The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1905-04-05
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1905
HIT THE LOAN SHARKS


Another of the many deserving bills
that seem to be held up by some mys-
terious influence in the legislature
while host of others less worthy go
through is that affecting the business
of the loan shark. We cannot under
stand how there can be a member suf-
ficiently careless of his duty and suffi-
GENTLY callous to the wretchedness and
crime that these people provoke to
look upon this matter with indiffer-
ence
Every employer of labor on any con-
siderable scale, and thousands of par
ents and others to whom foolish young
men have confided their troubles, can
tell painful story of the practical
working of the loan shark business.
These despicable creatures find a man
on salary whom either folly or misfor-
tune has involved in modest debt which
he is anxious to pay. He may have
made a fool of himself and owe from
w ~ PAOV, vi may IoNS lldu W pay
that amount for services to a sick wife
or child. In either case, having no as
set but his salary, he goes to one of
these agents for the small accommoda-
ton, figuring that he can pay it back
with interest in installments, and signs
an assignment of his wages. From
hof ~
cradle of slaves.
In the first place he has to pay what
is to him an important sum as a cash
bonus to get the money at all. Then
he has to pay interest, with a guaran-
tee to pay the whole principal at date
earlier than he can possibly raise it.
OF course he has every assurance from
the loan shark that if he pays an in
stallment at that time the principal
will be renewed and there will be no
trouble about it. When the date ar
rives he has to pay another cash bonus
in order to get a renewal. This process
is repeated until the principal has been
paid over and over again, without any
material reduction. in the size of the
outstanding obligation and without any
prospect of being able to clear it off.
If the wretched man refuses to be
bled further, then the assignment of
wages that he has signed is filed with
his employer, who is ordered to pay
his wages to the creditor. The bor-
rover must therefore live on nothing
until his debt is discharged, or he must
seek other employment. to be followed
and bounded in this way until he is
desperate or until some friend comes
to his rescue and clears off the entire
debt under the threat of legal nroceed-
ings, which alone can make these
leeches let. go.
If there is any iniquity that ought
to be prevented by law, surely it is
this. The eXtortions of capital on a
large scale look more formidable. but
/ they do not begin to be as serious in
painful results, in actual mental and
physical suffering, as the exactions of
the loan shark. Thousands of men
every year are driven from place to
place are logged from city to city, are
discreditede with their employers. are
made to suffer pinching poverty while
in receipt of good income, in order
that the whole surplus may go to this
bloodsucker, and are finally driven to
some desperate act that will bring
them within the clutches of the law
by such persecution. The law already
repudiates it in theory by prohibiting
usury There is no usury so base and
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