The Louisiana populist., 1896-01-17
A GREAT QUESTION.
STOP AND THINK OF INTEREST
ON MONEY.
Its Effects Upon the Country are Baneful
Indeed-Some Think 1t Absolutely Nee
essary to Eliminate Int rest from Our
Economic System.


on the question of interest on money
and its effect on the country. They
hastily conclude that because they do
not borrow and pay interest over the
bank counter that therefore the sub
ject has no practical bearing on their
affairs, and they pass it by unheeded.
This position is wrong.
1t is carelessness on your part, not a
desire to harbor wrong.
Some of you raise wheat. You send
it to the market and sell it to the
grain dealer. He pays you what you
call cash-bank notes. His promisOry
note is in bank at eight, or ten, or
twelve per cent. for the identical
money he pays you for the wheat. He
cuts the price as low as possible and
then adds the interest on. If he does
not he will go out of business as a
bankrupt very soon. He sells the
wheat to the wholesale dealer. His
note is in the bank at ten per cent. and
he adds it on. Then the miller buys
it. His note is in the bank at ten per
it into -four and sells to the baker,
whose note is also in bank at ten per
cent, and he adds it on. The baker
makes it into a scent loaf and when
you buy it for your family you pay the
usury or interest all the way round.
just so with every other line of pro-
ducts, the interest enters many times
into the cost OF every article consumed
in society and the consumer foots the
hill in the increased cost of the arti-
cles.
A distinguished gentleman. now de-
ceased, made use of the following illus
Tation on a celebrated occasion:
Suppose that at the time James
town, Va, was settled. in 1907, Capt.
Newport had purchased Of the mother
country all the lands now within the
boundaries of the United States for the
sum of 81 and had given his bond and
that of his successors in this country
therefor, payable in 2sS years, and Sc
cured it by mortgage upon the lands
purchased. Most of you will say that
was a magnificent bargain. As to
whether it was good bargain or not
depends upon the rate of usury named
in that bond. Suppose the rate
named was ten per cent compounded
annually. That debt would have
fallen due in 1895 and would have
to more than $l.0SS, ,000,-
600, 900. while the value of all property
real and personal, in the entire nation
is only $40, 900, 900, 600. Suppose this
mortgage to be now foreclosed and the
bid the full value of the
a nation of 10000, 900 peo-
pie are made paupcrs at one fell stroke
of the sheriff's hammer and they and
their descendants are left in perpetual
bondage for more than one thousand
billions.
1T is necessary to eliminate inter-
est from our economic system. This
mOlOch OF usury gathers tribute con-
stantly every moment from everything
that has value. You cannot worship
your God in the observance of his ordi-
nance by taking communion at the
Lords table without paying tribute to
this dividing and concentrating COM
munist in the cost of the bread and
wine.
while you, in obedience to the de-
mands of tired nature, cease from la
lor when night comes, and in obedi-
ence to the commandment to remember
the Sabbath day and keep it holy, seak
rest one day in seyen-this goddess, pa
gan, infidel, dividing, gathering and
communist, Usury, goes
on and on, in summer and winter, rain
and shine. day and night, weekday and
Sabbath, in prosperity and in advers-
ity, depriving industry of the fruits of
its toll and piling up the wealth in the
Golfers OF the Rothschilds, Bafings and
unheeding the cries of
distress and the starvation of millions,
and defying the laws Of God.
This usury GnteresD levies tribute
upon the swaddling clothes of the in
FAINT in its cradle and never ceases
all the life of that human
being to exact tribute from it each mo-
ment of time, and when in old age that
life sicken unto death it takes share
Of value from the medicine admins
tered to alleviate the pangs of dissolu-
ton, and then this fiendish, ghoulish
sucks tribute from the grave
clothes and coffin in which the corpse
Is buried and from the cold stone that
marks its last resting place."
Are you one of these victims?
Are your children never TO be re-
lieved from this octopus that sucks
their life blood with each of its hun
1reds of mouths?
Will you blindly grope along sup
porting q system that has made thou
sands of millionaires and millions of |
You have one chance in a thousand |
,f becoming one Of the millionaires
md 999 chances of becoming one of |
The paupers.
Do you prefer this system or would
Tou rather have one that would insure
} competence to every man willing to |