_Baron Rothschild_ (French Monetary Convention, 1869): “The suppression

of silver would amount to a veritable destruction of values without any

compensation.”

_Ricardo, M. P._ (high priest of the bullionists), in his reply to

Bauset, said: “The value of money in any country is determined by the

amount existing.... The commodities would rise or fall in price in

proportion to the increase or diminution of money. I assume that as a

fact that is incontrovertible. However debased a coinage may become, it

will preserve its mint value.... A well-regulated paper currency is so

great an improvement in commerce that I should greatly regret if

prejudice should induce us to return to a system of less utility.... By

limiting the quantity of money it can be raised to any conceivable

value.”

_John R. McCulloch_ (commenting on Ricardo): “He explains the

circumstances which determine the value of money ... and he shows ...

its value will depend upon the extent to which it may be issued compared

to the demand. This is a principle of great importance, for it shows

that intrinsic worth is not necessary to a currency.”

Speaking in favor of a gradual reduction in the burden of debts, through

the natural increase in the volume of precious metals, McCulloch said:

“It promotes industry and diminishes the weight of obligations which

press upon the producing classes, whether employer or employed.... Thus

it appears that, whatever may be the material of the money of a country,

whether it consists of gold, silver, copper, iron, salt, cowries, or

paper, and however destitute it may be of any intrinsic value, it is yet

possible, by sufficiently limiting its quantity, to raise its value in

exchange to any conceivable extent.”

_Samuel Bailey_ (Sheffield): “However some men doubt the advantage of an

increase of the currency, no one can deny the ruinous effects of a

decrease.”

_Sir James Stewart_: “Money is nothing more than a scale of equal parts

for the measurement of things vendible.”

_Sir James Graham_ (British statesman): “The value of money is in the

inverse ratio to its quantity, supply of commodities remaining the

same.”

_William E. Gladstone_ (1876, speaking of the banks issuing money): “It

will be exactly the same thing, so far as the money is concerned, to

grant a legislative privilege to a person or to pay over to him a

considerable sum from the consolidated fund.”

_London Economist_ (1883): “England being the chief creditor nation of

the world, it is to her interest to keep the volume of money as small as

possible in countries from which debts are due, in order to get more of

their product in payment of interest due to her citizens.”

_The Royal British Commission_, appointed August, 1885, to inquire into

the causes of the depression of business, made world-wide inquiries and

was composed of twenty-three members, a number of whom were

distinguished statesmen and economists. They agreed that gold had

greatly appreciated in value and that the rise in the value of gold was

caused by the demonetization of silver and the falling off in the supply

of gold, and it was the leading cause of the general depression in trade

and industry. But it was added:

“This country [England] is largely a creditor country of debts payable

in gold, and any change which entails a rise in the prices of

commodities generally—that is to say, a demonetization of the purchasing

power of gold—would be to our disadvantage.”

_Archbishop Walsh_ (Dublin, 1893): “Of all conceivable systems of

currency, that system is sure to be the worst which gives you a standard

steadily, continually, indefinitely appreciating, and which, by that

very fact, throws a burden upon every man of enterprise and benefits no

human being whatever but the owner of fixed debts.”

_Count Leo Tolstoi_ (Russian philanthropist): “Only by means of money do

some people command the labor of others nowadays; that is, into

slavedom. Money tribute has become a chief means of the subjugation of

men, and by it are determined all the economic relations of man.”

_Cernuschi_ (French economist): “The purchasing power of money is in

direct proportion to the volume of money existing.”

_Professor Chevalier_ (France), speaking of the increase of money, says:

“Such a change will benefit those who live by current labor and

enterprise; it will injure those who live upon the fruits of past

labor.... It has been wisely said that there is no machine which

economizes labor like money, and its adoption has been likened to the

discovery of letters.”

_Sauerbeck_ (German statistician): “The propositions of some economists,

that we have quite enough money in our country, or that there is

sufficient gold to carry on the trade of the world, are valueless. They

assume that there is a certain quantity required that need not be

increased. Of course there is enough gold, and we could perhaps do with

half the quantity. It only depends upon the state of prices.”

_Fichte_ (German philosopher): “The amount of money current in a state

represents everything that is purchasable on the surface of the state.

If the quantity of purchasable articles increases while the quantity of

money remains the same, the value of the money increases in the same

ratio. If the quantity of money increases while the quantity of

purchasable articles remains the same, the value of money decreases in

the same ratio.”

_Herr von Barr_, speaking of the loss to German miners by the

demonetization of silver, says: “This direct loss, important as it is,

is nothing, however, compared with the indirect loss resulting from the

fall of prices.”

_M. Edouard Cazalet_, banker of Milan (“Bimetallism,” page 14): “Since

the value of all articles of commerce is represented by the currency,

the value of these articles must fall in proportion to the reduction in

the volume of the currency. Otherwise the moneyed currency could not

possibly do the work which the two metals combined have previously

performed.”

_Dr. Soetbeer_ (German statistician): “The value of money has fallen

through the issue of paper money as well as through the increased

production of gold and silver.”

_Leon Fouchet_ (1843): “If all the nations of Europe adopted the system

of Great Britain the price of gold would be reduced beyond measure. The

government could not decree that legal tender should be only gold, for

that would be to decree a revolution, and the most dangerous of all,

because it would be a revolution leading to unknown results.”

_M. Wolowski_ (French Institute, 1868): “The suppression of silver would

bring on a veritable revolution. Gold would augment in value with rapid

and constant progress, which would break the faith of contracts and

aggravate the situation of all debtors.... If by a stroke of the pen

they suppress one of these metals [gold or silver] in the monetary

service, they double the demand for the other metal, to the ruin of all

debtors.”

_John Locke_ (“Considerations, etc., in Relation to Money,” 1691): “The

greater scarcity of money enhances its price and increases the scramble,

and makes an equal portion of it exchange for a greater of any other

thing.” 1690: “Money is really a standing measure of the falling and

rising value of other things. If you increase or lessen the quantity of

money current, then the alteration of value is in the money. The value

of money in any one country is the present quantity of the current money

in that country in proportion to the present trade.”

_Adam Clark’s_ commentary on II. Matthew: “The scarcity of money in

England in 1351 influenced Parliament to pass an act fixing a day’s

labor at 1_d_. Twenty-four eggs sold for 1_d_; a pair of shoes 4_d_;

wheat 3_d_; a fat ox 80_d_.”

_Copernicus_, the astronomer (treatise “Monete Cudende Ratio,” addressed

to the King of Poland): “Numberless as are the evils by which kingdoms,

principalities and republics are wont to decline, these four are, in my

judgment, most baleful: civil strife, pestilence, sterility of the soil,

and corruption of the coin. The first three are so manifest that no one

fails to apprehend them; but the fourth, which concerns money, is

considered by few, and those the most reflective, since it is not by a

blow, but little by little, and through a secret and obscure approach,

that it destroys the state.”

_Daniel Watney_, of England: “I cannot suppose that everybody is wise.

Must think of the folly of the United States, when they were a debtor

nation, in adopting a gold standard. They knew nothing about currency

matters; they did not know it was going to increase their debt

enormously.”

