The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1895-06-05
BURNING ISSUES

DEBTS OF THE PEOPLE AND THE
DEBTS OF MONOPOLIES-THE PO-
SITION OF MR.. CARLISLE CHAL-
LENGED BY ONE OF THE FOR
MER.
From the Minneapolis Penny Press.
To what desperate straits the gold
standard men are put to in their eff
forts to justify their policy and answer
the arguments Of the silver advocates.
Mr.. Carlisle, secretary of the treasury,
In carefully prepared speech that he
is now reading in the South, says:
THE Indebtedness Of the farmers me-
chanics and other laboring classes Of
our people. although large in the aggre-
gate. is quite small in comparison with
the whole Indebtedness of the great
railroad and manufacturing corpora
lions. the national and state banks, saw
ings institutions, trust companies, insur-
ance companies, building associations,
and other organizations engaged in
financial and commercial enterprises"
MIR. Carlisle knew when he wrote that
sentence, for he Is an intelligent man.
that 1t was the declaration of a dema-
gogue, designed expressly to mislead and
defraud the people. He knew that there
is no more similarity between the debts
of the individual and the corporations
he names than there is between debt
and credit, between vice and virtue, be-
tween heaven and hell. He knows that
the debts Of railroads are not burdens
upon the owners of the roads, but
sources OF Immense revenues to them
instead. Railroad owners rejoice at an
opportunity to increase the debt upon
their properties, for the debt is in the
form Of stocks or bonds, or both, largely
owned by those who issue them, and
upon which they draw interest from the
people. Mr.. Carlisle knows that the
oebts OF manufacturing corporations"
which includes all the trusts and mo-
nopolies of the land, from the Standard
OH Company to the carpet tack trust,
are sources of revenue to them and thai
they create debt to the end that their
extortions from the people may not ap-
pear as profits. but as interest on cap
ital invested" Mr.. Carlisle knows that
the debts of banks are their chief sour
ces OF revenue; II they could not be in
debt, enormously in debt, a debt upon
which they pay no interest but get all
the way from q mild to an extortionate
one, there would be but few bankers in
the country. One has but to look at
the amount of bank loans in excess of
their capital, surplus and undivided prof.
It's to see how the thing is done. The
policies that insurance companies carry
are also made to pose as debts, upon
which interest is paid, as the farmer
pays interest on a mortgage.
Such stuff is absolutely nauseatfnp.
futt1ng the makers of trusts and COM
pines the creators of watered stocks.
bankers. insurance companies and 9th
ers or the same breed into the class of
debtors composed Of farmers, mechan.
les and other laboring classes" forces
the conviction that our secretary of the
treasury is a knave or a fool, and no
jury of his peers would ever find him
guilty Of being the last
AS matter of fact, to get at the ex-
act aggregate debt Of farmers. mechan.
les and other laboring classes" which
includes all workers in legitimate busi-
ness enterprises, the merchants, manu-.
facturers, all of whom are not under mo-
nopolys protecting wings, it would be
necessary to add to the aggregate of their
individual debts that of all the capitaI,
ization Of all the monopolies in the coun-
try, for evey dollar of that capitaliza-
ton is a mortgage upon the countrv's
wealth producers, a perpetual MORTGAGE.
upon which interest must ever be paid
for the principal never will be, its own,
ers will see to that.
When the debts of farmers, mechan-
les and other laboring classes can be
made sources of revenue to them, as thew
are to monopoly, then all will agree with
Mr. Carlisle that debt is not disaster"
But Mr.. Carlisle and all the rest of us
distinguished between debt that is a.
burden because of the tribute that must
be paid to it, and debt that is a blessing
because royal revenues come from it,
and debt that Is blessing because royal
revenues come from it,
ONE OF TtJF, pEOpT.E