The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-04-28
INTEREST AND usuRy.

INTEREST AND UsURy. .,
 According to The Kansas City Jour nal the people of Missouri are lining up for the repeal of the law against usurious interest, as one means of get ting the best of the class of citizens commonly known as money sharks" The Journal says:
 It is asserted that money cannot be safely loaned on chattel mortgages at per cent, on account Of the extraor- dinary risk due to ase aa Me as the fmprovidence of the borrower. Ana vet, every month. hundreds of persons are compelled. by misfortunes as well who have no other security. to offer than their personal chattels. If they can not get money at the legal rate. necessity. which knows no iaw; forcss Ss door is opened to usury and to the misery that Is generally the lot of the unfortunates who fall into .he hands of the usurers.
 Almost as far back as recorded his tory carries us we find condemnation of usury and those who practice it. The Almighty himself in the laws given to Moses for the government of the Hebrews expressly forbids His people to exact usury from each other To use the exact words spoken to Moses: Thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury." So in civilized lands we find the laws prescribing what shall be legal interest and afixing penalties for going beyond the legal rate. Usurers are denounced by preacher and layman. by writer and poet, by lawyer and law-maker, by all classes and con- ditions because of their practices.
 Spite of all this we have them all ways with us. In the language of great statesman. 'it Is a condition, not a theory, that confronts us," and how to deal with that condition Is the prob lem. Tn a number of the States there is a legal rate of interest and a con- tract rate which In some runs up to IF per cent. In a few States there is no limit to the rate that may be allowed by contract. In other States there is a fixed rate beyond which 1t is not al- lowed to go.
 That the intent and the theory of anti-usury laws is good we do not deny, but again we are brought face to face with conditions In Alabama the legal rate Is per cent, yet people in this city have paid at the rate of 120 per cent for money borrowed on per- sonal property as security. Some read CT may declare that this is criminal on the part of the lender and foolish on the part of the borrower, but if we ad- | init both propositions 1t does not get us away from the conditions. There | are people who are sometimes SO cir cumstanced that they are compelled to have money. They have no credit al the banks and cannot get such security as a bank would lend money on. They have no recourse but to put some ar ticle of personal property up as a pledge. As The Journal truly says there is a risk in lending money on l personal property and those who nave the money will not loan 1t on such se- curlty at per cent
 This again brings us around to the question of conditions. Here Is a man who is compelled to have money and can only get 1t by pledging personal property. On the other side Is the Shylock who has money to loan bu, will only let it go on his own terms and those terms are to take all he can get. The victim has no choice and he accepts the terms. In many casas af- ter paying in interest two or three times the amount of the original loan he finally loses the property pledged as security.
 These things ought not to be so, all will admit, but they are so. and the problem is to flnd a remedy. Tn, Journal. from which we have quoted says there are men who would pc per. fectly willing to lend money on req estate at 1 per cent a month, and tha per cent would be the outside fig, ure. but because 1t is against the law to charge even per cent the borrower goes to the shark and Is bled to tn, tune of or. 10 per cent. Would 1t not be better for all if the law would al low a contract rate. at least as high d: 12 per cent per annum. than 10 keer on feeding the sharks, as is now done
 That Is the question to which we thinl an affirmative reply will be given by those who will inquire Into all tn, facts and conditions of money-Iendins