_Paulus_ (Roman jurist, third century): “Money circulates with a power

which is derived, not from the substance, but from the quantity.”

_Blackstone_ (vol. I., page 2761): “As the quantity of precious metals

increases they will sink in value and become less precious. If any

accident were to diminish the quantity of gold and silver they would

proportionately rise.”

_Faucet_ (“Handbook of Finance,” page 146): “The decline of prices since

1872 and 1873 is explained by the increased value of gold. The first

effect was to cause a collapse of speculative securities, namely, bonds

of railroads, etc.”

_Professor De Colange_ (“American Encyclopedia of Commerce”): “The rate

at which money exchanges for other things is determined by its

quantity.”

_Beasey_: “Slavery is the inevitable result of poverty. Poverty is the

inevitable result of low wages. Low wages are the inevitable result of a

scarcity of currency.”

_A. H. Gaston_: “Money is simply a measure of value, and as a nation

contracts its circulation it contracts the value of all property in like

proportion.”

_Colton’s Public Economy_ (page 224): “We hold that money enough for the

demands of trade is the tool of trade to a nation.” Page 193: “It is

very desirable that there should not be sudden and great fluctuations,

as such changes affect the value of incomes. For example, when the

products of the American mines had raised the general prices on comforts

of life as 4 to 1.”

_Silver Commission Report_ of 1876, page 49: “Whenever it becomes

apparent that prices are rising and money falling in value in

consequence of an increase in its volume, the greatest activity takes

place in exchange and productive enterprises. Every one becomes anxious

to share in the advantages of a rising market, and the inducement to

hoard gold is taken away; its circulation becomes exceedingly active;

labor comes into great demand and at remunerative wages. It not only

increases production, but increases consumption.” Page 50: “Falling

prices and misery and destitution are inseparable companions. It is

universally conceded that falling prices result from the contraction of

the money volume.” Page 50: “Money is the great instrument of

association, the very fiber of social organism, the vitalizing force of

industry, the pure, true organ of civilization, and as essential to

existence as oxygen is to animal life. Without money civilization could

not have had a beginning.” Page 51: “It is estimated that the purchasing

power of the precious metals increased between 1809 and 1840 fully 145

per cent.... They had come to regard money as an institution fixed and

immovable in value, and when the price of property and wages fell they

charged the fault not to the money, but to the property and the

employer. Their prejudices were aroused against labor-saving machinery;

they were angered against capital.” Page 53 (effects of a decreasing

volume of money): “It circulates freely in the stock exchange, but

avoids the labor exchange. It has in all cases been the worst enemy with

which society has had to contend.” Page 56: “However great the natural

resources of a country, fertile its soil, intelligent, enterprising and

industrious its inhabitants—if the volume of money is shrinking and

prices falling, its merchants will be overwhelmed with bankruptcy,

industries paralyzed, and destitution and distrust will prevail.” Page

59: “All respectable authorities agree as to the relative effects of an

increasing and decreasing money.... History records no such disastrous

transition as that from the Roman empire to the dark ages. In the

Christian era the metallic money of the Roman empire amounted to

$1,800,000,000. By the end of the fifteenth century it had shrunk to

less than $200,000,000. Population dwindled, and commerce, arts, wealth

and freedom all disappeared.”

_Henry C. Carey, LL. D._ (“Social Science,” page 297): “Money tends to

diminish the obstacles interposed between the producer and the consumer

precisely as do railroads and mills.... The most necessary part of the

machinery of exchange being that which facilitates the passage of labor

and its products from hand to hand, any diminution of its quantity is

felt with tenfold more severity than is the diminution of the quantity

of railroad cars or steamboats.”

Before the Congressional committee: “We next find him [Secretary

McCulloch] issuing the destructive Fort Wayne decree, by means of which

we were made to know that the currency was in excess and prices too

high; that the policy of the treasury was to be one of contraction; and

that unfortunate debtors must as speedily as possible place themselves

in a position to meet the shock to be thus created. In other words, all

debtors were required to sell, capitalists meanwhile being advised not

to buy, the government being determined that labor, lands, houses,

stocks and property of all other descriptions should be promptly reduced

to gold values.”

Treatise on “Wealth”: “A period of contracted currency is one of

embarrassment, difficulty, and generally, in the end, of insolvency to

the small farmer and moderate landholder.... It will rise in price from

that scarcity, and become accessible only to the more rich and affluent

classes.”

[This greatest of American political economists, the late Henry C.

Carey, estimated the cost of contraction in order to secure resumption

between the years of 1873 and 1879 at thirty billion dollars.]

_Henry Carey Baird_ (March 13, 1882): “The man who has the greatest

horror of the inflation of the currency generally has no horror of the

inflation of bank credits. He likes it because it increases his power

over his fellow men. What he objects to is the inflation of the people

which causes an increase of their power.”

September 3, 1889: “People know that the expansion of the currency means

life, and equally well that contraction means death.”

_Henry Carey Baird_ (“Money and Bank Credit,” page 14): “The first and

greatest need of a man is that of association and combination with his

fellow men, and the daily life of a civilized people involves such

countless myriads of acts of association or commerce that a medium

having the quality of universal acceptability is absolutely necessary to

that life. That medium is money.... In its absence in sufficient volume

in Great Britain and Ireland, thousands of millions of dollars of labor

power annually in those islands perish. While the Trenholms, the Russell

Sages, the Pearsalls, the Fahnenstocks and the Seligmans wrangle over

the efforts of the people to secure a sufficient supply of ‘current

money,’ more labor power will go to waste than will represent the value

of the capital of all the banks in the city of New York many times

over.”

_Peter Cooper_: “Contraction in finance is not the same as economy in

private life. Contraction in the finances of a country means a stoppage

of a certain amount of the industry and exchanges, by reason of the

contraction of the credit by which these are sustained. Nothing can be

more certain than that a contraction of the currency by our government

has been followed by a reduction of all values, so that a wrong has been

inflicted upon all the enterprising business men of this nation, whose

property has been virtually confiscated by this process of contraction.”

_B. F. Butler_ (August, 1875): “I am informed that Mr. Duncan, of

Duncan, Sherman & Co., went to Washington when the currency bill was

before the President to advise him to veto it because it was necessary

to depreciate values. The President did veto the bills. Values have been

depreciated, I trust, to an amount entirely satisfactory to Messrs.

Duncan, Sherman & Co.” [The firm of which John Sherman was a member was

bankrupted by the depreciation.]

_Solon Chase_: “I bought a yoke of steers a year ago for $60; fed them

all summer and winter, and in the spring was offered but $60 for them in

the market. Who got the hay? So long as the owners of funded wealth

control the volume of money they control the price of a day’s work down

east and the price of a bale of cotton down south. The higher the price

of hogs and corn, the easier the people can pay the debt. The farmer

cannot pay off his debt on a falling market. The fight of the men who

deal in money is not for the metal, but to control the volume.”

_James D. Holden_ (President National Citizens’ Alliance): “So magical

is the operation of this wonderful device known as money that by simply

restricting its issue wealth is transferred from the hands that created

it to the possession of those not in the remotest degree responsible for

its production. Let the reader who does not indorse this view give

himself, if possible, a reason why a people who by their laws create the

supply of money should limit the issue.”

