The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-06-07


and he is going to cover his risks"
Glow much can you get out there for
money-ten per cent?"
eyes, we get ten per cent when we
lend on farms, as rule; we lend on
cattle for shipment to Chicago at six,
seven and eight per cent. They
charge US in Chicago six or seven per
cent. for the money, and the risk of
dealing with the individual borrower
falls upon ourselves. Hence, accord
ing to his intention and capacity to re-
turn the money his rate ofinterest has
to be fixed. When you consider what
he paid for his land, and how much SUI
perior were his conditions of settle
ment to where his forefathers settled
in the east, the rate of interest is but
reasonable. He has no timber to
clear, buys his land very cheap and
seeds and reaps it with modern ma
chinery. Although the farmers have
complained, and in many cases with
justice, yet land in Clay county is
ten dollars an acre higher, generally
speaking, than Il was very few years
ago" g
''Has there not been much swind-
ling Of eastern capitalists who have
lent their money in the farther west?'
81 am sorry to say that swindling has
taken recently wholly new form,
the banking interests east and west.
You noticed these failures in Sioux
City, suppose. There group of men
undertook to boost the town. They
use the word boost as something
higher than the word BOOM more
powerful and immediate pressure.
These men had run Sioux City up to
forty Thousand population 1t had a
good name, and for some time they paid
back their borrowings to the east, and
thus were rated high in the merchan-
tile lists. But the money lender in the
western states, using eastern money,
has Of late found his occupation gone,
and he has turned around and made up
his mind to swindle his principal.
These men in Sioux City are an example
in point. They Endorsed each others
money at the most extravaganza figures,
and when they failed the eastern banks
were out seventy-f1ve per cent. at least
on the money they had placed. doubt
if they get over twenty per cent. on
the six million dollars these men
put in at Sioux City for them, upon
useless and unnecessary matters of de-
velopment. There will be probably a
net loss Of 81, 500, 900 out of that Sc, 000,-
600. It shows in loud and trumpet
way how money is trihed with after 1t
has cost so much to get it by these.
boomers and boosters and unprinci-.
pied money factors in q class of new,
western towns. The feeling is too
much that we have got their money,
and if we lose it the town where we
are will have the benefit of it, Of
course such policy as that is followed
by the decay of the community which
has no better principle"
"Does not Iowa raise good many
horses of fine strain?''
sThey went into horse raising on
such scale that horses are now the
cheapest things in Iowa. They brought
in Clydesdale and other high-priced
stations and went to breeding, but
corn which feeds horses is the regula-
tor of their price. A horse speedily
eats his head off. If man were now
to come into Spencer with twenty
horses of the finest kind such as you
would think were worth two hundred
dollars apiece, or one hundred dollars,
at least, doubt if would lend him
three hundred dollars on the whole
twenty. If had to keep them very
little while they would eat themselves
poor. Horses all over the west are al
most an incumbrance."
s'But pork and hogs?"
ssAh, that is one of the peculiarities
of agriculture. Hogs are away up,
anywhere between seven and one-half
and nine cents pound for pork. But
corn being high, our farmers sold their
hogs as soon as the prices started up,
and now they have got none to sell.
would rather buy, at the same price,
one thousand hogs to-day than one
thousand horses, though under ordi-
nary circumstances the hog would not
be worth twenty dollars and the horse
one hundred dollars"
HAS not Chicago plenty of money
on deposit in it's banks to lend to the
regions beyond it?"
Eyes; it is surprising how much
money they have got. The First
national flank here has from twenty
seven to thirty millions on deposit ell
the time. The fact that money is the
blood, the basis of settling and tilling
these new regions, causes it to be a
subject of cavi1 and attack. People
wonder if they cannot get around an
obligation by discovering some
panacea to replace money; some way
Of legislating money into existence,
like Arsigi raising the dead"
"Do you think the silver question Is
going to prevail out west2"
sThe farmers are sensible, after all,
and they are having their eyes opened
fast on the silver method of relief.
When they see the failure of respeet=.
able firms and large trusts and banks
in the east, such as happened the
other day, and find the president as
cribing it to silver, and his cabinet
holding the same views and the rress