McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1883-09-27
Washington Shylocks.

In the sui rememDeT1nS MINI.
Washington Shylocks.
Cor. Philadelphia Record.
Driving out to the Soldiers Home il.
the evening you cannot fail to notice a
fast horse driven by fine-looking col
ored man. He has the neatest light
turnout on the road. He is tall, broad
shouldered, soldierly. He has bushy
gray whiskers, and he wears gold-bowed
Spectacles. Strangers take him for the
Haytian or Hawaiian minister. He is
neither. He is banker, with the most
profitable customers in the United
States. He loans them money which
he is almost certain to get back, and
they pay him 10, %, yes, 80 per cent, a
month for it. Think of $50 per cent. a
year! No wonder he drives blooded
horse and fattens on all the delicacies
of all the seasons. There are dozens of
men of the same sort in Washington.
Most of them are white. But some of the
most successful are black, or nearly so.
Starting in with small capital, seldom
more than few thousand dollars, they
soon become rich. Their customers are
the department clerks, among whose
thousands there are daily some that
must have money at any cost. They
would sell their blood drop by drop.
1t is to pay for horse, to meet the de-
snands of needy relative, or to satisfy
some prosecuting creditor. The sleek,
well-fed, quiet-voiced, smooth-tongued
broker, or banker as he is called here,
is always just at hand. 1t is the easiest
thing in the world to get the needed
money from him. There are few fornali-
ties and no delays. A note binding the
borrower to repay the loan, with interest
at S, 10, or Is per cent month Is
signed. No collateral or real estate
security is required. 1t is all over in a
moment, and the relieved clerk, paying
the importunate creditor his due, turns
to his work with a lighter heart. At
the end of the month he pays the inter-
est. This is not very difficult; and so
several months may slip by. Now the
note is due, but he cannot pay it. Well,
he can renew it, and he does. Pres
emily he wants more money. He can
have it ON the same terms. If he takes
it he is in tangle, and nothing short
of superhuman effort will extricate
him before the leeches have sucked his
veins dry. The change that comes over
the manner of the banker as the GUS
;swner gets deeper and deeper in the
-1nire is one of the most interesting fea-
lures in this terrible little drama. But
the path downward is so well creased
at the mouth that hundreds, with full
knowledge of what has come to others,
slide in every year. They say that the
colored bankers, who prey chiefly upon
the colored men and women in the
departments, find it much easier to
bleed their victims than do their white
rivals. The colored men feel fattered
by the graceful way in which they are
roped in. Borrowing is made so easy
that they seem to be complimented IN
the very operation. Then they care
little about the troubles of the future if
they are satisfied in the present, They
would as lieve pay 80 per cent. as 3 per
cent. a month, if they can have the
money they want. Of course the bank
ers prefer the higher rates. The bank
ers, some of the colored ones at least,
justify their exactions by claiming that
they themselves have to pay exorbitant
rates for the money they loan again.
OF course they claim as wei. that they
run great risks of never again seeing
the money they loan. This has not
been true. Clerks are held to the pay
ment of their just debts with great
strictness by their superiors. Their
creditors can have their money at any
time by appealing to the head of the
department. Hitherto these brokers
loans have been held to be just debts,
and their payment has been enforced
by threatened appeals to the superior
officers of the various departments, even
when no such appeals are contemplated.
But recently Secretary Folger, Acting
Secretary of the Interior Joslyn, Com
missioner of Pensions Dudley and other
officials have frowned upon such usuri-
Gus contracts, and have done all that
they could to defeat them. The bank
ers have to resort to some very odd ex-
pedients to get their money. The other
day ladylike woman, dressed in rusty
black and having mournful manner,
dropped in on the deputy commissioner
of pensions. She said she was poor
widow, and that one of his clerks owed
her 500. There were tears in her
voice and want in her eyes. The dep.
uty commissioner had the clerk up and
obliged him to pay the 800. The
widow dried her tears. Subsequently
the basty deputy commissioner learned