Wichita eagle., 1889-01-02
INTEREST AND COLLECTION Laws.
SPIvEY, Kan, Dec. 80, 1888.


IN your yesterdays edition.
The contribution is signed ''Kanzan,
but with all due Difference, it seems tt
me he is drawing it little strong
Would not Shylock do as well?
| If he was truly a Kansan he should
know how to spell it.
His whole idea is that nothing will
bring prosperity to the state but the clos
ing out of every mortgage without re-
demption. Turning the land over tc
British capitalists or their agents to rack
rent to Irish tenants.
He writes with all the venom of the
traditional Shylock. Il wants my monish
or the pound of flesh"
/ But / think in all candor he puts them
| all to shame. see and hear his teeth
tear and rend the flesh and grind the
bones Of his enemies, the debtor class. "
"Pay or give up your homes, and that,
too, TO the verv minute your interest is
Does he not know? Can he not see
that if in exacting the last pound of
flesh he should draw too much blood,
not the traditional drop" from his
victims. he might make the matter
! worse: - - '-- 80
Does ne not know that the ''debtor
class" are only asking that the laws of
Kansas be made the same as other states
all the otherS-and all other civilized
communities under the sun?
That the law shall be changed back to
what it was in 1S62-changed then by
such as Kansan-while they were fight
ing the battles of this country
He says the debtor class have never
vet been able to dictate terms to the
creditor class" 9
This l unfortunately must in meas
ure admit: still there are isolated cases
the colonies in 17775 and the French
people a few years later.
Had they have attended to their rights
a great many laws for the purpose of
robbery would never have been passed.
But | am depressing a little.
His whole argument may be summed
up in these few tranchant sentences:
Mortgages must be paid to the hour
and minute; sickness, short crops,
public policy-nothing shall stand in
the way of foreign capitalists acquiring
this fair land of Kansas. They want i1,
they must have it, or they will go to
the poor devil who mortgaged.
l will admit that they are inviting
fields, but their laws give a man a
chance to redeem, and this is all we are
asking for.
Now Mr.. Kansan seems to have par
tIcular spite against the debtor class "
| will say this for them: They are the
moving spirits in the country's progress.
No. I,,,1
roads, improved two-thirds of our farms,
built all our packing houses, all our salt
works, all our sugar plants. all our car
shops. Why, was not Wichita, the
Peerless Princess" built by the poor,
despised debtor class, against ali the
wealth of Hutchinson, Newton, EN-
poria, Topeka, Atchison and Leaven-
worth? and certainly with no help from
her first railroad. Were not all her
moving spirits-the founders of her
magnificent streets, churches, colleges,
caravansaries and public and private
buildings of all kinds; were they not of
the debtor class? / think So Yet if
these men have made mistakes should a
special and infamous law, unique
in that it has only a FOOT
hold in Kansas, enable the shylocks
who have always ''kicked.'' and hung
like afuneral pail on every enterprise, to
step in and take the fruits of life time
of hard unremitting, unselfish-in that
while working for himself he was work
ing for allz-toil. .s ...s,--.,tT .-s.~.
He has been too busy to watch the
laws, but you, ShyIock, have them safe
enough. We shall see:
Mr. Shylock has loaned the money to
do all these things at usurious rates, but
mas never put up cent that he did not
get cent for cent for.
Crush the debtors class and ween the
progress that harzan pirates So much
about would stop as suddenly as man
with thousand pound shot fixed onto |
him. @a5-'''
He says "the moneyis- all borrowed |
for speculation;" 1.-THE poor miserable |
debtor class actually wear diamonds for |
a few yeaIs." There is no doubt a great !
deal of truth in this. A great many |
have been foolish, criminaliy so, but |
does that say that all who are mortgaged |
should go to the devil because few de- |
sire to go:
Let US see what Mr.. z. S. Statistician
Dodge says:
The mortgaging OF farms beyond |
the Mississippi are mainly for buildings, |
Implements and Improvements in max I
ing loans on public or other cheap lands: /
aside from a loan investment, no idea of |
a land speculation enters into the calcu-
Iation."
Now the Kansans. all know this to be /
true. although a few. not one in a I
thousand. mortgaged to invest money in |
town booms, and lost as they deserved |
to do. r--
But to use kansans own arguments. 7
Must the state be ruined for the fool
shness of the few"
kanZan seems to think that "crons'' /,
will save US That. very admission is a
give away, Perhaps two-ball crops had
rs much to do with our present hard-up-
ness as the ''hodcarrief's wearing dia-
nonds" z5nfE rs
He puts in his sneer at any improve
nent that takes sacrifices and the push
Of the debtor Glass, 10 put through. by
,aying that, among ether things. sugar
mills will not raise the price of land,
only make trade. ,,-rs&r-fIr Frre -l--fr-, /
Now any one who has at all studied
he situation knows that as soon as sugar
Mrs are firmly established-a few in
Zach county-that land will not
stop going up until it q gets
IS high as anywhere in the country
And why forsooth? Because sorghum
5 the crop, and it is worth twenty dol
ars per acre, and never fails: and ASSURE
;rop bringing twenty dollars per acre
makes all things possible. 1t would do
more TO build up southern Kansas than
Ill that has gone Before, Illt8 Li9I--
While, harsesnng5thes second crop farm
Mortgages could be used for fuel, and
bis second crop would perhaps send