_A Georgia editor_ (speaking of the effects of contraction) says: “In

1868 there was about $40 per capita of money in circulation; cotton was

about 30 cents a pound. The farmer then put a 500-pound bale of cotton

on his wagon, took it to town and sold it. Then he paid $40 taxes,

bought a cooking stove for $30, a suit of clothes for $15, his wife a

dress for $5, 100 pounds of meat for $18, one barrel of flour for $12,

and went home with $30 in his pocket. In 1887 there was about $5 per

capita of money in circulation; this same farmer put a 500-pound bale of

cotton on his wagon, went to town and sold it, paid $40 taxes, got

discouraged, went to the saloon, spent his remaining $2.30 and went home

dead broke and drunk.”

_Arthur Kitson_ (“Scientific Solution of the Money Question,” 1894, page

284): “A restricted currency means restricted commerce; restricted

commerce means restricted production, and restricted production means

poverty, misery, disease and death.” Page 396: “The gold standard is a

device of the bankers for the measuring of everybody else’s corn with

their bushel.”

_Sealy_ (“Coins and Currency,” 1853): “The commerce of the country is

now in the power of the Bank of England as it was before in the

legislature.”

_Doubleday_ (“Financial History of England”): “We have already seen the

fall of prices produced by this universal narrowing of the paper

circulation. Distress, ruin and bankruptcy which took place were

universally among the landholders whose estates were burdened by

mortgages. The effects were most marked. Owners were stripped of all and

made beggars.”

_President Andrews_ (Eaton University): “Demonetization of silver was

the hardest, saddest blow to human welfare ever delivered by the action

of states. So long as gold is the sole standard of that money, so long

these wrongs and sufferings must continue.”

_James Mill_ (father of John Stuart Mill): “In whatever degree the

quantity of money is increased or diminished, other things remaining the

same, in that proportion the value of the whole and every part is

reciprocally diminished or increased.”

_Herbert Spencer_: “Barbarians do not want any money but hard money;

semi-civilized people want hard money and convertible paper; but when

the world becomes civilized and enlightened no other kind of money will

be used but paper money.”

[Illustration]

VI.

INTEREST AND USURY.

“It is against nature for money to breed money.”—BACON.

THE great Napoleon said, after studying a set of compound interest

tables: “There is one thing to my mind more wonderful than all the rest,

and that is, that the deadly fact buried in these tables has not before

this devoured the whole world.” The ethical sense of mankind saw at an

early day the wrong of usury. The Mosaic law was very explicit on the

subject. Cicero mentions that Cato, being asked what he thought of

usury, made no other answer to the question than by asking the person

who spoke to him what he thought of murder. The Christian Church, in its

early days and until the end of the Middle Ages, utterly forbade the

exaction of interest. In the reign of Edward VI. a prohibitory act was

passed, for the stated reason that the charging of interest was “a vice

most odious and detestable and contrary to the word of God.” It was not

until the time of the Reformation that this interpretation of the divine

law was ever questioned. Calvin was one of the first to contend that the

sentiment against exacting interest arose from a mistaken view of the

Mosaic law. A series of enactments, known as the Usury Laws, restricted

the maximum rate to be charged in England. By Act 21 James I. this rate

was fixed at 8 per cent. During the Commonwealth this rate was reduced

to 6 per cent., and by Act 12 Anne to 5 per cent., at which rate it

stood until 1839. In the United States the legal rate of interest

varies, nearly all the States having passed statutes fixing a maximum

rate.

“Usury bringeth the treasures of a realm or state into a few hands; for

the usurer being at certainties, and others at uncertainties, at the end

of the game most of the money will be in the box; and ever a state

flourisheth when wealth is more equally spread.”

This quotation is from the essay “Of Usury,” by that wisest of

philosophers, Francis Bacon. The reader must bear in mind that while

nowadays the term “usury” is applied generally only to excessive

interest, in Bacon’s time the word was used for any rate of premium or

interest for the use of money. The word _usance_, now obsolete in that

sense, conveyed the same meaning, and is used in Shakespeare’s “Merchant

of Venice.” The provocation which Antonio first gave Shylock was that—

“He lends out money gratis and brings down

The rate of usance here with us in Venice.”

All are familiar with the conditions which Shylock exacted of Antonio:

_Shylock._ This kindness will I show.

Go with me to a notary, seal me there

Your single bond; and, in a merry sport,

If you repay me not on such a day,

In such a place, such sum or sums as are

Express’d in the condition, let the forfeit

Be nominated for an equal pound

Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken

In what part of your body pleaseth me.

_Antonio._ Content i’ faith: I’ll seal to such a bond

And say there is much kindness in the Jew.

_Bassanio._ You shall not seal to such a bond for me:

I’ll rather dwell in my necessity.

_Antonio._ Why, fear not, man; I will not forfeit it;

Within these two months, that’s a month before

This bond expires, I do expect return

Of thrice three times the value of this bond....

Come on; in this there can be no dismay;

My ships come home a month before the day.

But Antonio’s ships did not come in—just as the farmer’s crop often

fails and the artisan’s employment gives out just when the mortgage is

due—and Shylock claimed his pound of flesh. “The Merchant of Venice” is

a comedy, and Shylock, Bassanio and Antonio are mere creatures of

imagination; but there are thousands of tragedies enacted every day in

real life in which real Shylocks play a part. The Shylocks of to-day are

quite unlike the Shylocks of fiction, however. Banker Morgan, who

negotiated with Grover Cleveland the star-chamber bond deal by which the

American government sold to the Rothschilds at a premium of only 4½ per

cent. $100,000,000 of interest-bearing gold bonds which were immediately

after quoted at a premium of 21 per cent., is a philanthropist. As soon

as possible after the deal was made his portrait appeared in many of the

great dailies with a fulsome account of his many charities! It will take

many a pound of human flesh, many a drop of life’s blood, to pay the

interest on the bonds which he negotiated, and out of the sale of which

he made a cool million in one day.

The Bible has much to say on the subject of usury. The writer has never

heard a sermon preached on any of the following texts, however—perhaps

because bankers and money-lenders rent the best pews. Remember that

usury here means simply interest—not excessive interest:

Exodus 22:25: “If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by

thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon

him usury.”

Deuteronomy 23:19-20: “Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother;

usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon

usury. Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother

thou shalt not lend upon usury, that the Lord thy God may bless thee.”

Nehemiah 5:7: “Then I consulted with myself, and I rebuked the nobles,

and the rulers, and said unto them: Ye exact usury every one of his

brother. And I set a great assembly against them.”

Psalms 15:5 (David describes a citizen of Zion): “He that putteth not

out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent.”

A Chapter from “Cæsar’s Column.”

I cannot do better here than quote a significant chapter from Ignatius

Donnelly’s powerful novel, “Cæsar’s Column,” which certainly did as much

as any book ever printed to set people thinking:

“But what would you do, my good Gabriel,” said Maximilian, smiling, “if

the reformation of the world were placed in your hands? Every man has a

Utopia in his head. Give me some idea of yours.”

“First,” I said, “I should do away with all interest on money. Interest

on money is the root and ground of the world’s troubles. It puts one man

in a position of safety, while another is in a condition of insecurity,

and thereby it at once creates a radical distinction in human society.”

