Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-24
ASTOUNDING FACTS.

In 1867 on the first OF March, two years
after the close of the war, the national
debt of this country was $2S27, S3S, $50.
The interest that has since that date,
been paid on that debt amounts to the
enormous sum of 81. 6S5, 100000. an amount,
as will be seen, nearly equaling the origi-
nal debt itself.
When the fact that this interest has
been paid in gold and that by the demon
etization of silver in 1873 gold has vir-
tually doubled in value as compared
with the products of the people who have
had to labor and produce the products
with which the gold to pay the interest
was bought, is taken into consideration,
it can be easily seen that out of the
pockets of the producers of wealth in
this country during the past thirty years
there has been taken unjustly sum
nearly equaling $685., 100000 by unjust
financial laws and given to the bondhold-
ers In the payment of interest, to say
nothing of the amount they have been
robbed of in the payment Of principal
The bonds which have drawn this
enormous amount of interest, it must be
remembered, were purchased of the gov
eminent during it's struggle for existence
by Ine DanheTS anu lnOuy -HoiullB GLASS
in this country and elsewhere with paper
currency ranging in value as compared
at the time with gold and silver from S5
cents to rs cents on the dollar.
1t is reasonable to estimate that on an
average the government received so cents
on the dollar measured in gold or silver
for these bonds and on that estimate the
people have, in interest alone, repaid the
bondholders more than five times over
for their original investment.
Not only have the people returned the
money received originally by the govern
ment for the bonds five times over during
the past thirty years in the way of inter-
est, but they have during that time paid
the sum of $1,70O,000,O00 on the principal
more than twice the amount the govern
ment originally received for the entire in
debtedness which it owed on the first of
March, 1867 and when we take into con-
sideration the fact that the money paid
on the principal was paid in dollars that
had doubled the purchasing power that
they had in 1867, it will be seen that the
bondholders have received on the princi-
pal of their bonds, measured in the pro-
ducts of the producers of the country
more than five times the amount that the
bonds originally cost them.
Therefore, up to the present, the bond
holders have been paid in gold the enor-
nous sum of 81, 400, 600, 000 equal in pur-
chasing power to 49, 500. 0000.O00 as COM
pared with the purchasing power of gold
at the time the bonds were purchased of
the government, and equal to $40, 600, 000,-
900 in purchasing power as compared to
the original cost of the bonds to the bank
ers who bought them of the government.
The end is not yet. The people have
paid in hard dollars more than three
fifths of the original face value of the
debt-in dollars daily growing dearer and
dearer-in addition to the enormous
| paid in interest in the same kind of rising
gold dollars, and still the less than two
fifths of the original debt that remains
unpaid, which was paid for. remember.
In dollars worth only half as much as
| the gold dollars were worth then, which
now buy twice as much of the products
of labor as they would buy when the debt
was contracted, Is worth more to the
holders of it than the entire debt was
worth at the time the bonds went into the
hands of the original purchasers.
To have paid the less than two-fifths of
the original debt yet unpaid at the close
of the year 1895 would have required SAC,
600, 600 more bushels Of wheat, or {. 673. 406,
| 900 more pounds of lint cotton. and small
err proportions of other products than
| would have been required to have paid
| the entire debt on the first of March. 1866
L