The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-02-05

is the farmer mas a mlud!eman-a broker
When his neighbor wants $1,000 on his farm,
the farmer having money to lend refers him to
the broker. He goes there. The broker has
no money to lend, but thinks he can find a
man who has. He goes back to the farmer,
offers him falr rate OF interest, gives him a
mortgage, but charges the borrower a rate of
interest that frequently amounts to l 5 per cent.
Who would this law assist? The dishonest
man, the curb-stone broker, the constituencies
Spectator. Who are the borrowers of money?
Railroad corporations. the rich corporations
generally, the cities, the towns, not the poor
man, not the laboreT, Lot the farmer. If you
desire to le2islate for them, sustain the report
of the Finance Committee.
Mr. heegan next got the floor He drew
picture OF the poor borrower of his own district,
paying 10, 20, &c. 40, and even IA per cent,
and said they were petitioners, silent, suffering
ones. The gentleman from Calais knows
nothing of the real state of affairs that has
come about under this law. Before the present
law, he had never known more than six per
cent. to be taken. He then told the House
how people in his district paid 500 for the use
of 1926 three months, which had to be renewed.
He had drawn papers to that effect, so that in
the end the poor borrower had paid IA per
cent. lie appealed to the House in the name
OF humanity; Every progressive idea is not a
good one. Free love is a progressive idea; is
that good? What if the law is broken? All
laws were.
Gen. Anderson was willing to give Mr.. Kee-
gan chance, but he wanted an hour. He could
not grant it. Gen. Anderson said that he was
unwell because of the bad air. He wished the
House might have the same means of ventila-
ton as tie Senate chamber. He thought
that the advocates of this measure had
most ably urged it on both sides. He desired
briefly to notice the arguments of the gentle
men from Machias and Van Buren,. He
was sort of stump speech against the banks.
He said nothing for the national banks, only
that their revenues came largely from the sale
of gold. That question should be discussed
when we desired to instruct our Congressman
relative to the national banking. The argu-
ment of the gentleman from Machias must
stand or fall upou the statement that no bust
ness man can afford to nay six per cent. Who
has fixed this rate? Who knows six per cent?
He has found by inquiry that no man can af-
ford to pay more than six per cent. Why,
there was much business that did not pay two
per cent. the past year; indeed, business that
would not pay one-half of one per cent. Should
the Legislature attempt to say that no more
than that rate OF interest should be exacted.
Some kinds of business can pay six or ten per
cent. How can the Legislature fix the rate?
1t cannot. So the argument of the gentleman
falls. 1t is worthless, futile, lfallacious. Gen.
Anderson put the case of Utah, which the gen.
tleman of Machias represented as free money
and free wife state, against Massachusetts
which was the most unmarried state which had
a law like ours. Was not Massachusetts
Furnishing state? California was hard mon
ey and free trade in money state. Was she
not vigorous and prosperous? Again, the states
of New England and the other states are bound
to their prejudices. The new and f0urishing
states have free trade in money per cent. Gen.
Anderson then named large number of states
which have usury laws but rates of interest
which range far above the rate of interest
which the gentleman of Machias declares to
be ruinous to all business. Gen. Anderson
then referred to New York where the rate of
interest is fixed at seven per cent, yet on a
thorough investiga ton it was found that more
than that rate of interest is always paid. But
the gentleman from Van Buren was willing to
fix the rate of interest higher than any decent
man would dare to ask. He would therefore
invoke the ruin which the gentleman of Ma
chias predicted as coming to all those who did
pay over six per cent. The argument fails. 1t
is not consistent.