“How do you make that out?” he asked.

“The lender takes a mortgage on the borrower’s land, or house, or goods,

for, we will say, one-half or one-third their value; the borrower then

assumes all the chances of life to repay the loan. If he is a farmer, he

has to run the risk of the fickle elements. Rains may drown, droughts

may burn up his crops. If a merchant, he encounters all the hazards of

trade: the bankruptcy of other tradesmen; the hostility of the elements

sweeping away agriculture, and so affecting commerce; the tempests that

smite his ships, etc. If a mechanic, he is still more dependent upon the

success of all above him and the mutations of commercial prosperity. He

may lose employment; he may sicken; he may die. But behind all these

risks stands the money-lender, in perfect security. The failure of his

customers only enriches him; for he takes for his loan property worth

twice or thrice the sum he has advanced upon it. Given a million of men

and a hundred years of time, and the slightest advantage possessed by

any one class among the million must result, in the long run, in the

most startling discrepancies of condition. A little evil grows like a

ferment—it never ceases to operate; it is always at work. Suppose I

bring before you a handsome, rosy-cheeked young man, full of life and

hope and health. I touch his lip with a single _bacillus_ of _phthisis

pulmonalis_—consumption. It is invisible to the eye; it is too small to

be weighed. Judged by all the tests of the senses, it is too

insignificant to be thought of; but it has the capacity to multiply

itself indefinitely. The youth goes off singing. Months, perhaps years,

pass before the deadly disorder begins to manifest itself, but in time

the step loses its elasticity; the eyes become dull; the roses fade from

the cheeks; the strength departs, and eventually the joyous youth is but

a shell—a cadaverous, shrunken form, inclosing a shocking mass of

putridity; and death ends the dreadful scene. Give one set of men in a

community a financial advantage over the rest, however slight—it may be

almost invisible—and at the end of centuries that class so favored will

own everything and wreck the country. A penny, they say, put out at

interest the day Columbus sailed from Spain, and compounded ever since,

would amount now [A. D. 1890?] to more than all the assessed value of

all the property, real, personal and mixed, on the two continents of

North and South America.”

“But,” said Maximilian, “how would the men get along who wanted to

borrow?”

“The necessity to borrow is one of the results of borrowing. The disease

produces the symptoms. The men who are enriched by borrowing are

infinitely less in number than those who are ruined by it; and every

disaster to the middle class swells the number and decreases the

opportunities of the helpless poor. Money in itself is valueless. It

becomes valuable only by use—by exchange for things needful for life or

comfort. If money could not be loaned it would have to be put out by the

owner of it in business enterprises, which would employ labor; and as

the enterprise would not then have to support a double burden—to-wit,

the man engaged in it and the usurer who sits securely upon his back—but

would have to support only the former usurer, that is, the present

employer—its success would be more certain; the general prosperity of

the community would be increased thereby, and there would be, therefore,

more enterprises, more demand for labor, and consequently higher wages.

Usury kills off the enterprising members of a community by bankrupting

them, and leaves only the very rich and the very poor; but every dollar

the employers of labor pay to the lenders of money has to come

eventually out of the pockets of the laborers. Usury is therefore the

cause of the first aristocracy, and out of this grow all the other

aristocracies. Inquire where the money came from that now oppresses

mankind, in the shape of great corporations, combinations, etc., and in

nine cases out of ten you will trace it back to the fountain of interest

on money loaned. The coral island is built up of the bodies of dead

coral insects; large fortunes are usually the accumulations of wreckage,

and every dollar represents disaster.”

How Wealth Accumulates.

As proof of the fact that it is a mighty fortunate thing for humanity

that the Rothschilds did not conduct a bank in the year 1 A. D., I

reprint from the _Twentieth Century_ the following article by H. C.

Whitaker, which shows the beauties of interest-drawing:

“Had one cent been loaned on the 14th day of March, A. D. 1, interest

being allowed at the rate of 6 per cent., compounded yearly, then, 1894

years later—that is, on March 14, 1895—the amount due would be

$8,497,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

(8,497,840,000 decillions). If it were desired to pay this in gold, 23.2

grains to the dollar, then, taking spheres of pure gold, each the size

of the earth, it would take 610,070,000,000,000,000 of them to pay for

that cent. Placing these spheres in a straight row, their combined

length would be 4,826,870,000,000,000,000,000 miles, a distance which it

would take light (going at the rate of 186,330 miles per second)

820,890,000 years to travel.

“The planets and stars of the entire solar and stellar universe, as seen

by the great Lick telescope, if they were all of solid gold, would not

nearly pay the amount. A single sphere to pay the whole amount, if

placed with its center at the sun, would have its surface extending

563,580,000 miles beyond the orbit of the planet Neptune, the farthest

in our system.

“It may be added that if the earth had contained a population of ten

billions, each one making a million dollars a second, then to pay for

that cent it would have required their combined earnings for

26,938,500,000,000,000,000,000 years.”

[Illustration]

VII.

DEBT AND SLAVERY.

“And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim

liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants

thereof.”—_Leviticus_ 25:10.

“Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and

the mightiest to undermine government and corrupt the

people.”—WENDELL PHILLIPS.

FROM the earliest dawn of history debt has ever borne a close

relationship to slavery and servitude. “It is worthy of remark,” says

Grote (History of Greece, vol. III., p. 144), “that the first borrowers

must have been for the most part driven to this necessity by the

pressure of want, contracting debt as a desperate resource without any

fair prospect of ability to pay. Debt and famine run together in the

mind of the poet Hesiod. The borrower is in this unhappy state rather a

distressed man soliciting aid than a solvent man capable of making and

fulfilling a contract; and if he cannot find a friend to make a free

gift to him in the former character he would not under the latter

character obtain a loan from a stranger except by the promise of

exorbitant interest and by the fullest eventual power over his person

which he is in a position to grant.”

“This remark,” says Professor Nicholson in the _Encyclopedia

Britannica_, “suggested by the state of society in ancient Greece, is

largely applicable throughout the world until the close of the early

Middle Ages.” The conditions of ancient usury find a graphic

illustration in the account of the building of the second temple at

Jerusalem (Nehemiah 5:1-12). Some said: “We have mortgaged our lands,

vineyards and houses that we might buy corn, because of the dearth.”

Others said: “We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute, and that

upon our lands and vineyards, ... and lo, we bring into bondage our sons

and our daughters to be servants, ... neither is it in our power to

redeem them, for other men have our lands and vineyards.”

In ancient Greece we find a law of bankruptcy resting on slavery. In

Athens, about the time of Solon’s legislation (594 B. C.), the bulk of

the population who had originally been small proprietors became

gradually indebted to the rich to such an extent that they were

practically slaves; those who nominally owned their property owed more

than they could pay, and stone pillars erected on their land showed the

amount of the debts and the names of the lenders. Solon’s remedy for

this state of affairs was to cancel all debts made on the security of

the land or the person of the debtor, and at the same time he enacted

that henceforth no loans could be made on the bodily security of the

debtor, and the creditor was confined to a share of the property.

