Usury Part 14

The demand of capital has come to absorb a large portion of the produce of labor. In 1890 the wage-earners created a value of $3,579,168,172 and received out of it wages amounting to $1,981,228,321, leaving in the hands of the employers $1,687,939,851.

Labor thus received a little less than 53 per cent. of its product. In 1900 the wage-earners created a value of $4,640,784,931 and received out of it wages amounting to $2,323,407,257, leaving in the hands of employers $2,317,377,674. The employers and employes divided labor's product so evenly that the difference does not amount to one-eighth of one per cent.

The decade 1890 to 1900 has been of unprecedented prosperity to capital, but the advantages to labor have not appeared. When the number of laborers at the beginning and the close of the decade are considered the annual income of the wage-earner at the close of the decade is actually $7 per year less than ten years ago.

The tribute to property must first be gained, the wages are secondary.

If the tribute is not paid the enterprise is regarded as not successful and the industry closes.

There is no protection for the laborer except the selfishness of capitalists themselves in compet.i.tion to secure the services of labor.

But the selfish strife has rather resulted in the combination of their capital to dispense with labor or to cause the same labor to produce more by the employment of more capital. The effect is to give employment to capital rather than to labor. If labor can be dispensed with by borrowing more capital, then a loan is secured and the laborer is dismissed. Thus capital is made to crowd out the laborer and gains for itself his reward. This diminishes the call for labor and increases the number of the unemployed and they become compet.i.tors for the privilege of working. The opportunities for labor becoming fewer, the strife for work becomes fiercer. The laborer is helpless to resist, as his wants do not stop; his family must be fed and clothed and housed. The struggle is unequal between "flesh and blood" and a material thing that, by a false economy, is given not only the power of self-support but also continuous increase. For this reason combinations of laborers never have been and never can be successful in a conflict with capital. So long as the false principle is admitted, all efforts must fail. So long as it is granted that property has earning power, the effort will be made by the owners of property, and always successfully made, to have property receive the larger portion of the reward. The true order will be reversed; the laborer will be given a mere subsistence while the increase will be claimed for the capital; the very opposite of the true order, the mere preservation or subsistence of the capital, while all the increase belongs to the laborers.

CHAPTER XXVII.

USURY OPPRESSES THE POOR--Continued.

Usury makes it possible to impose on the poor the princ.i.p.al burden of taxation. Though taxes are levied upon property it is a delusion to think that those who own no property pay no taxes. By usury the taxes are easily slipped upon the poor.

If the tax levy is one per cent. on property then in a year the one hundred dollars has been decreased by one dollar and is but ninety-nine, unless that dollar has been supplied from other earnings of the owner. Thus vacant lots, jewels and h.o.a.rded stores are a burden to their owner. But when the property can add to itself an increase, then there need be no diminution of the amount, and no sacrifice is necessary on the part of the owner. If the wealth is placed in the form of a loan on mortgage on a house, the tenant in his rental pays the interest on that mortgage, which meets the tax and also yields a revenue to the owner, and leaves the wealth undiminished. The tenant earned the tax, and both property and owner are relieved. The mortgage may be upon a manufacturing plant, when the operatives pay the tax from their earnings.

The bonded debt of a city or state, in the ultimate result, is collected from the productive labor. To pay the interest and princ.i.p.al of the bonded debt of a city the tax levy is increased, and a greater proportionate amount of labor is appropriated. Laboring people without property are often amazed at the indifference of property holders when a great bonded debt is incurred, as both interest and princ.i.p.al are to be paid by a tax upon property. Those who make the loan to the city, and all who hold mortgages and dividend paying properties, are complacent because the taxes of a hundred years would never diminish their property a dollar, though the tax levy should be doubled. It would raise the interest on money, diminish the price of labor and raise the price of goods, but those who profit by the gain of usury are untouched by it.

Recently complaints were made by the tenants of one of the poor districts of London because their rentals had been greatly increased.

The reply of the landlord was direct and clear: "You have voted for public improvements and now you must pay for them."

The same is true of the interest and princ.i.p.al of the national debt.

The revenue is raised from a levy upon importations, as, for example, tea, the tax on which is ten cents per pound. The tax is collected from the importer and by him attached to the price for which it is sold to the wholesale dealer and by him attached to the price he charges the retail dealer and by him the amount is collected from the consumer. Sufficient notice is usually given that the importer and the dealers may dispose of all their goods before the tariff is removed. A public announcement of such a purpose was recently made in reference to the tax upon tea.

