Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1898-05-18
THE PROPOSED POPULAR
LOAN.

LOAN.
The idea of making the loan popu-
lar one is good, if such thing were
practicable. If bonds are to be sold,
by all means let the common people
have a chance. 1t will be interesting
to learn how many of our farmers
and mechanics, tradesnen and mer-
chants are ready to invest in bonds.
We have had some experience in
that line and it may be instructive as
well as interesting to recall it. The
contract entered into by the last ma
tional administration with the bond
syndicate so aroused the peoples in
dignation that the next batch of a
hundred million dollars was offered to
the people at large. And the denomi-
nations of the bonds were as low as
$50. That was in January 1896. When
the returns were all in it appeared
that while the amount offered was
only 500, OO0, 900, the amount bid for
them was $526, $40, 900. Here was more
than FIVE times as much offered as
was asked. To a disinterested observ-
err that was a good showing for the
common people. When we come to
analyze the bids, they donot show so
we'll. The loan was offered to about
fourteen million adult men and as
many women, but the bidders number
bered only 4,641, and six of them were
believed to be spurious and were not
considered. OF these 4635 honest bids
only sixty-four were each for one $50
bond. The number of bids below one
thousand dollars was very small in
comparison with the number of higher
bids. The average was $113,693. The
number of accepted bids was less than
nine hundred. The largest amount
given to any one bidder was $685.
$50, to J. P. Morgan and associates.
bonds was SLY ,644.
1t will be be seen that the part play
ed in this proceeding by the common
people could not have been important.
Only o. persons out of our 10000
600 population that bid as low as fifty
dollars, and only 4635 honest people
able or DESTROYS TO invest anything in
bonds.
If we deduct the Morgan bid from
the 500, 000, 900 bought, we have $62,-
OS4, $50, which would leave an average
of $13, 400 for the rest. There were,
in fact, comparatively few bids for
less than one thousand dollars.
1t is interesting, also, to note what
part of the country the big bids came
from. New York offered to take $751;
393, $50, more than rs per cent of all
the bids. Ohio offered to take $12,-
397 ,65, Pennsylvania offered to take
SIS, 687 80, and Illinois offered to take
SOFAS, 200.
These figures show that to talk
about placing a popular loan, in the
popular sense, is to talk nonsense.
The people cannot buy bonds. The
average man is not able to make pur-
chases of that kind. Bonds are not
intended for poor people. They are
for the rich who can afford such a
luxury. Four per cent interest, and
two per cent saved in taxation, equals
six per .cent on the investment, and
that is twice as much as labor saves
of its earnings every year. And then,
If the bond buyer is national bank
err, he can deposit his bonds in the
treasury at Washington and secure
quarterly interest on them, in addi.
ton TO loan of $50 on every hundred
dollars of bonds deposited, which 500
he may lend to the people at whatever
rate he can collect under state law.
No. There is only one kind of a
popular loan that will go in this coun-
try. and that is the notes of the Gov
ernment in small denominations
notes that the people may use as mon
ev among themselves. And the peo-
ME who will take such aloan do not
want interest on the notes. All they
ask Is that the government will re-
ceive the notes in payment of taxes
ana other public dues and make them
legal tender in payment of debts.
such a loan the people would gladly
take and pay for it with their labor
and their Iabor's products Star and
Kansan.