Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1891-03-13

no intention of paying, the identical class
found In Oklahoma, in some portions of
Colorado and in northwestern Texas to-
day. Fifteen months ago | saw them
deserving their farms to go to the north
west, to the San Louis valley, to the
Cherokee country, or "back to their wives
folks in Missouri" Today | see the
same class drifting down the Santa Fe
trail toward Guthrie and Oklahoma
City and toward the Pan Handle of
Texas.
What has been the result of such
business? The outcome of it all has
been default of interest, foreclosures and
depopulation of this dry district,
thousands of acres of land reverting to
the mortgage companies. The weaker of
these corporations, finding themselves
unable to longer make good their guar
antee by the advancement of interest
and that not only this important item
but accommodating taxes were absorbing
all their available surplus, haye been
obliged to close up their business some
have been precipitated into the hands of
Il receiver, others have asked the for
bearance of their clients that they may
be given time to "work out their own
salvation.n One of the first to succumb
was the Farmers Loan and Trust Co.,
then followed the Abeine Mortgage
Co., the Showalter Mortgage Co., the
I,,,, l.n Naet form
Loan & Trust Co., the Equitable Trust
IL Investment Co., the W. b. Clarke
Investment Co., the Southern Kansas
Mortgage Co., etc.
: THE DESERT OF Low INTEREST - TIE
SEA OF BAD INVESTMENT.
just how to pick ones way between
these two features of the loaning ques-
ton is very perpexing to many, in fact
am constrained to believe that it
: troubles many people as much to know
how to invest their money as it did to
make it. Since this severe shock to the
western mortgage business additional
distrust has been created among them,
until at present very few Vermont peo-
pie are investing in anything. Making
| no discrimination in their investments in
the past, many, in these DAYS of adver-
sity, pursue the same course in their iudg-
ment of the business in its entirety.
+ There are, however, a number of sound,
I conservative companies deserving of the
, confidence of eastern people and who
: through the "boom" period abstained
from excessive carelessness in lending
} There are good farm mortgages and there
l are bad ones, and am sure the former
: outnumber the latter.
WHAT THE MORTGAGE HAS DONE FOI
e TIE WEST.
5 With lenders hunling for borrowers
D rather than borrowers hunting for len
5 ders, the time honored old proverb which
D., SAYS "the borrower is the servant of the
1 lender" became almost reversed. Is il
any wonder the farmers extended theii
S credit: With the sanguine agents OF
e the loan companies soliciting the farmers
i to borrow money when under ordinary
+ circumstances they would have abstained
! is it strange they should accept Il LOAF
5 when there was really no necessity fol-
u it? Coming to Kansas, Nebraska ant
: Dakota with only bare title to 100 acre:
of raw prairie, the temptation to these
= struggling farmers was too great ant
frequently many unnecessary thousand,
q were accepted. Hot winds came
4 drouth followed, consequently a failure
+ of crops, which occurred three years il
Y succession. In 1889 came an enormou,
i crop in most portions of Nebraska anC
: Kansas. but very low prices were the rule
J. and this past year drouth again prevailed
p and so the pendulum of prosperity anC
o adversely appears to swing to extremes
1t has been serious drouth, short croI
f and high prices or heavy crop and low
n prices of late, one being almost equally
4 disastrous as the other.
, THE FARMERS ALLIANCE AND WESTERN
? CREDIT.
Grangerism having lost its vitality a.
an Independent issue, another organiza
n ton has been effected and among these
n drouth-crazed farmers of the Dakotas
a Kansas and Nebraska it has found it.
= strongest allies. In these States the
0 Alliance controls the legislatures and it is
d the prevailing impression that much
e hasty and i'll considered legislation viii
| be enacted. \ number of the measures
e proposed are radical, irrational and, il
d the minds of people of sensible ideas
far from judicious. Particularly is thi:
noticeable with relation to corporate
financial and economic questions. The
4 parties assaied are the "money changers"
as they are termed, the loan companies
bankers, trust companies, and in tact
: every one engaged in the handling OF
money. In listening to their argument:
: one would think that the loan agents OF
the West had conspired with the "money