The tax collected from the consumer is far heavier than the mere levy of the government. The importer demands a profit on the amount of revenue tax he has paid as well as on the amount he pays for the goods. This results in greatly increasing the burdens of the poor. The revenue tax recently imposed by Great Britain of three pence per cwt.

on wheat and five pence per cwt. on flour resulted immediately in the addition of one penny to the price of the four-pound loaf to the consumers.

Again: This attributing to property the quality of self-perpetuation and increase has led to its incorporation and in a manner separation from those who own it. Property must always have an owner.

Personality must always come in else there are no rights to be considered. Labor apart from a person laboring and property apart from a person owning are impersonal and no ethical or moral laws can be applied to them. They are only physical forces and material things.

The wind may push against a tree and overcome its resistance and the tree falls. That is merely an abstract force against a material thing.

But when my energy is exerted against your tree and destroys it, then personal responsibility and personal rights must be considered. A righteous adjustment between labor and capital can never be arrived at without the consideration of the personal elements on both sides. The moral and ethical laws must be applied as well as the physical and economic.

Incorporated property, however, has eliminated from it the ethical and moral responsibility of personality and is regarded as possessed only of economic and physical qualities and restrained only by legal statutes.

Incorporated properties are not generally managed by those who own them. The managers are employed by the owners, who are ready to pay large compensation to those who have the tact and brain and nerve power and peculiar quality of conscience to gain for them a satisfactory increase. It is their work to press this irresponsible material body up against "flesh and blood."

The incorporation employs the laborer when his labor earns a satisfactory dividend on the capital, and lays him off or discharges him whenever it seems most to the advantage of the investment. A plant is built and operated for a time and then the plant is closed, or the location is changed without the slightest regard to the sacrifices of the poor laborers who have gathered around and are left stranded.

Laborers everywhere throughout Christendom need and beg for a Sabbath of rest, but neither physical needs nor conscientious scruples are regarded when a greater dividend can be gained in seven days than in six.

On the part of the workman, resistance is useless. He can do nothing but yield to the economic and physical force managed by those in whom human sympathy and pity for the suffering and helpless are not permitted. The dividend must be gained though it be necessary to grind the poor.

The owner of this steel plant is in a distant city. All employes, from the manager down to the porter, must so serve that he shall receive the dividend. This mercantile house is owned by a woman on a pleasure trip round the world. All who are connected with this business must so serve and sacrifice that she shall receive her income regularly. This railroad is owned by those who have gone a-yachting in southern seas.

It must be so managed that the revenues shall not fail whatever the sacrifice required of others.

The writer once heard an American statesman, who afterward became President of the United States, deliver an elaborate and carefully prepared oration on a great occasion, in which he discussed the growing power and controlling influence in state and national affairs of incorporations. He did not formulate a remedy but said, "The problem to be solved by the next generation is, how shall the people be protected against the encroachments of incorporated wealth?" It need scarcely be said that there was no discussion of that question during the campaign which closed with his election to the presidency.

Usury is both the basis of the incorporation and the instrument of its oppression. Incorporated wealth must not be permitted to claim personal rights and yet escape personal responsibility. It must be held to the same ethical and moral laws as the individual. Personal responsibility must not be eliminated from property. It must not be divested of personal responsibility and then pressed as a mere material thing up against "flesh and blood."

No instrument of oppression ever surpa.s.sed in severity the usury of incorporated wealth and retained the pretense of respectability. It is sucking the blood of the poor every hour, yet they cherish and pet the vampire, not realizing that it is their blood upon which it feeds.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

USURY OPPRESSES THE POOR--Concluded.

Usury increases its burdens in proportion to the poverty. It is the most oppressive upon the poorest. Property in any measure is a relief.

However small the amount may be, to that degree it a.s.sists in bearing the burden. Those who have a home are relieved of the burden of usury by rent. Those who own their shops or farms on which they can employ their labor are relieved of the usury of tools and material. From the conditions now prevailing the burden of usury rests on all those, the half of whose income is the product of their own labor. The one who receives one-half his income from the interest on property and one-half from his own labor has no advantage from usury. The income of his labor would bring him as many of the comforts of life as his labor now does, plus the income from his property. There is no advantage until a greater part of the income is derived from property. A small savings account, adding a few dollars annually to the income, is a very small offset to the constant drain from usury in all that we buy and upon all our earnings. The full burden however is upon those who have nothing but their own productive energy; who receive only wages and must buy in the market. As the relief afforded by property decreases, the oppressive burden of usury in present conditions increases.

It is a fair estimate that usury is oppressive until relieved by the income from property to the amount of one-half of the entire income received. When less, the oppression begins and leans its full weight and without pity upon the poorest and most helpless.

