There is no record of the repeal of any of these edicts.

The leaders of the Protestant reformation also denounced usury.

Luther was violent in his opposition, using the strongest language he could command. "Whoever eats up, robs and steals the nourishment of another, commits as great a murder, as he who carves a man or utterly undoes him. Such does a usurer, and he sits the while on his stool, when he ought rather to be hanging from the gallows."

Melancthon, Beza and others are accounted against usury.

The decisions of Ecclesiastical Councils were numerous and emphatic until the seventeenth century. Since that time interest taking has become common, all but universal, but there is no record found anywhere of its direct approval by any ecclesiastical body. The Church has come to tolerate it but has never given it official approval.

Usury has not been included in any creed or confession of faith, nor has it been directly approved by any council or general assembly.

The truth has not been left in any age without its witness. There have always been those more or less prominent in the Church who contended that it was unjust and oppressive. Some of them have been of world-wide distinction. The writer has a letter written him by John Clark Ridpath, the historian, expressing his agreement with the views presented in these pages. Another of these is brilliant John Ruskin, recently deceased. Quotations from him will close this review.

"I have not so perverted my soul nor palsied my brain as to expect to be advantaged by that adhesion (usury). I do not expect that because I have gathered much to find Nature or man gathering more for me; to find eighteen pence in my box in the morning instead of the shilling as a reward of my continence, or to make an income of my Koran by lending it to poor scholars. If I think he can read it and will carefully turn the leaves by the outside, he is welcome to read it for nothing."

"Thus in all other possible or conceivable cases, the moment our capital is increased by having lent it, be it but the estimation of a hair, that hair-breadth of increase is usury, just as much as stealing a farthing is theft no less than stealing a million."



CHAPTER XI.

CALVIN'S LETTER ON USURY.

A mere hint of encouragement to the usurer came from Calvin. In a letter, to a friend, he hesitatingly expressed opinions that have ever since been quoted in defense of the practice. He alone of all the reformers took a doubtful stand. He has often been referred to and given great credit for his opinion, even by those who utterly reject all the doctrines he most earnestly advocated. The fear that he expressed near the opening, that some word might be seized to take more license than he would allow had reason, for this letter has been the basis for all the apologies for usury that have ever been attempted. In these last days all who have tried to present fully the moral law as comprehended in the ten commandments have felt called upon to make some apology for the prevailing practice of usury in connection with the eighth command. They all refer to this letter. Sometimes there is a brief quotation, given in Latin and left untranslated, to convince the ignorant, for Calvin wrote in Latin.

Letter of Calvin: De Usuris Responsum.

"I have not yet essayed what could fitly be answered to the question put to me; but I have learned by the example of others with how great danger this matter is attended. For if all usury is condemned tighter fetters are imposed on the conscience than the Lord himself would wish. Or if you yield in the least, with that pretext, very many will at once seize upon unlicensed freedom, which can then be restrained by no moderation or restriction. Were I writing to you alone I would fear this the less; for I know your good sense and moderation, but as you ask counsel in the name of another, I fear, lest he may allow himself far more than I wish by seizing upon some word, yet confident that you will look closely into his character and from the matter that is here treated judge what is expedient, and to what extent, I shall open my thoughts to you.

"And first, I am certain that by no testimony of Scripture is usury wholly condemned. For the sense of that saying of Christ, 'Lend, hoping for nothing again' (Luke 6:35), has up to this time been perverted; the same as another passage when speaking of splendid feasts and the desire of the rich to be received in turn, he commands them rather to summon to these feasts, the blind, the lame, and other needy men, who lie at the cross-roads and have not the power to make a like return. Christ wished to restrain men's abuse of lending, commands them to lend to those from whom there is no hope of receiving or regaining anything; and his words ought to be interpreted, that while he would command loans to the poor without expectation of repayment or the receipt of interest, he did not mean at the same time to forbid loans to the rich with interest, any more than the injunction to invite the poor to our feasts did not imply that the mutual invitation of friends to feasts is in consequence prohibited. Again the law of Moses was political and should not influence us beyond what justice and philanthropy will bear.

"It could be wished that all usury and the name itself were first banished from the earth. But as this cannot be accomplished it should be seen what can be done for the public good. Certain passages of Scripture remain in the Prophets and Psalms in which the Holy Spirit inveighs against usury. Thus a city is described as wicked because usury is practiced in the forum and streets, but as the Hebrew word means frauds in general, this cannot be interpreted so strictly. But if we concede that the prophet there mentions usury by name, it is not a matter of wonder that among the great evils which existed, he should attack usury. For wherever gains are farmed out, there are generally added, as inseparable, cruelty, and numberless other frauds and deceits.

"On the other hand it is said in praise of a pious and holy man 'that he putteth not out his money to usury.' Indeed it is very rare for a man to be honest and yet a usurer.

"Ezekiel goes even further (Ezek. 22:12). Enumerating the crimes which inflamed the wrath of the Lord against the Jews, he uses two words, one of which means usury, and is derived from a root meaning to consume; the other word means increase or addition, doubtless because one devoted to his private gain takes or rather extorts it from the loss of his neighbor. It is clear that the prophets spake even more harshly of usury because it was forbidden by name among the Jews, and when therefore it was practiced against the express command of God, it merited even heavier censure.

"But when it is said, that as the cause of our state is the same, the same prohibition of usury should be retained, I answer that there is some difference in what pertains to the civil state. Because the surroundings of the place in which the Lord placed the Jews, as well as other circumstances, tended to this, that it might be easy for them to deal among themselves without usury, while our state today is very different in many respects. Therefore usury is not wholly forbidden among us unless it be repugnant both to Justice and to Charity.

