St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-03-13
WESTERN MORTGAGES.

Somebody, 1t is hardly known who,
and for reasons as little understood, is
urging that the census taken this year
shall include statistics relating to West
ern mortgages; and the census Superin-
tendent is seriously thinking Of under
taking the task. If full and perfect
statistics could be obtained, we fail to
see what good would come of it; nor do
we understand why a discrimination
should be made between the East and
the West in this matter. Ii it is i'm
portant to have mortgage statistics at
all, it is just as important that the East
and South should be included in the
census taking as the West. Moreover,
we fail to see how anything like correct
statistical information is to be obtained.
The records show the amount of the
various mortgage loans when the deeds
were first executed, but they do not
show the payments made on them.
Neither will the books of the mortgage
loan companies be a safe guide for as
pertaining the exact status of mortgage
loans in each locality. In his article in
the March number of the Forum, Prof.
companies at Topeka who have out
standing loans amounting to S22, 900, 900,
while the same number at Kansas City
show record of S6S,000,000 And
yet it is next to impossible for
Il census-taker to get all the data
relating to those loans. And If he
did succeed in getting it, of what bene-
fit would ii be to the public other than
10 crafty mere curiosity as to the oper-
ations of the business conducted by the
Western brokers? The making of a
mortgage is private business tTansac-
ton, which concerns no one except the
lender and the borrower. If the Dor
rover is willing to pay the rate of in
terest and the commission eXac ted, and
the lender is satisfied with the security,
there is no one else who has the right to
Interfere. 1t is true the commissions
paid to the middlemen are often eXor-
bitant, particularly in new communi-
ties: but as rule. as the country
grows older and population and
business increase, this evil is rem
edied. The only Eastern people
who are interested in the status of West
ern mortgages are the capitalists who
lend money on mortgages; and as long
as they get their interest on the princi-
pal when it is due they are not con-
cerned about the amount Of mortgage
loans. Whatever interest the Western
people have in the subject is local, and
whatever wrongs may exist can be
righted by local legislation. The mort
gage system has done great deal for
this Western country, and the Western
people appreciate its advantages. The
money that has poured into the West by
the millions would never have come but
for the brokers and the loan agents.
They Iave made money, it is true,
but the country has grown wealthy
at the same time. The thousands of
towns and cities that dot our Western
prairieS, the thousands of miles of rail
road that have been constructed the
magnificent grain and stock farms that
have been opened up, the mines that
have been developed, none of these
would exist to-day but for the food of
borrowed capital that rushed in upon us
through the agency OF the brokers. The
fact that Minnesota has grown more in
ten years than Massachusetts has in
hundred is the best evidence of the ben
efits the West has derived from the mort
gage system. Why the necessity, then,
of the federal government gong to the
expense of attempting to obtain West
ern mortgage statistics, which must be
imperfect at best, when any one who is