People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1895 — A GOVERNMENT LOAN. [ARTICLE]

A GOVERNMENT LOAN.

BUSINESS wHEN LOANED TO A BANKER. Paternalism When Loaned to a Farmer —Reasons Why the People’* Party Is Beroiuin? the Greatest Factor In National Polities. The national banking law is class legislation. Those having $50,000 can invest in that amount of non-taxable, interest-bearing government bonds. Then they can organize a banking corporation, and upon depositing these bonds with the government as security, Uncle Sam will indorse $45,006 of the corporation's notes, printing, and supplying them at a tax if one per cent. These notes the corporation can use the same as money in their banking business, loan them cut to the people at usurious rates of interest, etc. The bonds keep right on drawing interest, however, and are non-taxable —a good investment in themselves. This privilege of depositing money (bonds) with Uncle Sam, then draw out 90 per cent, and still draw in.erest upon the whole of the original deposit, is one which is not granted to the poorer classes of our people. It would, indeed, be a grand thing for our farmers if they could sell their crops, invest their receipts in bonds, draw interest upon the bonds, and the government indorse their notes to the amount of 90 per cent of their investment in bonds, these notes to pass current as money in liquidating debts and buying machinery, provisions, clothing, etc. National bankers go into spasms whenever the subject of government loans to the people is broached, but what in the world would they go into if it was seriously agitated that the farmers should have the same privilege of investing their one hundred or five hundred dollars in government bonds as Shylock has investing his $50,000? And why shouldn’t a farmer’s note of $lO, indorsed by Uncle Sam, be just as good as the national banker’s $lO note, being secured by interest-bearing, nontaxable bonds deposited with Uncle Sam? There would certainly be no difference in the value of the two; one would have just as much “basis” and “backing” as the other. The only reason why we can’t buy a $lO government bond and deposit it at Washington, and have Uncle Sam indorse our note for $9, is because thi3 is not a government of, by and for the people, but of, by and for the few; because we have class legislation whereby the rich are made richer and the poor made poorer, by being taxed and robbed to make the rich richer. Let a poor man go to Washington and importune Uncle Sam to give him the privilege (in proportion to his means) as the rich man has, and the associated press wires would fairly laugh as the message sped over them to the four quarters of the earth that a fool “crank” called at the treasury department and wanted to buy a $lO bond, stating that he wished to deposit it with Uncle Sam to indorse a $9 note for him, so he could pay off $9 of his indebtedness and still have $lO left, safely invested in an interest-bearing, non-taxable bond! He would be a “crank,” indeed —about as “cranky” as any “crank” ever gets to be—to expect a privilege from the present monopoly government, which is only intended for the favored few and not for the many; which is only intended for the non-pro-ducing shylock and not for the producing masses. No wonder millionaireism is increasing upon the one hand and pauperism upon the other.—Free Trader.