In Rome’s early history practically the same conditions prevailed as in

Greece. About 500 B. C. an attempt was made to remedy the evil by

providing a maximum rate of interest, no alteration being made, however,

in the law of debt. In the course of a few centuries the free farmers

were utterly destroyed. The pressure of war and taxes and usury drove

all into debt and into practical, if not technical, slavery. The old law

of debt was not really abolished until the dictatorship of Julius Cæsar,

who then practically adopted Solon’s legislation of more than five

centuries before, but too late to save the middle class.

In the course of centuries and the evolution of civilization chattel

slavery has been abolished; but the slavery of debt still remains, and

usury is now, as it was in all the history of mankind, the tool with

which debt forges the chains of nations. It is not the province of this

work to examine into the conditions of other countries than our own, but

the facts now to be presented will convince the thoughtful reader that

the American people are bound by chains of debt which it will require

the wisest statesmanship to break.

Representative Warner of Massachusetts (Republican), in a speech

delivered in Congress in 1894, stated that the interest-bearing debts of

the United States, public and private, aggregated a grand total of

$32,000,000,000 (thirty-two billions of dollars). This would be bad

enough, but careful estimates by conservative students of political

economy show that the amount is very much larger.

W. H. Harvey, author of “Coin’s Financial School,” makes the following

itemized estimate of the interest-bearing debts of this country, public

and private. Most of the figures are derived from recognized official

sources:

The national debt, according to the official

census of 1890, was $ 891,960,104

State and municipal debts (census 1890). 1,135,210,442

Railroad bonds, 1892 (“Poor’s Manual,” 1893) 5,463,611,204

Debt on farms and homes occupied by owner (R. R.

Porter, Supt. Eleventh Census, in _North

American Review_, vol. 153, p. 618) 2,500,000,000

Mortgaged indebtedness of business realty, street

railways, manufactories and business enterprises

(estimated from partial reports of 11th census) 5,000,000,000

Loans from 3,773 national banks (Statistical

Abstract of the United States) 2,153,769,806

Loans from 5,579 State savings, stock and private

banks and trust companies (Statistical Abstract

of the United States) 2,201,764,292

These are figures on which something definite has

been obtained; also the ratio of increase from

1880 to 1890, which was from $6,750,000,000 in

1880 to $19,000,000,000 in 1890. By computing

the same ratio of increase we should now add 8,000,000,000

Mortgage debts on homes not occupied by owner

(estimated) 1,000,000,000

Overdue accounts due merchants, wholesale and

retail, drawing from 6 to 10 per cent. interest

(estimated) 5,000,000,000

Debts due pawnbrokers, drawing from 60 to 120 per

cent. per annum or 5 to 10 per cent. a month

(estimated) 1,000,000,000

Private debts due from individuals to individuals

and of which there is no public record or other

data for census officers to obtain information

(estimated) 1,000,000,000

Maritime debts (estimated) 1,000,000,000

Overdrafts, judgments, overdue taxes and

miscellaneous items not included in the

foregoing (estimated) 4,000,000,000

———————-

Horrible total $40,346,315,848

In commenting on his figures, Mr. Harvey says: "Debts, a non-producing

industry, growing to such a magnitude that the profits derived from all

the producing industries of the country will not more than pay the

interest on these debts, make the producers thereafter work for the

benefit of the money-lending or non-producing class. When such a

condition as to debts arises as we now have, all money nearly gravitates

into the hands of the money-lenders and piles up in the money centers.

The effect of debts upon civilization has never been understood

generally. A prosperous country can carry about a certain proportion of

debt among its people without apparent injury, but when it reaches the

present proportion—a proportion only reached three times before in the

known history of the world—it produces commercial paralysis and the

financial enslavement of the people. All the people make goes to pay the

money-lenders their interest.

“When you pay money to a merchant or a manufacturer that you may owe,

the money you pay him is paid by him to others for material and other

products of his business, with no charge or embargo upon it; but when

you pay back to a money-lender a debt you owe him, the money stops there

until it is loaned out again to come back with interest. When this grows

to such an extent as to require all or most of the money in the country

to pay the interest on debts, then commerce slackens and there is little

or no money among the people except as loaned out by the banks and

others whose business it is to loan money. They are dealing in the blood

of commerce, and when they take it from the arteries of commerce there

is commercial sickness and distress.”

The Abstract of the Eleventh Census (page 189) gives the true valuation

of all real and personal property in the United States as only

$65,037,091,198. Against this we have an interest-bearing debt of forty

billions.

But Mr. Harvey’s figures are by no means complete. He says nothing about

the capital stock of the great railroad, telegraph, telephone, insurance

and other corporations, most of which is “water.” The reader may say

that this is not debt. But it is debt, as it represents what the

companies owe to their stockholders; it draws interest; it must pay

salaries and dividends. To say that we pay interest every year on

forty-five billions is a very conservative statement. And the debt is

constantly increasing, for the reason that there is not in circulation,

of all kinds of money, enough to pay this interest. Let us figure it

out. The average rate of interest is 6½ per cent. Let us say 6 per cent.

At this rate we pay each year $2,700,000,000—over $40 per capita. Think

of it! Forty dollars interest for every man, woman and child! Two

hundred dollars for every family! And this exclusive of taxation, which

adds still more to the burdens of life. The most blatant gold-bug does

not claim that there is $40 of money per capita in circulation. There

can be only one result, and that result is abject, hopeless

slavery—slavery under the guise of freedom, but still slavery—unless

this burden of debt is thrown off before the patient people succumb

entirely.

[Illustration]

VIII.

THE LAWS OF PROPERTY.

BY LYMAN TRUMBULL.

“Property, or the dominion of man over external objects,

has its origin from the Creator, as his gift to

mankind.”—BLACKSTONE (Dunlap’s Manual of the General

Principles of Law).

IT is chiefly the laws of property which have enabled the few to

accumulate vast wealth while the masses live in poverty. For many

generations our laws have been framed with a view to the claims of

property rather than the rights of man. For ages the money power has

controlled legislation the world over, and, I am sorry to say, has

exercised a controlling influence in our own land for many years. In the

language of the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal

and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among

these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If a man has an

inalienable right to life, then he has a right to the means which

sustain life, and of which he cannot be justly deprived by laws which

permit one man, or set of men, to so absorb the means of life as not to

leave sufficient to sustain the lives of all. If man has an inalienable

right to liberty, then he cannot be justly deprived of liberty by

another who assumes the right at his mere discretion to abridge it. If

man has an inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, then he cannot

be justly deprived of that right by laws interposed in the way of its

pursuit.

Do such laws exist, and if so, how came they into existence?

In Great Britain, whence we have derived most of our laws of property,

the policy is to build up great estates. Hence, by the laws of that

country, land descends to the eldest son, to the exclusion of the other

children. The effect of this is to limit the ownership of land to a few

persons. Thirty-four persons in that country own six million two hundred

and eleven thousand acres of land. The Duke of Sutherland is said to own

one million three hundred and fifty-eight thousand acres, and a few

other dukes and earls own a great proportion of the land of the United

Kingdom. What has brought about this wide difference in the ownership of

land? Certainly the few who own the millions of acres, from which they

derive revenue, in some instances of more than five hundred thousand

dollars annually, in rentals, have not earned these vast estates by

their own industry, but, on the contrary, it is by force of statutory

enactments that these vast estates have been accumulated and perpetuated

in few hands.

