Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1896-05-15
USURY MEANS DEATH.
THE INCUBUS AND CURSE OF
CIVILIZATION.
Has Loft the Earth in Every Age and
Cline Whitened With the Bones of Its
vIctims-aIust Have New Financial
System.

The crisis is upon us. The cam
paign of 1896 will result in more for
veal or woe than any event since the
birth of this republic. The laborers
and producers of the nation are being
destroyed by an Unsuitable monster
usury. If this demon survives, the
masses must perish. Though denounced
by God, reason and experience, this
fiend has left the earth in every age
and cline, whitened with the bones Of
it's victims. This word usury means to
gnaw, to bite and is so defined because
it eats up, or absorbs the product Of
the labor of others. But hard as the
iron task-maker has been in the past,
there has been no period when it was
SO powerful, so rapacious, so cruel
and all-devouring as at present.
Within the last half century it has
submerged the United States beneath
an ocean Of interest-bearing bonds
and debts, such as no previous age
or civilization ever faced or contem-
plated. Mr.. Harvey estimates the
public and private debt at forty
thousand millions of dollars. Other
writer's have placed it at thirty-two
thousand millions of dollars. Hon. J..
H. Walker, republican member of con-
gress from Massachusetts, author of the
proposed new national banking act,
stated in Congress in March, 1892, that
the debts of our people, public and
private, amounted to thirty-6ne thou
sand millions of dollars. If we accept
his figures, the interest at per cent
each year would amount to $1,S60, Oo0,-
900. This is more than the total value
Of all the following commodities, viz:
wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley, buck
wheat, potatoes, hay, tobacco, gold and
silver produced in the United States in
1894, which according to government
reports were of the value of $1,703, $751;
433. If we add to this usury on debts
the amount paid yearly for taxes, feder-
al, state and municipal, which is $780,
100000, then we have the following
burden:
Annual usury. 81 $3.50, 900, 900
Taxes NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. 800,000,000
Total taxes and usury. so, $50, 100000
This is a sum far in excess of the
total wages paid in the year 1890 to
4,711,S32 persons, engaged in all the
factories of the United States who re-
ceived $2,2S2,S23,265. The total
value of all property in the United
States in 1890 was $4,000, 900, 900.
The shrinkage in values since 1890
has been in excess of the added value,
so that we may safely say the total
property does not at present price ex-
coed 100000, 100000. But this debt of
thirty-one thousand millions is owed
by the masses and is owned and held
by the rich. Now in 1889 we find that
100000 families owned $46 900, 900.
They certainly own as much or more
now, and when this is deducted from
the $60,000,0 900, 900 (the present value of
all property we find that there re-
mains less than fifteen billions of dol
lars in the hands of the remaining thir-
teen millions of families in our country,
and at the rate Of present accumulation,
all this must be swept into the hands of
the few in very short time. While
debts have increased, the means of
payment have decreased. The ascer-
tanned loss on the following crops dur
ing the past twenty-five years by the
fall in prices since 1870 has been as
follows:
Cotton ...................S5,179, OO0, 900
Wheat .................. 1859 900, 900
Wool ................... 950,OOO,OOO
Barley 225,O00,O00
Corn .................. ,772,OOO, 900
Oats 51O,OO0,O0O