the shop that holds the key and demands that the supply shall be so far restrained that the price shall yield a satisfactory increase on the property.
Inventions and improved tools are a blessing to the poor when they make labor so productive that they can enjoy results of labor that could not be enjoyed by them before. They are not a blessing when used to gain an increase on wealth by employing less labor. Their proper use is to make labor more productive; their perverted use is to make property more profitable.
There is a natural restraint by the law of supply and demand when all needs are so supplied that there is no longer a sufficient compensation to the producer; but it is a perverted and unrighteous restraint to place property between productive labor andhuman needs and demand a reward for it before these human needs shall be satisfied. There is an utter want of pity for the poor in permitting them to go unhoused, unfed and unclothed, unless there shall be a profit by increase in supplying their wants. True benevolence requires that labor shall be made so effective as to fill every human need, but pure selfishness uses property to supply the need for a gain. This restraint for an increase on property is oppression of the poor for a price.
The influence of any act is not limited to the person acting. The righteous act of a righteous man blesses himself and his generation and generations yet unborn. So the influence of a wrong act is not limited to the wrong-doer, but extends to others and is harmful to those who had no voluntary part in the act. Though the wrong be a personal habit and the sinner be himself the greatest sufferer, yet it is impossible to avoid causing distress to others who are themselves innocent.
Equity between those who participate in a wrong does not make a wrong act righteous. Thieves may be just among themselves, in the division of the spoils secured from others, but that does not make them upright men, nor does it make their business honest. If it were possible to preserve equity between the borrower and the lender upon usury, yet that would not justify the act nor remove the evil. The collection of their profits, which they divide equitably among themselves, imposes a burden upon others who have no part in the transaction. Their satisfactory agreement does not make the transaction less detrimental to the general good. It may the rather partake of the nature of a conspiracy against the public welfare.
The promoter of an enterprise on borrowed capital is practically but the agent of the lender. He may be the director and manager but he so conducts his undertaking as to gather the usury from others. When the opportunities for profitable investments become rare, and money accumulates and is lying idle, such promoters with their schemes are encouraged in order to gain a profit on the investment, though others suffer by it.
There lies upon this table a booklet, written in 1841, which charges and proves complicity between the bankers and brokers of New York at that time. The bankers loaned the brokers the money which they reloaned at very high rates. The banks refused accommodations to those in pressing need, compelling them to go to the brokers and to submit to their extortionate demands.
Though there may be an equitable arrangement between the owner of property and his broker and between the broker and his promoter, yet in the last analysis it will be found that this equitable arrangement, in its ultimate result, is of the nature of a conspiracy to compel the innocent poor to pay the profits of both; their consent is not first secured nor do they gain a single advantage and they are helpless to resist.
Though the transaction may have been between the rich, a rich lender and a rich borrower, yet the final result is that the interest is paid by the poor. InCalvin's letter of apology he supposes a case of equity between a rich land owner who is in need of ready money and the man who has money to buy a farm, but instead lends to his rich landlord and takes a mortgage. In this case the tenants of the borrower must pay the interest and finally the principal also. This increases the hardness of their hard lot. Though Calvin seems to appreciate the severe conditions of the ordinary tenant in his day, yet he fails to recognize that the very illustration he gives would result in greater oppression.
When one entrusts his money to a broker for investment he does not come in contact with those who earn the interest. It may pass through a number of agents and the source from which the interest is drawn is not regarded. When one entrusts his money to the "Security Co." in their great building, surrounded by all appearances of unlimited wealth, it is not realized that the interest returned is wrung from the poor. Money does not lie in the vaults. It is loaned to others who as agents do collect or gather from the poor. A loan is made to a milling company and the interest is gathered from all who buy their flour. A loan is made to a landlord and he collects the usury from his tenants. A loan is made to a street car company and increase is collected from the employes and from every rider. A loan is made to a merchant and he collects from his customers.
It is easy to see who pay the interest when we make a common pawnbroker our agent and see in his dingy rooms the evident distress and needs of his callers. Many shrink from his oppressions who are deceived by the splendid surroundings of the "Security Co." But the interest is exacted from the same class as truly by one as by the other.
Usury oppresses the poor by raising the price of all that he consumes. Without being consulted and without the power of resistance he must pay tribute to property for the very necessities of life.
