People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 February 1895 — DRIVING OUT CAPITAL. [ARTICLE]

DRIVING OUT CAPITAL.

If Our People Were Out of Debt They Might Prosper. Populists claim most diligently that the interest bearing debts of the United States are over 830,000,000,000. The interest on this vast snm far exceeds the total producing power of the United States at this time. The producing classes (farmers and manufacturers) must eat and be clothed. How to do this and pay the interest is a problem. A problem that means starvation, destitution and misery. A list of the debts is an interesting

study. First, as near as the facts can be asccrtained the total open accounts of merchants, manufacturers, etc., amount l o 811,000,000,000 in round numbers. By the census of 1800 and Poor's manual for 1892, the indebtedness of the United States was reported as follows: National, 8891,900,104, State and municipal, 8135,310,643. Kallway bonds in 189.1, 86,463,0i1,004. Farm and home debts, 82,500,000,000. Mortgages on realty, street railways, manufactories and other like business enterprises, 85,350,000,000. National bank loans, 83,153,760.805. Ixmns by state, savings and private banks and trust companies, 82,251,764,292. Total indebtedness, 830,746.315,848, >n which the productive labor of the e mntry is paying annually an interest charge of 81,854,778,951. Every dollar of debt, whatever its character, is a mortgage on labor until paid. Plunging cities into debt is folly and ci’hne. If our people were out of debt they would be prosperous; in debt deeply, as they now are, prosperity is out of the question. Upon this showing any state, city or county in the nation that succeeds in ■•driving out capital” i> doing itself a kindness. The interest account is ns large as the producers of this nation can stand.—Denver Road.