The Challis messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1912-current, 1923-08-15
100, 90 -------
.ED|SON-FORD PLANS
ATTACK ON interest
Abolition of Rent No More PlauSl-
BILE Than Abolition of Pay
on Loans, Expert Shows.

1t is no more unreasonable to pay In
terest on loan Of money than to
pay rent on a house, declares William
T. Foster, Director Of the Pollack
Foundation for Economic Research, in
exposing the fallacy of the attack on
interest charges by Henry Ford and
Thomas A. Edison in their commodity
money scheme to do away with the
present financial system. Mr.. Fosters
argument is reviewed in the present
article which is one Of series pre-
pared by the American Bankers Asso-
citation.
1.-THE Ford-Edison commodity money
plan Is regarded as a step toward the
abolition of all interest charges" Mr..
Foster says. Interest. says the
Dearborn Independent, is a tax that
few ancient tyrants would have dared
impose. Interest in actual modern
practice is a contrivance whereby all
production is taxed by parasites, and
whereby money is given a supremacy
over men, material and management
which it cannot sustain
Renting Money
"But is there really anything more
terrible about paying for the use of
money than about paying for the use
of anything else? Suppose a farmer
finds himself in need of a harvesting
machine, and without enough money
to buy one. In that case he can either
borrow a machine of Neighbor Brown
or borrow money and buy a machine.
The farmer would consider it right
to pay in some way for the use of the
machine. Why should he expect to
borrow money-which is IGNORED in
the markets in payment for the same
machine-without paying for the use
of the money?
Nov let us suppose that the farm
er uses the machine SC successfully
that he saves a thousand dollars.
With that money he can buy a farm
and he can let Neighbor Brown have
the use of it. Neighbor Brown natu-
rally would expect to pay rent. In
stead of buying the farm, however, he
could lend the thousand dollars to his
neighbor in order that his neighbor
might buy the farm. In that case
Neighbor Brown should expect to pay
for the rent of the money. All this
seems clear. When the transa ctions
are as simple as these it is plain that
there is just as great propriety in
charging for the use OF money as in
char. ing for the use of things that
none viii buy
Lesred Money Builds School
I'VE may assume. however, that the
farms does not want TO buy land and
Neigabog Brown does not want to
borrcH money. In that case the
farmer depcs is his thousand dollars
y . i.i,sB md the panA pays him ~.
-eres, TO- the use Of his money. But |
he baaa caa pay Interest oDly II II |
makes profitable uae OF ais money. |
Now the bank finds that the city |
leeds high-school building. and has
decided to borrow enough money to
construct it. In order to obtain the
money the city has issued bonds, each
If which is a promise to pay one thou
sand dollars at a specified date, and |
interest in the meantime at specified
ate The bank buys one of these
ponds. Thus the farmer has had a
part in providing the city with a
chool building; and the farmer has
ust as much right to expect interest
or the use of his money as though he
lad loaned the money directly or in
irectly to Neighbor Brown"