The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-01-17
THE WAY OUT-No. 3.
Part Two.
TIE PROPOSITION.

THE PROPOSITION.
Kansas Farmer.
interest is the individual property o.
lis owners and they charge what they
please for its use, subject of course tc
legal limitations. It lie owned mostly
by wealthy persons or corporations
whose ipcome is derived from what
they receive for the use of their money
A considerable portion comes from
savings banks and insurance compan.
les, but 1t is these corporations and
not the individual owners of the small
sums separately deposited, which
deal with the people and receive the
larger share of the profits. The bust
ness is done by the agents and not by
the principals. The active agency in
the work is the person or company
that negotiates the loans, deals with
the borrowers and collects the interest.
Without the interposition of the bank
loan or insurance agency, acting for
the Poor people whose savings are thus
made profitable to them, there would
be no savings, at any rate but little.
and that attests the value'of such in
stitutIons to the poor. The point made
here, however, is not that, but this:
That the pecuniary interest Of these
useful agencies is to maintain high
interest rates. In this respect all
money-lending or money investing
agencies, whether corporate or individ-
ual, are precisely alike-all interested
in maintaining high prices for the use OF
the commodity in which they deal just
as farmers andmechanics are interested
in maintaining high prices for the
articles which thew produce for sale.
The man who uses money only in
the regular conduct of his business,
who uses money only in effecting ex-
changes of property in which he deals,
does not care anything about interest
and discount, for he is not engaged in
the business of lending money. He
does not deal in money at all; he uses
it only as one of the agencies neces'
sarily employed in his business just az
he does q dray, or railway car. He
pays cash for what he buys and re-
ceives cash for what he sell. He does
cash business, hence he has no con-
Germ about the money market further
than to note how its Quotations affect
the market prices of articles in W hich
he deals. Only the persons who live
of Of the interest of money are bene-
fitted by high rates. and there are 30
many of them and their interests are
go much alike and they own or control
80 large proportion of the money used
by borrowers, that there does not ap.
pear any reasonable or practicable way
of changing this state of things 80 as
to equalize profits and burdens among
people who lend and those who borrow
money, except to relieve the individ-
ual money owner of his present respon-
sibility in that behalf and substitute a
disinterested agency.
The public good is to be preferred
before private benefits, and for that
reason the merits of a projected reform
may be measured by what, if success
full, it would probably accomplish in
the common interest without ipjuring
the property or endangeriDg the liber-
ty of the citizen, or interfering with
the reserved rights of the people.
What is proposed here is to suggest
such a change in our monetary and
financial system as will make it prac.
ticable l) for the psople to have and
use money not only on reasonable
terms but on equal terms; (2) to avoid
panics in.the money market and pre-
vent "corners" and other schemes to
affect the value or the volume of mon
ey in circulation; and (3) to reduce an
nual charges for use of money on long
time to per cent, without injury to
present owners of money.
The proposed plan rests upon one
fundamental principle, namely: The
proper Juoction Of money is to serve a
public use. In the beginning money
was not needed. 1t is the child of com.
meree. 1t be came useful only as the
expansion OF trade made needful some
medium of exchange, and
now 1t is necessary in the transaction
Of ordinary business affairs as common
highways are in the movement of per.
sons and property. The citizen, when
be lies down at night. should not have
any more anxiety about a panic in
The money market the next day, or q =.
rise in interest rates through specuIa.
ton Of stock gamblers, than be has
about the closing of the highway
which lies at his door, or its obstruc-
ticn by some ambitious peighbor who
would traffic in travel, compelling his
fellows 10 pay for privileges to which
they are entitled of right. Every citi-
zen is entitled to an outlet. He may
not be shut out from the world by his
lands. On demand the
State will open way fer him. For
stronger reasons, when the common
Or public necessity re-
luires thoroughfare ho private inter-
est is suffered to stand in the way of
ts opening. individual oHnership of