In this country we have abolished the law of primogeniture, by which the

eldest son inherited the landed estate of his ancestor, but here vast

estates are being rapidly accumulated in few hands, and this is

especially true during and since the War of the Rebellion. In 1860 there

were few millionaires and few large fortunes in this country, but since

then a rich class has sprung up, so that in 1890, according to reliable

statistics, ten per cent. of the people own as much wealth as the other

ninety per cent. In 1890 there were 12,690,182 families in the United

States, and according to George K. Holmes, in the _Political Science

Quarterly_, 4,047 of these possessed about seven-tenths as much as do

11,593,887 families. Just think of it. One family possessing the wealth

of 2,000 families the country over! In the city of New York alone there

are said to be five men whose aggregate wealth exceeds $500,000,000. How

many hundred millions are held by various wealthy corporations, coal and

oil syndicates and other trusts, I am unable to state. In the cities of

New York and Chicago hundreds of thousands of men and women, willing to

work, were out of employment last winter, many of whom must have

perished from want but for charity’s aid. These conditions another

winter promise to be no better.

The richest corporations and persons on earth are probably in the United

States. How have they accumulated their vast fortunes? Surely not by

their own industry and thrift, but by the aid of statutes regulating the

rights of property, generally statutes providing for the transmission of

property by descent or by will, or the creation of monopolies.

It is only by virtue of statutory law that man is permitted to make

disposition of his property by will, and it is only by virtue of

statutory law that one person is permitted to inherit property from

another, and it is by virtue of statute law that great corporate

monopolies have been built up.

No man has a natural right to dispose of property after death, nor has

one person a natural right to inherit property from another. As

Blackstone says: “There is no foundation in nature or in natural law why

the son should have the right to exclude his fellow creatures from a

determinate spot of land because his father did so before him, or why

the occupier of a particular field or of a jewel, when lying on his

death-bed, and no longer able to maintain possession, should be able to

tell the rest of the world which of them should enjoy it after him.”

Under Illinois laws, the owner of real estate is permitted to lease it

for an indefinite period, and compel future generations who occupy the

premises to pay rent to unborn generations. Leases for ninety-nine years

are quite common in Chicago. It is by no divine law that the occupant of

land to-day is allowed to compel its occupant one hundred years hence to

pay tribute for its use. The statutes of Illinois have given to the

owner of property the right to dispose of it by will, not wholly, but to

a certain extent. If married, neither the husband nor wife can give away

the homestead or dower rights of the other, nor can creditors, heirs or

devisees take from the widow her allowance.

The money power has governed legislation in all civilized countries for

generations. It matters not what party is in power in the national or

State governments of our own country, the money power has exercised a

controlling influence in many instances in the shaping and

administration of our laws.

If the accumulation of vast fortunes goes on another generation with the

same accelerated rapidity as during the present, the wealth of this

country will soon be consolidated in the hands of a few corporations and

individuals to as great an extent as the landed interests of Great

Britain now are.

What is the remedy for this state of things, which, if permitted to

continue, will make the masses of the people dependent upon the

generosity of the few for the means to live? So far as concerns

corporations of a public or quasi-public character—and none others

should exist—the remedy is simple. They are completely under the control

of the legislatures, whence they derive all their powers.

It is entirely competent for a legislature to provide the manner in

which the business of a corporation shall be conducted. It may provide

that the directors shall consist of few or many persons, that a portion

of them shall be taken from the employes of the corporation, selected by

them, another part from the stockholders who furnish the capital for

carrying on its business. It may provide that the employes shall first

be paid from the revenues of the company a certain fixed sum, graduated

according to the character of the work performed by each; that a fair

rate of interest shall then be paid upon the capital invested, and the

balance be distributed upon some equitable principle between the

employes and the stockholders. In case of loss the stockholders would

have to suffer, since the employe, having a right to live, must in all

cases receive his daily wages when dependent upon them for subsistence.

This principle receives judicial sanction from United States Circuit

Judge Caldwell, in his order entered in case of the Santa Fe Railroad,

as follows:

“Ordered that the men employed by the receivers in the operation of the

road and the conduct of its business shall be paid their monthly wages

not later than the 15th of the month following their accrual. If the

earnings of the road are not sufficient to pay the wages of the men as

herein directed, the receivers are hereby authorized and required to

borrow from time to time, as occasion may require, a sufficient sum of

money for that purpose. The obligations of the receivers for money

borrowed for this purpose specified in this order shall constitute a

lien on the property of the trust prior and superior to all other liens

thereon.”

Under the powers inherent in every sovereignty, government may regulate

the conduct of its citizens toward each other, and, when necessary for

the public good, the manner in which each shall use his own property.

Formerly, corporations having special privileges were created by special

acts, which the courts construed to be contracts between the granting

power and the corporators which, once granted, could not be repealed or

varied by the granting power. This granting of charters to favored

individuals, conferring upon them privileges not possessed by the

general public, became obnoxious to public sentiment, and, as a

consequence, general laws have been passed in this and many other

States, under which any three persons may become incorporated for any

private purpose. This has become a worse evil than the old system of

granting special charters. Under the general law enacted in this State

twenty years ago. I am informed, 27,200 corporations have been created.

Irresponsible persons are often induced, for a small consideration, to

form corporations with a proposed capital of millions; to subscribe for

the whole stock except a share or two, and, for a fancied, imaginary or

worthless consideration, to issue to themselves fully paid up stock,

which is subsequently transferred to the real parties in interest, who

expect thereby to escape personal liability if the concern is a failure,

and to pocket the profits if a success. Business of all sorts is now to

a great extent carried on in the name of corporations, in order that the

proprietors may escape personal responsibility. How can the individual,

who is personally responsible for his contracts, successfully compete

with a corporation run by persons who incur no such responsibility?

Doing business in a corporate name not only paralyzes individual effort,

but leads to a concentration of capital—the great evil of our time. The

remedy for this growing state of things would be to restrict the

formation of corporations to such as are formed for public purposes, or

such as the public have an interest in. Seventy-eight per cent. of the

great fortunes of the United States are said to be derived from

permanent monopoly privileges which ought never to have been granted.

As before stated, the power to dispose of property after death by will

is conferred by statute, under certain limitations. Why should this

privilege be given to dispose of more than a fixed amount of property to

any one individual? Say property to the value of not over five hundred

thousand dollars to the wife, of not more than one hundred thousand

dollars to each child, and of not more than fifty thousand dollars to

any other relative, extending to the third or fourth degree, and that

the balance of the estate should escheat to the State, to be used by it

for the support of schools, charitable institutions, the employment of

laborers in making roads, and other good purposes.

The law now provides for the escheat of estates of persons dying without

heirs. The same limitation might be put upon inheritances where there is

no will, and in this way the accumulation of vast estates by inheritance

or devise would be checked, and property, especially landed estates,

which by nature belong to all, would be more equally distributed. It

should not be forgotten that the method of transmitting property from

the dead to the living is entirely derived from the state. If public

policy requires that the state should give to the dying possessor, no

longer able to control or take with him his possessions, the privilege

of disposing of so much as may be conducive to the comfort and happiness

of his surviving kindred, does it require that this privilege should be

extended to his disposition of millions to the injury of the rest of

mankind?

