Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1897-08-05
OUR MONEY LOANERS.
MODERN AND ANCIENT coNDk
TiONS COMPARED BY MILLS.
Modern IseFormers are Very Mild in thoir
Demands When Compared With An
Client Law Glvers Such as Moses and
Scion who Repudiated Debts ON Land

are mOuerble ana CONSERVATIVE III OOih-
parison with the reforms proposed and
carried out under the direction and
leadership of the great reformers of
others days.
wish TO consider for little while
this evening an ancient law-giver, the
conditions under which he came into
power, and the measures he adopted,
and then consider how moderate are
the measures we propose as compared
with this ancient legislation. l refer
to Solen of Athens, who came into
power as the achron of Attica, 504 years
before Christ AT that time all the
country lying around Athens both be-
tween the ancient city and the noun
tains and in the plains stretching out
10 the sea, was covered with mort
cages, evidenced by stones set up on
each farmers land marked with the
names of the people who had made the
loans.
Not only was this the condition of
the country, but 1t was also the condi
ton of Athens and all outlying towns.
At that time the person of the debtor
as well as his property was liable for
his debts, and not only the person OF
the debtor but of his family as well.
1t was no unusual thing for the credit
or to seize the person of his debtor and
his family, and having exhausted all
that the property of his victim would
yield, then sell both him and his child
rem in the public market into bondage;
and many of these victims had been
transported to other lands, and the
children of Attica were becoming the
slaves of surrounding nations,
These debts had become so great
that their payment had become au i'm
possibility. The stern legislation
which tied together bankruptcy and
slavery, was not sufficient to make the
impossible collection possibility. Of
ticers went to attach the persons of
the city debtors, to take possession of
them and their families, only to meet
resistance: and not only universal
bankruptcy but universal disorder was
the condition of affairs when Scion be-
came the nchrOn of Attica.
lie Immediately cancelled all debts
secured by farm mortgages and by per-
sonal security. He declared that if
the people were to be free the land be-
meath their feet must be free also. He
declared that if Athens was to have
peace the welfare of her citizens must
be provided for; that all debts whose
security involved the possible slavery
of the debtor should be declared null
and void. Besides this he lessened the
amount of metal in the coinage of At
tica by about 81 per cent, so that while
he cancelled all debts secured by land
or by the persons of the debtors, he
made the payment of other obligations
easier by % per cent, and by so ncreas-
ing the volume of currency advanced |
the prices OF all the products of labor
to corresponding ratio.
This was reputation. But he stood |
in position where the rights of his
fellow citizens had already been repu-
dated. IL was a question us to which
should be regarded the most sacred.
The human interest of the living be-
ings or the impossible contradiction
tracts which could never be enforced:
the efforts to enforce which led only to
mutiDy, touniversal disorder; for where
payment was impossible oppression
could effect no remedy.
He, moreover, taxed the property at
Attica to provide a fund which he
purchased back those who had been
sold into bondage, restored them to
their native land and made them free
once more.
Inc outcry against Scion was so in
tense; complaints both on the part of
the rich and the poor were so persist
,rt, that he found it necessary to re-
lire from Athens; and while he had
wrought the return of those who had
been exiled because of their poverty.
he became an exile himself because of
his legislation
But the years passed by and Scion
anne to be known as the wisest and
greatest law-giver of them ALL Twenty
i've centuries have gone by. Plato,
Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch, and every
modern student and teacher admits the
ustice and the wisdom of his legisla-
ion.
The great law-giver of the Jewish {
ace, provided that debts should not
utlive the generation which contract 1
d them. Every fifty years the land !
vas made free again. Every fifty years q,
il debts were cancelled. Was Moses !
repudiator? Was Scion fanatic l
nd luuatie? Their wisdom has been ]
Omitted. The sounduess of their l
alignment, the genuineness of their !
haracter. arc beyond all dispute. l
But we make no proposals as radical