THE DEBT HABIT.
The debt habit of mind is the disposition or tendency to look to
things we have not as necessary to our success: To yearn for other
opportunities and other means than those we have in our hands: To feel
helpless without them and willing to incur debt to secure them. The
independent, self-reliant disposition takes account of its own powers
and opportunities and means, and plans with these to accomplish the
very most. This old self-reliant, independent spirit, that scorned
debt, has largely passed away. To incur debt is now the common habit
and has become respectable.
All evil-doers encourage and stimulate the particular fashion or habit
or appetite or passion on which they thrive. Usury thrives on debt. If
no one was in debt then usurers would be harmless. It is this debt
habit that gives them the large field for their operations and secures
to them their harvest.
The agreement to pay interest preserves for a time the feeling of
independence that would be wounded by receiving a loan as a favor.
There is usually a feeling of joy and elation in the borrower that
confidence in him is so great, and his credit is so high, that he can
be entrusted with a loan.
By incurring a debt there seems to promise the opening up of
opportunities that have been denied, and a possible field for the
successful exertion of his pent up energies.
The present intended use of the loan, too, seems so attractive and
profitable, and the buoyant, hopeful spirit does not doubt that the
loan can be easily and promptly repaid.
The temptations to debt do not come to the vicious and idle and
worthless, but to the most worthy, industrious, talented, reliable and
enterprising, those who will be the most productive in their fields of
effort. Its very approach is flattering and therefore so hard to
resist.
A bright, intelligent, noble young man with high aims and worthy
purposes yearns for an education, but the opportunities seem to be
denied him; but there is a fund at low interest at his service.
A lively, energetic young man, with industrious and economical habits,
is anxious to engage in business; his youth, character and energy
bring the loan to his feet.
The young man with pure yearning for domestic life and a home, with a
reputation that is above reproach and of commendable energy and
thrift, has a home pressed upon him, to be paid for in long-time
payments. He can fill it with furniture "on the installment plan."
With intellectual taste, he can fill his library with just the books
he desires "on the installment plan." Is he musical in his taste, he
can fill his parlor with musical instruments "on the installment
plan." His needs and tastes can all be gratified at once by incurring
debt. To avoid debt there must be a determined and unremitted effort
to resist. Few have been able to escape. The aggregate of private
indebtedness can not be told.
Few manufacturing plants are free from debt. They are usually carrying
all the load their credit enables them to secure. Railroads and other
corporations are under bonded debts that tax their trade to the utmost
to sustain.
Counties and municipalities have caught the contagious habit. Bonds
are issued to build school houses, town halls, viaducts, water-works,
and pave streets.
There lies on this table a list of all the cities in this great land,
the United States, with their number of inhabitants and their bonded
debts. There are but six small cities in the long list without debt.
In some the amount is enormous, the city debt in cases running up to
one hundred and one hundred and fifty, and two hundred dollars per
inhabitant. That is, there is a city debt on each man, woman and child
of two hundred dollars. On this amount interest must be paid, twelve
dollars per year, one dollar per month for every man, woman and
child.
There lies also on the table a report of the financial condition of
the nearest great city. It is rendered in a cheerful mood and declares
the city's credit "tip top." The indebtedness is eight millions, but
the assessed valuation of the city is so high that two million more
bonds can be issued before the limit of indebtedness is reached as
established by the general law. This is regarded as a most favorable
showing and the assurance is given that all the contemplated public
improvements can be pushed without interruption. There is no thought
of stopping until the extreme limit is reached.
This habit extends to the churches and benevolent enterprises. There
is scarcely a church that is not paying interest on some debt. Local
societies are often greatly hindered in their work. A benevolent
agency of one of the largest and richest denominations issued a
piteous appeal to their constituents for help, declaring that the
interest on their debts amounted to one thousand dollars per week.
The debt habit has seized the nations and the most enlightened. This
is so true that debts are, in pleasantry, spoken of as a sign of a
nation's progress. These aggregate billions are rapidly increasing.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer says the debt of England was reduced
five hundred millions in twenty years. To the astonishment of all the
world, the United States began to pay her debt, eighteen hundred
million, in thirty years. But these stand alone among the nations.
The national debts do not grow less, but are rapidly increasing. Both
the United States and England are now increasing their indebtedness
each year.
The world has gone debt mad. It has become a great harvest field, ripe
for the usurers.
Debts may at times be unavoidable. They may at times be positively
beneficial. There may be times when the system is in such a condition
that it is necessary to take arsenic in small doses, but arsenic has
no place in the menu of a healthy man. So debts may be necessary to
those who have fallen into decay or have been unfortunate, but they
should find no place in the normally healthy financial conditions of
an individual or incorporation or nation.
Debts make no man the richer. A man is no richer when he has secured a
loan, than he was before. Paying debts makes no man poorer. He but
relieves himself of the property of another.
Paying a national debt destroys no wealth. If owed at home, it is but
a transfer from one hand or pocket to another.
Adjusting the world's debts, private, corporate, municipal, or
national, the world would remain as rich and productive. Not a
material thing would perish. No man would suffer the loss of any right
or of any property, but it would be the destruction of the device by
which the usurers appropriate to themselves the productions of
others.
Freed from this debt habit of mind, and the independent, self-reliant
disposition replaced, this anomalous condition would disappear; the
producer would receive again his full earnings and the great army of
parasites, that has grown up, and that feed so richly on the labors of
others, would be compelled to turn producers or perish.