Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-12-14
Capital and LabOr-Hoyy to Re-
COnCiie Them.
THREE MILLIONS LOANED TO LAND
BORROWING YET NOT soRRowING.
BY PROF. J. D. BUTLER, LID.
BURLINGTON, Iowa,

December 6, 1871. !
Editor Rutland Herald When Fal
staff sent bis page to Master Dumbletor
for a satin cloak and offered his bond anc
Bardolph's for payment, the answer
brought him wast that the tailor "likec
not the security" The Knight enragec
at his lack of credit, naturally wished
that "Dumbleton's tongue might be hot
ter than that of Dives" called him a ras
cally knsve to stand upon security, and
cried, az would as lief they would pu
ratsbane in my mouth as stop it with Sc
ourity." Never did Shakespeare hold the
mirror up to Nature more truly than il
his picture of the credit seeking Knight
Always and everywhere, he who goes 6
borrowing, goes Borrowing. Not only
Shylocks-and the Bank-which is prop
erly spelled backward es ''the Knab,' bat
most capitalists are deaf adders to most
borrowers, because they, as we'll as Fal'
stats tailor, ''like not the security" Cap
itslists will not lend poor man money
They demand mortgage or endorsers
AS he cannot endorse, others will not en-
dorse for him. He has no lands, or chat
tells on which he can give mortgage.
Where he is ssnguine that he car
double the money that he wishes to Dor
row, they say to him, "you may be rob-
bed or cheated, or your investment may
be burned up and your insuaance worth
less, or you may absoond, or your death
may blight the brightest business pros
pects"-"we like not your security" II
is nothing but the moonsbine of hope, or
"oastle in the air."
Again, capitalists shun putting their
Investments of almost any kind into the
hands of any poor stranger. They are
distrustful of his honesty, where there is
chance for fraud, of bis competence
where skill is demanded. of his zeal
where he has no stake, and of his vigil
ance whore there are temptations to neg
ligenoe. He might carve out his fortune,
but no one will trust him with the tools.
Such as these are the relations of capt..
alists to laborers who are ambitious of ob-
tanning the use of capital, and thus be-
coming capitalists themselves. These re-
latiops must result from prudence on the
part of moneyed men. Yet they natur-
ally provoke those aspiring but needy
young men, whom they hinder from ris-
ing to higher plane.
But must capital and labor needs be
hostile? Is there no way in which capt.
talists can be just to themselves and yet
generous to borrowers Yes, they can,
by selling them unimproved prairie farms
on long credit and low interest. Such
prairie is equivalent to loan Of its full
value.
The borrower cannot be cheated out of
it for it is not decided to him till he has
finished paying for it. He cannot run
away with it. No fire can burn it up.
He cannot lessen its value. The labor
and money he lays out on it will increase
that value. He cannot strip it of timber
more than he can pull the hair on a bald
head. Nor in such loan is his honesty,
competence, zeal, or vigilance distr listed.
He is stimulated to the exercise of them
all both by his fear of losing the sum be
paid In advance to bind his bargain, to-
gether with whatever he lays out to i'm.
prove his farm, and by his hope of making
that farm both pay for itself and support
him and his dear ones as soon as possible.
Other borrowing dulls the edge of thrift
this sharpens it.
We may not believe railroad corpora
tions to be more benevolent than other
capitalists, and yet the policy of some of
them in selling their lands Is specimen
of just that kind of loans which we have
seen to be most generous to borrowers.
building for them, as it were, an inclined
plane on which they can rise easiest from
laborers to landlords.
The Burlington g. Missouri River rail-
road company, within eighteen months
onward from April, 1870, sold in Iowa
and Nebraska, 3O4,S47 acres to 1921 par.
cnssers, mostly on ten years credit and at
six per cent interest. A large portion of
these purchasers had before been only la.
borers or tenants. Their purchases aver
age one hundred and two aores apiece.
judging by experience where similar ex-
pertinent have been made, no more than
five per cent. will fail to finish paying for
the farms on which they have, at the
time OF purchase, advanced one years in
terest.
"The Devil" says the proverb, sis not
SO black as he IS painted" So, when
men declaim against railroads, let it be
remembered that the B. s. N. road has
furnished 1891 loans amounting in the
aggregate to $3,11s, 972.0O to men most oil