He that has no property is dependent upon others for employment and in his wages must give a part of his product as tribute to the capital he uses. This, in the case of the average wage earner in this country, is not less than one-third, that is, he who earns one dollar and a half will receive as wages one dollar, the other half dollar is retained by the employer as due for the capital invested. Then having no home he must pay tribute to property in shelter for himself and family. The rent will be higher in proportion to the poverty of the apartments.

The poorest tenement returns the highest rate of interest to the landlord.

His decreased wages do not make the necessities of life proportionately cheap to him. He pays usury in the price of the fuel which he burns, of the oil, gas or electric light in his home. In the price of vegetables, bread and clothes and shoes. There is an increased outgo at every turn which he cannot avoid. He is helpless to resist.

He can but struggle staggering along while work is given and his health and strength remain. When these fail he falls and must become entangled in debt, from which there is no hope of being able to extricate himself.

The state recognizes the hopelessness of the poor man who is in debt and has provided a relief by bankruptcy, by which he may again arise and struggle on. This discharge in bankruptcy is an act of mercy but the relief from the oppressions of usury would be an act of justice.

Grinding the helpless poor between low wages and high prices and then relieving them by the act of bankruptcy is only pulling them out of the mill to throw them into the hopper again, for the wage earner who has no protection from any property is between these upper and nether mill stones.

Those who defend the fraud of usury always take to cover behind the widow and the fatherless. They plausibly pretend to be zealous for their protection while endeavoring to hide their own greed. Their pleas are often touchingly pathetic. "A thrifty loving father was taken away by death from a dear wife and sweet little ones. They had always leaned on his strong arms. He was their joy, their protector and their support. This widow and her fatherless children are left with nothing to support them except the saved hard earnings of this husband's life. As these earnings are their only support they are deposited with care with the 'Security Co.' for safety and that the regular interest dues may be received without fail. If there should be one failure they would suffer. The 'Security Co.' loan their deposits as opportunity offers. They take some local mortgages and also some mortgages on western lands. They buy some bonds of a milling trust and also of a railroad and street car line and some national bonds and loan on personal security to local merchants and traders. From all these sources the interest is regularly collected and regularly paid to this widowed mother, without which she and her little fatherless dear ones must suffer. 'Certainly,' they say 'usury is not oppressive to the widow and the fatherless. Usury comes to the help of the helpless.'"

Another faithful industrious father was taken away from his wife and his little ones. He had been their stay and support. He was sober and thrifty but sickness and untoward conditions made acc.u.mulations impossible. When he, the head of the home, was taken away there was nothing for the support of these helpless little ones and their widowed mother but her own arms and head and heart. There was no time for sentiment and tears. These little ones must be sheltered and their hungry mouths must be fed. Restraining her grief, she bravely undertakes the heavy task.

She rents a room but the rental is high, for the interest must be paid on a mortgage held by the Security Co. She finally finds a shop where she secures employment but the wages are low, for the shop is heavily mortgaged to the Security Co. and the interest must be paid or the shop will be closed and even this opportunity for scant wages will be lost. The distance requires that she shall ride to her work but the round trip costs two nickels and one of them goes to the Security Co.

for interest on their bonds and stock. She buys a loaf of bread but the wheat was raised on a western farm mortgaged to the Security Co.

and the interest was charged up against the wheat. The wheat was floured in a trust mill and the interest on the Security Co. bonds were charged up against the flour. It was transported by a railroad that charged up against it the interest on the bonds held by the Security Co. It was baked in a mortgaged oven and handled by a local dealer doing business on capital he had borrowed of the Security Co.

How much of her bread money went for interests is an intricate problem. She only notices that her loaf is small.

The same oppressive tribute must be paid on all that she buys to feed and clothe herself and her little ones.

The first widow does not live upon the earnings of her husband. They are untouched at the end of a year nor diminished as the years pa.s.s.

By the operation of usury she has lived upon the hard earnings of this poor widow. The laborers on the western farms contributed to her support in decreases of wages; the operatives of the railways, the workmen in the mill, the baker and merchant all contribute a portion, but it cannot be denied that the heaviest burden comes upon the poorest. The rich widow has fed her children with the bread which the poor widow earned.

The flaunting sympathy for the poor of those who themselves feed upon them, is rank hypocracy. Nor can those who have grown fat by the practice of usury, condone the crime by tossing back to them a portion of the unjust gain.

"Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his soul?... Is not this the fast that I have chosen?... To undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free?... Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house?"