The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-02-08

mony with Divine law, we see today
branches Of the Christian church,
smothering the c~onsciences Of the min
istery and membership in relation to
the crime of usury, exactly in the same
manner az they did for it's twin brother
in equity; chattel slavery. Stranger
still to tell; the very churches that de
nounced all others who favored chRttel
slavery then, are found foremost and
loudest in ~excusing usury which pro
notes industrial slavery now
Solomon q Chron. 9:13) made gold
very abundant and silver exceedingly
plenty in his kingdom, but he did not
do it by issuing usury bonds as the
United States unsuccessfully has done.
He did it by encouraging industrial
improvements and o system OF com
meTc , with other nations, bothof which,
considering the length of time and size
Of the kingdom have never been ex
celled by any other nation on earth.
I will not consume space here to
show that usury is the Bible term for
all in erest-gain-for the use ofmoney,
and that it was used iHno other way
until the thirteenth century "a. d.
when in Great Britain, Parliament
passed q law making it / awful tocharge
interest to q certain amount and sub
stituted the word interest" for usury,
because the word usury was "odfods
to Christian people" It was done TO
deceive the people and silence the
Christian conscience which had been
uniformly taught all down through
the ages to regard usury (%nteres) on
money as a sin. Even the statutory
laws of the greatest nations down to
that time were exceedingly severe in
furnishing usury.
A part of the church is busy trying
to make it appear that the f%orbidding
in the Mosaic law and elsewhere re
terred to charity regulations for the
poor and that if it was wrong to take
gain for money, it is as much Sd to
take rent for houses, horse hire, 60.
1t did not solely mean the poor, for
there was elemosynary provisions
otherwise made, as was also rental
provisions; and besides this, it must be
observed that the Divine Author 30
often speaks of money contradistinctly
from all other things, clearly referring
to it as a metaphysical functional
agency-not as gold and silver-with a
wonderful fitness to all money, through
eli time. The command is more emf
nently appropriate to the present vast
use of money than it was in the Jewish
Kingdom,
God does not make any mistakes in
His laws, but man does. The moral
principles that were to be observed un-
der Moses are exactly as fitting and OBJ
ligatory under Mckinley. The value
of houses, animals and all material sub
stance decreases with time and use, but
the value in money W decreases, it
is fixed in law, in fact it is the sub
stance Of law relating to itself.
Let us ROW look at the effect usury
or interest has had on our own nation
of people. To do this l shall again use
a very commonplace illustration that
every person can understand.
There was a train of 48 cars loaded
with Is cent corn came from Wichita,
Kansas to ST. Louis Republican Con
ventioD, decorated with notices, flags,
Sc, all in the interest of Mi. McKin-
ley's nomination.
The Farmers Sentinel q. T. Norton,
Ell took this train load of corn for q
text and enlarged on it so as to have it
illustrate the magnitude Of the national
debt with its interest bearing bonds,
and what it cost the people from 1865
to the present time. 1 could elsewhere
get the figures he uses, but l wish to
give him credit for lis illustration,
which I hereby do, as he shows it up
completely and at length, but I will
use his figures and other data Of my
own as briefly as possible.
In 1867 our government interest
bearing debt was 60, PAS, 7Os, O67. The
average price of ORR for the years
1866-7-8 was a fraction over 75 cents.
It would have taken at this price g.
999, 977, 1868 bushels of corn to ~havepaid
the debt.
According to the national debt state
ment January 1st, 1896, under the
Cleveland administration and his bond
issue included, the interest bearing
debt was $747. 361, $50, showing that we
had paid 81, 500, SAG, O43, of the principal.
At Is cents a bushel, the Kansas
price of the corr on the Mckinley train
it would take 4 982, All 666 bushels to