Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-04-19

pay back the Government loan on their
land | answer that no nan is willing 10
pay even per cent. for money he has no
use for. When the farmer is prosperous
he naturally desires to pay all his debts
and be free from every incumbrance. If
instead of paying their debts to the Gov
eminent few should turn spectators and
try and re-loan the money at higher rates
of interest, that would be attended by risks
conservative farmers would not care to
take. They certainly could not loan on
landed security at an advanced rate when
the Government stands ready to loan al
less rate.
But, says one, farmer might get his
land assessed at high figure for the pur-
pose of borrowing on it more than the
land is worth. This would be impossible.
Such an attempt would be the talk of the
nejghborhood and defeat itself Besides,
the Government rules and regulations for
loaning money on land would probably re-
quire the loans to be made on past valua-
tions OF the Assessors and not future ones.
To say that many farmers could or would
swindle the Government by palming off
imperfect titles, approved by Federal off,
Gals, is to impeach society and the Gov
eminent itself. More than $1,000 000, 600
has been collected by the Government in
the last twenty-five years through its Gus
TOM houses and Internal Revenue Depart
ment by thousands of officials without a
loss of one-half of l per cent. to the Gov
eminent. Postoffice sites and other real
estate have been purchased for the Govern
ment in almost every city and in every
State without the loss of penny; every
title has been good. The Government al
ways employs competent lawyers to ex-
anime titles.
NO POLITICS IN IT.
Among other virtues in the Stanford plan
is the shining one that it has no politics III
it. As many Democrats support it as Re-
publicans, and the partisan press Of the
whole country is about equally divided in
support or opposition to this growing meas
ure. The idea of any one drawing a
money of the United States and the depre.
ciated money of the late Southern Con-
tederacy, to show the imaginary danger Of
too much currency, is absurd. The South
ern Confederacy had no property, but little
credit, and was nowhere recognized as a
nation, while the United States Govern
ment has untold wealth, in public property
and lands and money, and is second to no
other nation in exalted credit. That few
small countries have not been eminently
successful in issuing currency through ma
t1onal banks. on land, proves nothing
They were small countries, inhabited by
ignorant, unenterprising people who had
few resources, while the United States is
exactly the reverse. More than this the
scheme | am discussing will not use the
banks at all, but the Government will
issue its own good money directly to the
people, who have the approved landed Sc
curity to offer for it.
a few persons who do not know Gov
ernor Stanford very well have intimated
that his now famous financial scheme
would in some special way be of advantage
to the railroads in which he is stock
holder. This is an error. His property
would be benefited only as the whole
country would be benefited by the enact
ment of his land-loaning plan. All rail-
road lands are already mortgaged, with
bonds having a long time to run. The
bonds on the roads in which he is inter-
ested draw per cent. interest, and most
of them cannot be paid off for twenty years
yet.
One of the strongest claims to public con-
fdence this scheme possesses is this: 1t will
vltallze and energize property. Capital Is
force. If man owns piece of land worth
$4,000 and no money he cannot do very
much. But if he borrow 5000 at low
rate of interest, he can at once commence
the cultivation of the whole of it. He can
give employment to lahoring men. He can
construct needed buildings. He can buy
improved agricultural machinery, and by
so doing produce many times as much as
he could if he only had the land without
capital. If the Stanford scheme of Gov
eminent loans on land does this, as it
surely must, how like a sunrise it will
strengthen, stimulate and inspire the whole
country when it shall become law. c.
San Francisco, April l6, 1890.