If it be said that to limit the privilege of disposing of exceeding a

million dollars of property by devise or descent would check enterprise

and industry, as no man would struggle to acquire property which he

could not leave to his surviving kindred, my reply is, that man by his

own thrift and industry is seldom able to acquire more than a million

dollars’ worth of property. Fortunes exceeding that amount are usually

acquired by speculation, trickery, or some device by which one man takes

advantage of his fellow-man, and which, if not illegal, is immoral; or

by members of privileged monopolies, trusts and syndicates.

I don’t mean to say that all great fortunes exceeding a million have

been acquired by immoral means, but such as have not are the exception,

and to limit the privilege of disposing of more than a million by devise

or descent would not affect one in ten thousand of the people. In short,

such limitation would tend to discourage, not honest enterprise and

industry, but stock-jobbing, trickery and other questionable methods of

acquiring vast fortunes.

We have already abolished primogeniture, by which the eldest son, to the

exclusion of all other children, inherits the entire landed estate of

his ancestor, and no one in this country at this day would think of

restoring that right, although it still obtains in England. If

limitations should be put upon the disposition of vast estates by will

or descent, future generations would doubtless look upon our present

laws, which allow such estates to be perpetuated in certain families,

with the same disfavor with which we now look upon the laws of

primogeniture.

Evasions of laws limiting the amount of property to be devised or

inherited, by conveyance during life, could be prohibited in like manner

as conveyances in fraud of creditors are now prohibited.

[Illustration]

IX.

DIRECT LEGISLATION.

THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM.

“No people can be self-governing who are denied the right to

vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on every law by which they are to be

governed.”—ELTWEED POMEROY.

THE _Initiative_ gives the people the power to compel the legislature to

put in form all such laws as they may initiate or demand by a

preliminary vote.

_The Referendum_ gives the people the power to reject or ratify any

legislation enacted by the legislature. All legislative enactments to be

referred to the people for their ratification by vote before they become

laws.

_The Imperative Mandate_ gives the people the right to vote out of

office at any time men who fail to serve the public or who are untrue to

their pledges.

_Proportional Representation_ secures the representation of all parties

in proportion to their numerical strength.

_Representative Government_ means government by representatives elected

by the people, but independent of the people after election and

empowered to ignore or overrule the people’s will.

_Popular Government_, or democracy, means government of, for and by the

people. It will be possible only when all officeholders are honest or

when the people’s representatives are made subject to the people’s will

by the adoption of the referendum. History proves that permanent popular

government without direct legislation is impossible.

There is a radical difference between a democracy and a representative

government. Whenever a people are qualified for self-government no power

on earth can prevent them from exercising that right. The American

people have been too busy “making money” to study their real economic

needs, and the result is that irresponsible demagogues have made laws

which have plunged the nation into almost hopeless debt, paralyzed its

business and impoverished most of the people. The voters have several

times of late risen in their wrath and “turned the rascals out,” but it

was only to elect another set of rascals, of different political

complexion, perhaps, but equally dishonest and equally irresponsible.

The so-called “landslides” in recent elections, while they have resulted

in no real reform, indicate that the people have begun to think. Soon

they will realize that they can control their own government only by

keeping the legislation in their own hands—that they must not delegate

their sovereignty to representatives or servants, by whatever name they

may be known. It is only by means of the _initiative_ and the

_referendum_ that the people can maintain their supremacy. The general

adoption of this system is the next step in the world’s progress.

The initiative and referendum will take the element of partisanship out

of the settlement of economic questions, and this alone is sufficient

reason why it should be adopted. Suppose the question of tariff were

submitted to the people to vote on. Members of all parties would vote

for it and against it, and the majority would decide. It would become a

question of economics, not a partisan issue, and would be settled on its

merits. The same with the free coinage of silver, paper money, public

ownership of railroads, prohibition, and every other great question

which the old political parties have straddled or evaded.

But the principal advantage of the referendum is that it would do away

entirely with the lobby—“the third house.” There would be no inducement

for any one to bribe the lawmakers. They might sell their individual

votes, but these would be worthless, as only the people could “deliver

the goods.” The people would be quick to see the value of the franchises

and privileges which are now being practically given away, to be used by

corporations to still further enslave the masses.

Switzerland is the home of the referendum. It is commonly believed that

that republic has existed for six hundred years. The fact, however, is

that it is the youngest of republics. The characteristic features of the

government, those which make it a republic in fact as well as in name,

were instituted by the present generation. It is the only country in the

world to-day which has overthrown its plutocracy and which has made it

impossible for corrupt politicians to rule the people through the

representative system. To the principle of direct legislation, as

carried out by the initiative and referendum must be ascribed the happy

conditions which surround its politics. Mr. W. D. McCrackan, author of

“The Rise of the Swiss Republic,” who has made a special study of the

subject, has published in the _Arena_ his observations of Swiss

politics. He finds that, as a result of the referendum, jobbery and

extravagance are unknown, and that politics, as there is no money in it,

has ceased to be a trade. Officeholders are taken from the ranks of

citizenship and are invariably chosen because of their fitness for the

work. The people take an intelligent interest in the legislation, local

and federal, and are fully imbued with a sense of their political

responsibilities. The _Westminster Review_, speaking of the referendum,

expresses this opinion:

“The bulk of the people move more slowly than their representatives, are

more cautious in adopting new and trying legislative experiments and

have a tendency to reject propositions submitted to them for the first

time.... The issue which is presented to the sovereign people is

invariably and necessarily reduced to its simplest expression and so

placed before them as to be capable of an affirmative or negative

answer. In practice, therefore, the discussion of details is left to the

representative assemblies, while the public express approval or

disapproval of the general principle or policy embraced in the proposed

measure. Public attention being confined to the issue, leaders are

nothing. Collective wisdom judges of merits.”

In some of the cantons of Switzerland the referendum has been in

practice since the sixteenth century. As it is now employed it was

adopted by the canton of St. Gallen in 1830, and in 1848 it was

incorporated in the Swiss federal constitution. It has been so extended

since then that it is now in operation in all the Swiss cantons except

Freiburg.

According to the Swiss constitution all amendments thereto must be

ratified by the Swiss electors before they become effective. Other

measures, like ordinary enactments, must be submitted to a popular vote

if a demand is made for such submission, written ninety days after their

publication. This demand must be made by 30,000 voters or by the

government of eight of the nineteen entire and six half cantons. In

Switzerland the referendum has proved to be entirely satisfactory as a

check upon hasty or class legislation.