He lives in a rented house. The owner has placed a mortgage on this house and the tenant must pay the interest and more in his rental or be ejected. The bread he must have is from wheat raised on mortgaged land and the interest must be met in the price of wheat. The mill is mortgaged in which it is ground and the interest must be paid in the increased price of flour. The railroad is bonded and the interest on the bonds must be paid in the price of its transportation, and the merchant has a loan to enable him to do business and the interest on this loan must be met in the increase of the profits on flour and all other goods he handles. By usury a tribute is levied on his bread from the wheat in the field until it reaches his tables.
In the same way he pays interest in the price of his meat, which is raised on a mortgaged farm, transported over a bonded railroad, dressed in amortgaged abattoir and sold by a dealer doing business on borrowed capital.
The same is true of his clothes; a first tribute must be paid to property by the raw cotton or wool, then the transportation and the factory and the merchant, in addition to the compensation for their services, must meet also the interest upon their loans, and the whole is summed up in the price the poor man must pay. He has no option in the matter; he has no alternative, no method by which he can escape. The same is true with regard to his fuel and his light.
The same is true with regard to car fares. In every ride he pays an enormous tribute to invested wealth. The writer made a careful estimate of the accounts of a car line in a small city where the number of riders bore small comparison with the crowded cars of any metropolis. When the cost of maintenance of the plant, including the wear and tear and all repairs, and the cost of operation, covering all current expenses, including taxes, were compared with the receipts from the patrons of the road, it was found that less than two cents per passenger was necessary to pay these charges and that three cents had gone to pay the interest on the enormous bonded indebtedness and dividends on the inflated stock.
The wage-earner, the pensioner and every person living upon an annuity or fixed income from any source, must thus pay usury or interest on obligations they never incurred. A large portion of their livingis thus taken from them, and under a system of general usury they have no way of avoiding it. They must pay an enormous tribute to property in providing the common necessaries of life.
Usury lowers the poor man's wages. The owners of property forbid its use until such a concession is made by the laborer as they may demand for the material and tools of production. Those who will use them and give the owner the highest return for their use secure the work,i.e., those who will bid the labor the lowest, who will use the tools and work up the material the cheapest.
The demand of capital has come to absorb a large portion of the produce of labor. In 1890 the wage-earners created a value of $3,579,168,172 and received out of it wages amounting to $1,981,228,321, leaving in the hands of the employers $1,687,939,851. Labor thus received a little less than 53 per cent. of its product. In 1900 the wage-earners created a value of $4,640,784,931 and received out of it wages amounting to $2,323,407,257, leaving in the hands of employers $2,317,377,674. The employers and employes divided labor's product so evenly that the difference does not amount to one-eighth of one per cent.
The decade 1890 to 1900 has been of unprecedented prosperity to capital, but the advantages to labor have not appeared. When the number of laborers at the beginning and the close of the decade areconsidered the annual income of the wage-earner at the close of the decade is actually $7 per year less than ten years ago.
The tribute to property must first be gained, the wages are secondary. If the tribute is not paid the enterprise is regarded as not successful and the industry closes.
There is no protection for the laborer except the selfishness of capitalists themselves in competition to secure the services of labor. But the selfish strife has rather resulted in the combination of their capital to dispense with labor or to cause the same labor to produce more by the employment of more capital. The effect is to give employment to capital rather than to labor. If labor can be dispensed with by borrowing more capital, then a loan is secured and the laborer is dismissed. Thus capital is made to crowd out the laborer and gains for itself his reward. This diminishes the call for labor and increases the number of the unemployed and they become competitors for the privilege of working. The opportunities for labor becoming fewer, the strife for work becomes fiercer. The laborer is helpless to resist, as his wants do not stop; his family must be fed and clothed and housed. The struggle is unequal between "flesh and blood" and a material thing that, by a false economy, is given not only the power of self-support but also continuous increase. For this reason combinations of laborers never have been and never canbe successful in a conflict with capital. So long as the false principle is admitted, all efforts must fail. So long as it is granted that property has earning power, the effort will be made by the owners of property, and always successfully made, to have property receive the larger portion of the reward. The true order will be reversed; the laborer will be given a mere subsistence while the increase will be claimed for the capital; the very opposite of the true order, the mere preservation or subsistence of the capital, while all the increase belongs to the laborers.