The Washington times., 1914-05-31

sell under per cent. No State car
borrow money quite so cheaply as
the United States can. No private
corporation can do it. Likewise, nc
public service corporation operating
a railroad in Washington, under a
grant Of power from the city, could
borrow money so cheaply as could
the city, for the purposes of operat-
ing public utilities.
Mr.. Winslow, being assured that
there would be new crop of bonds
to invest in, and that these would be
the excellent and highly respected
bonds of the municipality, then took
another tack. The public, owning the
railroads and having issued its bonds
to pay for then, would be expected
to create sinking funds with which
ultimately to pay off these bonds.
Supposing, once more, that the thing
got infectious; that all the cities took
over their utilities and issued their
bonds, and established sinking funds,
and in time-say in a generation
actually discharged and cancelled the
bonds and gave to the investors the
cash for them:
Then-this is the final and conclu-
sive poser of MIR. Winslow-what
would the investor of the next gener-
alton invest that money in?
There would be no more public
utility bonds; there would be no
more municipal bonds representing
the purchase of public utilities. The
cities would owe no more debts on
account of these transactions, be-
cause the debts would have been paid
off, thanks to the persistent work.
ings Of the wicked sinking funds.
What then would the poor investor
do?
Mr.. Winslow has us. We just
naturally don't know. He has out
lined financial catastrophe of the
not too distant-we hope-future,
that ought to be Investigated at
once. If everybody pays off his debts,
there will be no bonds, mortgages,
promissory notes or anything else
for the investor to buy.
This is serious affair. 1t had
never before occurred to US that
the business of paying off debts is
so menacing. Mr.. Winslow should
forthwith not only oppose the full
power of his gigantic intellect to
public ownership, but he should take
steps to put an end to paying debts
in general. There are about six bill
lions of dollars of farm mortgages
in this country, and some millions of
farmers raking and scraping to get
money to pay them off. Until Mr..
Winslow made the point so clear, it
had not been realized that these
farmers were insidiously attacking
our institutions. Those bonds are
largely held by savings banks and
other institutions. If the farmers
follow the lead of the municipal
ownership cranks, and pay off their
mortgages, there will be an investing |
vacuum in the place where those six |
billions of farm mortgages formerly
were, and the banks will be in an
even worse scrape than Mr.. Winslow |
suggested.
Until this.sapient presentation, the
grave danger of impoverishing the
country by paying its debts had not
attracted the attention it deserved.
But now it is clear that tremendous
crisis is. ahead. Worked out along
the lines of the excellent Mr.. Wins
lows logic, here is the horrible con-
spiracy that has been framed for the
of the whole country:
First, the District of Columbia will
take over its street cars. make them
public properties, and start a cum
scheme of paying off
their debts.
Second, other cities will be so
wicked and reckless of the public in
terest as to adopt the same project,
and will buy their utilities and set
about paying for them.
Third, the Government might con-
be fascinated by the villain
ously insinuating scheme, and buy
the railroads and maybe the mines
and such like, and, in turn, go to
paying off their debts.
Fourth, the farmers might all in
sist on rushing up to the box office
and paying their mortgages. Farm
ers have at times been known to do
it.
Fifth, the other folks owing money
might get pigheaded and insist on
paying.
Now observe what would have
happened: everybody would have
paid off his debts, and would have his
property clear of debt. But there