Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 June 1891 — NOT ENTITLED TO CREDENCE. [ARTICLE]

NOT ENTITLED TO CREDENCE.

Senator-elect Peffer is the man who, just now, is given to reckless and false assertions to a greater extent than any of his associates who have been in the calamity business these many years. His speech at the People’s convention has been printed in full, and is evidence of his unreliability. It is crowded with misrepresentations. In fact, there is scarcely a sentence which does not assert an untruth. In that speech he asserts that the Superintendent of the Census has finally given the country the ‘ damning record” that “one-half of the farms of the country are under mortgage.” Unless Mr. Peffer has lort his senses he must know that what he asserts is utterly false. The Superintendent of the Census has published no statement whatever as to the number of farms under mortgage. He has collected the data, and will, as soon as possible, present the figures. For lowa and Alabama he has published statements relative to the mortgages on farms. The investigation in lowa shows that not onequarter, or even one-eighth, of the farms of that State are under mortgage; that 75 per cent. 6f the outstanding mortgages are for purchase money and to make improvements; that a large part of the remaining 25 per cent, was mortgaged to enable the men borrowing the money to embark in business, and that less than 3 per cent, of the whole amount was obtained on mortgage to enable the owners of the lands to get money to pay debts contracted to meet current expenses due to accident and misfortune. These are all the facts which the Superintendent of the Census has published, and it seems impossible that Mr. Peffer does not know it. He must know it; but whether he does or not, the fact that he makes such absurd misrepresentations should discredit him with all persons who have either intelligence or candor.