In his valuable book, “Direct Legislation,” J. W. Sullivan thus recounts

what the Swiss have done by direct legislation:

“They have made it easy at any time to alter their cantonal or federal

constitutions—that is, to change, even radically, the organization of

society, the social contract, and thus to permit a peaceful revolution

at the will of the majority. They have as well cleared from the way of

majority rule every obstacle—privilege of ruler, fetter of ancient law,

power of legislator. They have simplified the structure of government,

held their officials as servants, rendered bureaucracy impossible,

converted their representatives to simple committeemen, and shown the

parliamentary system not essential to law-making. They have written

their laws in language so plain that a layman may be judge in the

highest court. They have forestalled monopolies, improved and reduced

taxation, avoided incurring heavy public debts, and made a better

distribution of their land than any other European country. They have

practically given home rule in local affairs to every community. They

have calmed disturbing political elements; the press is purified, the

politician disarmed, the civil service well regulated. Hurtful

partisanship is passing away. Since the people as a whole will never

willingly surrender their sovereignty, reactionary movement is possible

only in case the nation should go backward. But the way is open forward.

Social ideals may be realized in act and institution. Even now the

liberty-loving Swiss citizen can discern in the future a freedom in

which every individual—independent, possessed of rights in nature’s

resources and in command of the fruits of his toil—may, at his will, on

the sole condition that he respect the like aim of other men, pursue his

happiness.”

Proportional Representation.

The term proportional representation has come to be generally applied to

a method of electing representatives whereby the representation shall be

in proportion to the votes polled by the several parties, or groups of

voters, as against the present method of electing them from single

districts by a plurality vote. To effect this end numerous plans have

been put forth.

The _cumulative vote_ allows the voter as many votes as there are

representatives to be elected and permits him to distribute them as he

pleases among the candidates. This method is applied in a limited degree

to the choice of members of the lower house of the Illinois legislature.

Each district elects three members, and the voter can cast three votes

for one candidate, one and a half votes for two, or one vote each for

three.

With the _limited or restricted vote_ the voter has a less number of

votes than the number of representatives to be elected. Thus in the city

of Boston the new law allows the voter to vote for only seven aldermen

on one ticket, and declares the twelve candidates receiving the highest

vote elected.

The _preferential_, or, as it is commonly known, _the Hare vote_, allows

the voter to cast one ballot upon which he has named as many candidates

as he sees fit, the candidates named being understood to represent the

first, second, third, etc., choice. The whole number of ballots cast is

divided by the number of representatives to be chosen, and the quotient

is the quota, or number of votes required to elect one candidate. In

counting the ballots the first choices are read first; the candidate who

receives a quota is declared elected, and the remaining votes cast for

him are counted for the next name on the ballot who is the second choice

of the voter.

The _free list, or Swiss vote_, allows the voter to vote for a list or

ticket, as we do in this country, and to designate preferences on the

list. The total vote is divided as in the Hare system to get the quota,

and the several parties are apportioned representatives according to the

number of quotas they have. The successful candidates are those standing

highest on their respective lists. This method is now in use in

Switzerland for the election of representatives.

The _Gove system_ is a modified form of the Hare method. Instead of the

voter naming the candidates whom he prefers, the candidates themselves

before election announce to whom they will give their surplus vote.

The _proxy vote_ is simply an introduction of the corporation vote into

legislative bodies. The candidates who are elected in the legislative

assembly cast, not their individual votes, as at present, but the number

of proxies they hold.

It will be seen that there are three principles involved in these

several methods, the election by cumulation of votes, the election by

quotas, and the vote by proxies. The cumulative vote was the first to be

put into actual service, being used in England for the election of

members of school boards, etc., and in this country in the so-called

three-cornered districts for the election of members of the legislature.

It still has the support of quite a number of persons, but its

limitations are now coming to be recognized. John Stuart Mill, who was

an advocate of the cumulative vote, declared it to be merely a makeshift

in comparison with the quota system of Hare. The objection to the

cumulative vote lies in the fact that if the districts are small only

two parties can obtain representation, and these in an arbitrary way,

while if the districts be larger, that is, if the number of

representatives in the district be made greater, the waste and

uncertainty is apparent. A party may decide to vote for four candidates

when it has votes enough to elect six; or it may try for six when it has

votes for only four. In either case it is deprived of a part of its just

share in the representation. The proxy system contains some theoretical

merits, but it is feared that in practice it would not work well at

present. The tendency to hero-worship would prompt so many voters to

give their proxies to a few favorites that the real voting strength of

the assembly would be in the hands of two or three men, thus destroying

its value as a deliberative body.

The real strength of proportional representation lies in some form of

the quota principle, and the tendency in this country, as in Switzerland

and Belgium, is toward the free list.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMPORTANT BOOKS, MOSTLY WITH A PURPOSE,

Published and Sold by

THE SCHULTE PUBLISHING COMPANY.

[Illustration]

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=Betsy Gaskins (Dimicrat).=

By W. I. HOOD. With 120 illustrations by C. B. FALLS, and an appendix

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[Illustration]

IT is an easy matter to “float with the tide,” but it takes courage,

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abominable “rot,” it is refreshing to find one man who has the courage

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[Illustration]

=Any book on this list will be sent postpaid, or delivered by our

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------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note

Errors deemed most likely to be the printer’s have been corrected, and

are noted here. Inconsistencies in the punctuation in the list of

illustration captions have been resolved, without any annotation here.

In that sequentially numbered list, number 126 had been misprinted as

216, and has been corrected.

On p. 368, the paragraph derived from _William Jocob_ refers to _William

Jacob’s_ _An historical inquiry into the production and consumption of

precious metals, Vol. I._, 1831. The statistics given are extracted from

multiple pages, which makes the mis-matched closing quotation mark

misleading at best.

Lapses in punctuation in the advertising pages have also been silently

addressed.

Hyphenation is not always consistent. Where the hyphen appeared at the

end of a line, it was retained or removed based on the usage elsewhere

in the text.

The references are to the page and line in the original. The following

issues should be noted, along with the resolutions.

66.20 In this he dident do his dooty[,/.] Replaced.

75.30 Tur[n]in to the lot of high-toned cattle Inserted.

86.22 “Why, Jobe,” says[,] I, Added.

118.17 and as a differe[u/n]ce of $400 Transposed.

288.7 Since the world-wide demonetization of Inserted.

silver[,] gold only

294.1 gold and silver are ho[a]rded or exported Inserted.

309.5 which resulted in clearing Massachu[s]etts of Inserted.

debt

313.2 so [plenty] here. _sic_

plentiful?

320.25 or duties on imports, supp[p]osing that Removed.

324.32 The Dem[o]crats Added.

325.18 _The Act of December 17, 1860 (Statutes Wrong

[11/12])_ volume.

330.36 whose motto was[./,] “Act in the living Replaced.

present.”

331.32 the amount of indem[n]ity due Germany Inserted.

342.26 such money to[ to] be kept Removed.

346.4 when c[a/o]mpared with gold Replaced.

348.16 put public obligatio[n/u]s into stocks Inverted.

348.23 is villainy unnamed and unnam[e]able. Inserted.

349.24 s[i/u]bmit to the gold standard Replaced.

357.7 and of Threadneedle St[r]eet in London Inserted.

368.8 _William J[o/a]cob, F. R. S._ Replaced.

384.28 1[9/8]90 to more than all the assessed value Replaced.

396.32 manner i[u/n] which the business Replaced.

397.5 according to the chara[c]ter Inserted.

397.30 when nece[c/s]sary for the public good Replaced.

497.33 count[r]y>, as in Switzerland and Belgium, Inserted.