The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1913-04-03
Cheaper Money For tEse Farmers
Cooperative Baxzz<z2.

t4u>CIUDED FROM PAGE oHc.A

R&n5tjell. OF LCulslana)
Another subject Of vital interest to the farmers
o. America is money with which to operate their
farms to carry their business. What do the
1af12efS OF America have to pay for their money?
an average OF u per cent. 8A per cent on
$6,46,0OOO00 equals $50, 000,000.OO year
FULLY One-half much as the total expenses of
the national governments truly colossal sum-
What do the railroads have to pay? What do the
manufacturing interests have to pay for their
money? What do the bankers have TO nav for
their money, which they lend to you at 8 u per
cent? They pay from to per cent. That is all
tAo banking establishments and commercial insti-
tCtlons have to pay. Haven't you farmers just
2s good security TO give to money lenders, as any
BANK or railroad on earth? Haven't you Just as
good security as any mercantile establishment on
earth? Why, then, is it, | repeat that these con-
Germs can get their money at per cent on an
average and you are obliged to pay 8 Il per cent?
Again, | repeat, it is because farmers are dis
organized mob. Every tub stands on it's own
bottom, every farmer working for himself every
body for himself, and the devil catch the hind
most, is a rule with you farmers. I am one of
them and | know whereof I speak. I have paid
more than 8 Il per cent for the use Of money. I
know that the farmers OF Louisiana and other
States pay considerably more than 8 u per cent.
| know fellows, with two-horse ploW, who work
twenty or twenty-five acres Of land, the men who
the bone and sineW of the country lots of
them pay fifteen twenty per cent for the use
of money,-and yet we wonder that they are not
prosperous. That will not do
do the farmers in Germany, France Belgium, Hol-
land Austria and Italy pay? 81 to 5 per cent.
Get all the money they need at average of 4 y
per cent. We farmers pay IL per cent. Take the
average price the foreign farmers pay, per cent,
that gives him initial advantage of 3 u per
cent how much? $6,04O, 900, 900. 0O,-over
$4,000, 600, 100000 year in excess interest paid
by the American farmer over what his European
brothers have to pay. Can compete with such
opposition? Is it any wonder that lands over
there worth enormous sums? Is it any won
der that agriculture there is a prospecting
business and anguishing in America when the
farmers are receiving over there, money, all they
need to operate Onto operate on and pay cur
rent expenses, at from to pr cent, and we are
paying u per cent? We don't begin to compete
with those foreign farmers until we first law down
into the mortgage holes and banks of this country
1000, 10000 year. How did they do it?
They did it by system of cooperation. 1t is all
cooperation friends They organized in Ger
many system known the Raiffeisen system,
by which the farmers themselves put up small
sums Of money in every community, and orga-
nized banks, each farmer becoming responsible
for all the debts Of the institution. They collect
all the debts, nobody fails to pay, because every
body responsible. They didn't try to make
any profit lending money, and they have