Gen. Anderson then turned to the savings
banks. Their first purpose was safety. Their
second, moderate returns. He gave the fol-
lowing statistics from the report of the savings
banks. The deposits the banks the year after
the repeal of the usury law SIG 597, 1888. 49,
made by 81, 154 depositors, being an average of
$406,50 to each deposition. The report of the
083, 31420, the savings of 1912 depostors,
being an average of $31S to each deposition
These figures go to show that the proportion to
each depositor is nearly the esame, SO that the
6aVlDSS DdukS Ietdlu Uueif CQ1FdCCor as tno
protectors of the savings of the people.
when Gen. Anderson had reached this
point, his time was consumed and as Mr.. Pike
refused to yield five minutes of his time to
conclude, SO we print in full
We should come to the consideration of this
question free from all bias or prejudice or SUI
perstition. The origin Of the usury laws is to
be found in the command of Moses to the Is.
raelites, Deut %, 10: "Thou shalt not lend up
on usury to thy brother; usury of money, u.s.
ury of victuas, usury of any thing that is lent
upon usury; unto stranger thou ma7st lend
upon usury." Founded upon this, and believ-
ing it to be moral precept, rather than mere
political regulation, as it was undoubtedly
intended by Moses. the church embodied in its
canons a prohibition against usury. Thus
sanctioned and sanctitied by Moses and by the
Catholic church superstitious dread seems to
have palsied the intellects of men for ages when
considering this question. In the country from
which we have derlvedin0t only our language,
institutions, and slperstitions, but our laws,
through the dark and boundless ages, when the
feudal lord with his military retainers, whose
home was the saddle and whose tillage ground
the field of battle, needy, reckless and proud,
holding in supreme contempt the men, who by
quiet industry accumulated wealth, and being
themselves constantly in want of ready money,
which they forced on their own terms from the
frugal. industrious classes, under the pretence
of borrowing, say when these men made the
laws and the opinions of the State, then was
supplemented to the superstition of ignorance
the self-interest of power And when as late as
the middle of the 10th century, the most WON
derful writer that the world ever saw, prosti-
tuted the powers of his giant intellect to main
tain and increase the prejudice against usury
by loading it with the opprobum that he makes
attach to the poor Jew who sought revenge up
him and called him dog" can it be wondered
at that men under such circumstances have
come to the consideration of this question with
minds clouded by superstition and prejudice
and that it has been left to the 10Th century to
cispel the clouds, to tear away the veil of su-
perstition, and expose the error that has been
protected, crusted over by the canons of the
church, the hatred of race, the self interest of
the powerful through the long, dark ages?
But within the last twenty years the ques-
| tion-whether the regulation of interest and
the restriction of the right of the borrower to
contract for the delivery of money, as of grain
or other commodities is founded in sound pol
icy or public CONFERENCE.-The been practically
settled by the sweeping away of usury laws in
Holland and Great Britain, and believe also
the STATES and territories of this country
The law of this State, the result of the
thought, the product "of the wisdom of one
half century," is model of brevity and good
sense.
1t declares what interest shall be allowed
enabling parties to avoid the expense of the
law which would Otherwise have to be called In
to determine what was fair rate And by de-
cisions of our Court upon the law understand
it has been interpreted so that the limitation
of 6 per cent. shall apply when there has been
delay of payment beyond the time stipulated
in the contract.
1t protects the unwary, the ignorant, the
careless, even. 1t only authorizes rate higher
than the arbitrary one fixed by the bill before
this House, when both parties to the contract
desire it, and deliberately and understandingly
put the same into the form of a written agree
ment.
What we now call sumptuary laws were
formerly not uncommon; and Legislatures re-
strained men from taking more than a certain
amount of profit compared with the value of
commodities bought and sold. The same argu-
ments were adduced in support of those reguia-
tons as are now used in support of the usury
law-the protection of the poor the weak and
the extravagant Why should not those laws
be re-enacted as soon as this is restored? They
all rest upon the same theory-the need of pro-
lection, the inability of the buyer and borrower
to judge of their own wants and necessities
Yet who would submit to have the Legislature
fix the price at which b1shel of grain should
be sold? This has been done in times past
why not now? Simply that the world has
learned the folly of such regulations; that they
are wrong in themselves; and, right or wrong
hn L.