People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1893-09-01
GOVERNMENT LOANS
POPULAR SENTIMENT DRIFTING
THAT WAY RAPIDLY.
What One OF the Great Dailies of
the East Has to Say
About It

1t is a matter for cOngraiulation
among populists that the drift of pub
lie sentiment is towards public owner
ship of public utilities. 1t is also very
gratifying to know that govern
ment loans of money is rapid
~ gaining favor. The logic
Of events is doing much to
educate the public on these ques-
lions Occasionally a great daily, in
its Indignation against existing abuses,
will step over the Ines of plutocratic
propriety and favor public ownership
or public loans But these instances
are only cases of temporary sanity.
They soon get back into the traces
b.; there is one eastern daily that re-
mains permanently sane on these
questions A short time since we pub
lished an editorial headed More
Money" clipped from its pages.
We now reproduce an able editorial
from the same paper The Item
on the subject of government loans.
1t is one of the best productions we
have seen on the subject AMI we hope
it may have a wide circulation. Com
ing from the sour e it does renders it
of still more Importance. We repro
duce it, headlines and all:
GOVERNMENT LOANS TO THE PEOPLE.
The action of the Mennonite farmers
in Manitoba, to whom the dominion
government loaned nearly 100000
eighteen years ago to enable them 10
emigrate to farming lands in Manitol a,
in their having repaid the debt with
interest all told a sum of sl3O, $50, is
good illustration of what loaning
money to industrious and honestly-dis.
posed people will accomplish.
These people, now prosperous and
owning large properties. without such
loans would have been forced to our
citi,s TO overcrowd already over.
crowded industries in order 10 find
food to eat.
1t is frequently seen in print when
comments are being made about idle
people, that they could find plenty to
do if they would go west, or some
where, and start farm.
But these writers rarely, il ever,
take into consideration that it takes
capital to start farm. To put a
man on untitled soil and tell him to
grow his own provender, when he
has no capital, would be equivalent
to putting him in a wilderness with
out resources. He and his family
might starve or they might live on
herbs and roots.
There is great principle in the act
of the Dominion government in the
mentioned case 1t is frequently said
that a government is not charita BILE
institution, and therefore should not
loan to strangers without security.
But history is full Of instances to
show that where it is done with dis
erection, that it is not charity in any
sense, because the loaning govern.
ment is large gamer by increasing
the taxable veal h of the nation.
The history of he large and pow
erful peoples banks of Europe, cover.
ing aperiod of the past forty years,
early proves that even the poorest
classes of people can be aided By
money loans and on no other security
than promissory notes Endorsed by
one or two others of their own num-
Der who are equally without re-
sources, and yield in results far fewer
losses in bad loans than are the rule
with any Of our city banks of discount
This is most striking fact, and we
have hundreds of pages of statistical
evidence before us as we write, in sub
sanitation of it, and covering thou.
sands Of millions so loaned, which
ought to open the eyes OF the Ameri-
can people as to the future pc sibili-
ties in developing the resources of this
country and give the poor a chance to
live.
1t is seient' fic fact, which the men.
toned evidence clearly and un1ues.
tionably proves, that ninety-nine out
otevery hundred of the poorest Of the
poor. except perhaps, one particular