Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1886-01-15
A REPLY TO THE REFORMER.


The Vermont Savings Banks.
To The Editor of the Free Press:
| Under this heading in your issue of the
9TH inst, you publish an article COPIED
from the Brattleboro Rctormer of which
the following is fair synopsis
"In portions of Vermont probably il
the greater part, it is simply impossible t.
borrow money, however good the securi
ty. There is a great depression in al
values-an absolute prostratlon in the
market of farm property. The owner OF
the best farm in the State cannot borrow
money. The sale of farms is restricted
! because no one can buy, except now and
| then one who happens to have the money
/ The poor man who has saved partly
enough to pay for a farm is debarred be-
cause no one in Vermont Will furnish him
the balance of the purchase money and
| take Il mortgage of the farm for security.
How any sane man can write and pub
! fish such stuff and nonsense in regard to
! the financial condition of the farmers of
| the State, is incOmprehcnsibe There is
not Il particle of truth i'll any OF the state
ments quoted above. The writer seems
| to have drawn on his Imagination for his
statements, and to have done so for the
sole purpose of giving him an opportu-
nifty to pitch into the savings banks for
lOanlnG money out OF lnp Clult.
TO show that the State has not been de
pleted of its money it is necessary to refer
only to a single fact and that is the ease
with which any town in the State could
to-day refund its bonds at four per cent
interest and place them too, in the savings
banks, which are accused by the RCtOrhcF
with being crazy after seven per cent
Western loans.
| venture to assert that there is not Il
sober, indutrous farmer in Vermont who
cannot borrow money of the savings
banks, provided he will comply with the
conditions which the law imposes in re
gard to security. In loans upon real es-
tate, savings banks are limited to three
tfths of the cash value of the security
offered. The law also provides listers,
whose official duty it is, under oath, to
fix the cash value of real estate and the
writer has yet to hear of the first instance
in which savings banks officials have
found the listers appraisal 50 high that
three fitths of the amount would not be
good security for a loan.
To borrowers, who can comply with the
law money is abundant and cheap. There
are, however, in Vermont, as every where
else, those who want to borrow but do not
want to comply with the law, or for other
and special reasons find the purse strings
drawn tight. They may be classed as
follows:
LIST Those who under the pretense of
borrowing, intend i'll this way to dispose
of their property.
ID Those who have agreed to pay and
have paid more than six percent interest
and have subsequently brought suit to
recover the excess, forgetting that in the
business transactions of men, Il higher
law" than statute law has its influence.
3D. Those who have inherited
wealth and have demonstrated their
inability to manage and keep It, These
: 10, nlyn oil hn pl
about the security of money, and West
ern loans.
The Rcformcr's assertion that the de
probation of all values is due to the
scarcity of money, is too absurd for COM
ment.
The trouble is not because too much of
the money has gone. 1t is because too
many of the DOung men have gone. If
they would stay at home there would be a
better demand for farms and better
home demand for money.
TO remedy the evils of which the Re
former complains he proposes to have
law made compelling savings banks to
loan seventy per cent of their money in
the State. His next suggestion VIII pro
badly be Il law compelling seventy per
cent of the boys raised in the State to
stay at home. Both would be equally
efficient in producing the result aimed at.
So long as young men can do better, or
think they can do better by going West,
they will go SO long rs money lenders
can do better or think they can do better
by sending their money West they will
send il.
In either case it is experience and not
law that will regulate future action. The
value of money, like the value of every
thing else, is subject to variation. buy
butter of one of my neighbors and Dor
row money of another esterlay the
butter-maker informed me must pay