The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1915-10-29

and so per cent per annum, Y banks
which charged between SO per cent
I per annum and 100 per cent per an
mum, IS banks whose maximum rate
was from 100 per cent to 200 per cent
per annum. and banks which owned
up to having charged maximum rates
ranging from 200 perjcent TO 1000 per
I cent
when we find loans made by ma
iional banks for SIS. $50. 800, 5000.
$500 and $4,000 or more at 40. 50, 100
or !, 900 per cent, it is merely hideous
gamble on how long the borrower can
keep starvation from his door and live
and work
'We read much of the infernos Of
The slums Of the great cities, or degra-
dation and misery and squalor, Of the
grinding callousness Of tenement LAND
lords and sweatshop operators Here
in the country we find bankers. men
in business that should be the most
respectable, as it is the most respon-
sible, Of all secular yocations, literally
crushing the faces OF their neighbors,
deliberately fastening their farh~ IN
the very heart Of poverty. Yet We are
told by United States Senator Weeks
that the banker'-the, thousand per
har l. IN a sfrelf Ia fAn nH
and sorely pressed farmer-'is the
man to determine that'-the rate of
interest. We are told that when the
government tries to use its power to
prevent these thefts and rapes on the
prosperity of communities, il is guilty
of impertinent intrusion and unwise
interference with business and private
judgment
~ ''The list shows that there were q
total OF 1,2O6 banks charging 12 per
cent or more, of which nine were in
New York state. six in Pennsylvania,
two in Maine, three in Massachusetts,
five in Virginia. seven in West Vir-
ginia, six each in Florida aud Louis
lana, sixty-six in Georgia, fifty-two in
Alabama, 1GS in Texas. seven in Ar
kansas. seventeen in Kentucky,
twenty eight in Tennessee, four in
Ohio, eight in Indiana, forty in Illinois,
seven in Iowa, nineteen in Missouri,
e.tx-t.. ,,s,,o n, North nalota fnrtV-
eight in South Dakota. twenty-one in
Kansas, forty-six in Montana, twenty
in Wyoming, sixty-three in Colorado,
thirty in New Mexico PSI in Okla
homa, twenty-five in Washington,
forty in California, forty-five in Idaho,
eighteen in Nevada, three each in
Michigan, Oregon, North Carolina and
Arizona. In New Jersey. District of
Columbia. Nebraska, Minnesota and
South Carolina only two banks in each
reporter II per cent or higher and
only one in Maryland
The farmer, fldundering in the
cruel tentacles of a 300 per cent gov
ernment bank, learns quickly to be
disloyal to the government, and to hate
bitterly all banks and bankers ant
representatives of wealth and money
( He is hurt and ruined, and he bestows
his wrath not on the individual, but or
the entire system he supposes the i'll
dividual to represent He expresses
his wrath and hate blindly with his
ballot.
when national banks, chartered b!
the government. disappoint and de
price toll of its just reward. and stin
ulate resentment we have prepared
and fertilized the soil for a fearIa
crop of disaster, We can not per
suade ourselves or make others be
lieve that it is right or safe for banks
to charge 10O per cent year. whil'
the producing people about them srs
+. kept poor ! know of such banks.
do not intend to stand for them if
can help it, The country will no
stand for them.
"A well thought out. carefully con
structed, conservative system OF rura
credits for the development Of agri
culture and the increase Of our wealtl
and resources w offering encourage
Inent andSopportunity TO the ambition
farmer will come presently. When
comes all OF us viii share the spendi'
results Meanwhile. hold it to be
proper function OF the government
and especially for its treasury depart
ment, to do all that lawfully may b.
done to protect the borrower Of al
grades. everywhere. against short
sighted and mutually destructive ra
pacity. as we'll as the stockholder ant
depositor in national banks agains