Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1875-10-23
THE WAY IT WORKS.

The St. Louis Republican says: In
some recently compiled statistics.
which profess to be reliable, it IS esti-
mated that the real estate in New York
is mortgaged for 81 600, 600, GOO, being |
ut the rate of $4,000 per acre for
the ten thousand acres supposed to be
thus encountered. The usual rate Of
interest on mortgages in that city is 2
per cent; this would make the annual
interest paid sl52.0OG, 900. Add to
this q per cent on the gross amount
of mortgages, for taxes, and one per
cert for lawyers fees. and the sum is
sl68, 0d0, 0Oo-or s69. 100000 more than
the annual interest on the national
debt"
In addition to the above ffightful
showing for the city Of New York, the
Evansville correspondent Of the Gin
cinnati Enquirer says: The people OF
Illinois and Indiana are plastered over
with mortgages forty feet thick There
are not less $3.50, 900 600 of indebted
ness on the farms of Indiana and I'LL.
nois held by Eastern capitalists. If
our people are burdened and oppressed
beyond endurance, they are willing to
pay their debts in the money in which
they contracted, but if the. money
power Of the East insists upon the
payment of these debts in gold, the
question resolves itself into this -
Greenbacks or nothing"
Although the foregoing are financial
pictures of but one city and two
States. they are sufficiently suggestive
of the condition of the whole country,
as we'll as of the means which capital
is employing to enslave productive Ia
Dor, by making it subservient to the
money barons. At time when hatred
of the South and devotion to the ne
gro would tolerate any iniquity perpe-
trated by the Radical administration,
it enacted the grossly oppressive and
unjust law making principal and inter
est Of bonds payable in gold, dollar for
dollar, in the face of the fact that those
bonds were paid for in greenbacks, at
forty and fifty cents in the dollar. Can
any one doubt that this was done in
order to make the bondholders a ia
vored class, at the expense of the
millions from whose sweat this gold is
to be coined? None need be told now
of the disastrous consequences of Civ
ing bond and gold rings power to de-
press values at will, create panics, de-
preciate real estate and Cypress labor,
that capital might multiply itself in
definitely. As soon as the effects of
the first enactment had made the way
easy to the browning iniquity, the law
was passed, fixing the day for impossi-
Bile resumption and intermediate con-
traction.
Now, by way Of applying the forego-
Jog figures and facts, we would ask how
much more contraction will it require
to put it beyond the reach of those
nominal owners of mortgaged real es-
tate, in two States and one city, 10 pay
the interest even, on nearly two thous-
and millions of debt? And when the
time comes for foreclosing those mortg-
ages the money barons, armed with
gold as the standard of values, eau so
depreeiate greenbacks as to buy the
property for the amount Of accrued
interest, and thus establish at small
cost the Irish system of absentee land
lords and servile and indebted ten
antry.
He has read very csrelessly the
unjust legislation and the repeated ex-
ercise of usurped power at Wishing
ton, who has not discovered with
what certainty it all points to an ulti-
mate subversion of our institutions
and the establishment, on their ruins,
of the effete European idea that men
are naturally devisible into the priv
ileged wealthy and the toiling and OPP
pressed millions, and all that has here
tofore been done confirms the opinion
that contraction and forced resumption
are alone wanting to consummate the
vile conspiracy against free institu-
tons, public intelligence and virtue,
and the progressive prosperity of a
great country. Why should the bond
holders be so deeply interested in re-
sumption? They know that. their
bonds are safe; that the interest is
paid promptly in gold, and that they
have received in gold two or three
times as much In interest as they paid
in greenbacks for the bonds. Yet they
are not content. and will not be until
they possess the land and the fatness
thereof. Welll They can get neither
land nor fat from us. and if farmers,
mechanics and other lsborers who
boast of their likeness to their Crea-
tor are content to bend their knees to
Baal, surrender every attribute Of true
manhood and return to their normal,
if not congenial, state of bondslaves,
we can only assure them that no past
nor prospective rewards have induced
us to try TO prevent their self-immola-
ton, and if they will-like a certain
herd of swine, possessed Of devils
rush into the deep sea of ruin. :" let EN-
rip" The worm that is trOdden upon
will turn upon its oppressor, aud in
this spirit we have battled for liberty
and the right-compromise with wan
ton tyranny is treason against our con-
stitution and the freedom it guarau-
tees.
GRANTS prediction of "a religious
war in this country is as contemplate
as his motive is base. His sole object
in thus prophecying was to intensity N
Ohio the bigotry of the chuckle- heads
who see the Pope in every passing in
cident hoping by such foul means, to