"It is said, 'Money does not beget money.' What does the sea beget? What does a house from the letting of which I receive a rent? Is money born from roofs and walls? But on the other hand both the earth produces and something is brought from the sea which afterward produces money, and the convenience of a house can be bought and sold for money. If therefore more profit can be derived from trading through the employment of money than from the produce of a farm, the purpose of which is subsistence, should one who lets some barren farm to a farmer, receiving in return a price or part of the produce, be approved, and one who loans money to be used for profit be condemned? And when one buys a farm for money does not that farm produce other money yearly? And whence is derived the profit of the merchant? You will say from his diligence and his industry. Who doubts that idle money is wholly useless? Who asks a loan of me does not intend to keep what he receives idle by him. Therefore the profit does not arise from the money, but from the product that results from its use or employment. I therefore conclude that usury must be judged, not by a particular passage of Scripture, but simply by the rules of equity. This will be made clearer by an example. Let us imagine a rich man with large possessions in farms and rents, but with little money. Another man not so rich, nor with such large possessions as the first, but has more ready money. The latter being about to buy a farm with his own money, is asked by the wealthier for a loan. He who makes the loan may stipulate for a rent or interest for his money and further that the farm may be mortgaged to him until the principal is paid, but until it is paid, he will be content with the interest or usury on the loan. Why then shall this contract with a mortgage, but only for the profit of the money, be condemned, when a much harsher, it may be, of leasing or renting a farm at large annual rent, is approved?

"And what else is it than to treat God like a child, when we judge of objects by mere words and not from their nature, as if virtue can be distinguished from vice by a form of words.

"It is not my intention to fully examine the matter here. I wished only to show what you should consider more carefully. You should remember this, that the importance of the question lies not in the words but in the thing itself."

Those acquainted with Calvin's "Institutes" will not fail to notice the timid manner in which he treats the subject, as if uncertain of his ground and endeavoring to excuse usury to please his friend. This letter is wanting in that positive air of assured certainty that breathes inspired authority and lends a charm to his "Institutes." He is nearest himself when he bursts out, "It could be wished that all usury and the name itself were banished from the earth."

The letter is here given in full because often more force is carried by the reference to a great name than by the study of his argument. A careful reading of this letter does not reveal a positive approval of usury. He merely excuses it by suggesting other evils that he thinks worse; for instance, that land rentals may be worse than the usury of money. He does not mention the necessary oppression of the poor tenants by the loan upon a mortgage.

It is proof of the weakness of the case when this letter is the most favorable that can be presented from any ecclesiastic.



CHAPTER XII.

PERMANENCY OF THE PROHIBITION.

It is sometimes urged that the law of Moses with regard to usury was not intended to be permanent but was only a wise and beneficent regulation for that people in their peculiar condition; that as the ceremonial was done away by the incoming of the New Testament dispensation, so this prohibition was annulled and should be reckoned among the effete laws of the ancient Hebrews.

In answer to this contention it may be replied:

(1) This prohibition is not ceremonial. It has no connection with the rites and forms of their religion. It touches their character and conduct but has no place in their forms of worship.

(2) Nothing can be presented from the Mosaic laws to prove that this prohibition was only of a temporary character. It is in entire harmony with the spirit of helpfulness and especially the protection of the weak, that is so characteristic of the Mosaic order.

No induction from any of the Old Testament writers can be fairly made to limit its application. The prophets place usury in the catalogue of sins that are always and everywhere offensive to God. Nehemiah condemns it as destructive to personal and civic freedom.

(3) There is no hint of its discontinuance in the new dispensation. The Master gave a spiritual completeness to this law as he did to all enactments requiring external moral character. He classed the usurers, in his parables, among the dishonest, who took up what they had not laid down.

The disciples, in their poverty and persecutions, were not specially tempted by this sin, and it is not therefore prominent in their history. But there is nothing in their teachings or practice that is not in entire harmony with the binding continuance of the Mosaic prohibition, and their practice and teaching are just such as we should expect from Christian people in their condition and circumstances who recognized the prohibition as permanent.

(4) The apostolic fathers, as the church grew and came into contact with the world and was beginning to share in the business of the world, to a man, regarded the prohibition as in full force and its observance as one of the marked characteristics of the Christian, distinguishing him from the worldling and the Jew. Conditions in the apostolic age did not make this prominent but when the conditions were changed and the church came in conflict with this sin, it is clearly seen that the law was in a continuous binding force through the whole period.

The later fathers were of the opinion, unanimously, that it was in full force, not temporary or provincial, but binding for all time and upon all people. That it is suspended is a modern idea, a suggestion of the world to the church within the last few hundred years.



CHAPTER XIII.

OUR CHANGED CONDITIONS.

The changed conditions of the race in these last years are urged as a sufficient reason for annulling this law. It is admitted that it was righteous and beneficent in ages long past but with the new light and new conditions of the present it is effete, inapplicable and unjust. They call attention to the vast extension of commerce, to the marvelously increased facilities for travel, transportation and intercommunication; to the innumerable and wonderful inventions that in their application have brightened our civilization. They exalt present conditions and they belittle the long past conditions and thought.

The prohibition of usury belonged to the past, the practice of usury is all but universal in the present, therefore they argue that usury is a part and a necessary part of our civilization and to revive the old prohibition would turn the world's civilization backward and be as absurd as to now dispense with steam or electricity.

In reply it may be said that the changes are not universal, that there are some things that abide, that the changes are trifling when compared with those things that remain and are permanent.

1. Human nature remains the same. Man, in body and mind, in physiology and psychology, has not changed in these thousands of years. That which in ages past promoted the health and vigor of his body, will secure its best development now. That discipline, culture and mental exercise that secured the highest intellectual strength in ages past will do the most for its best development now. Many things that now give splendor to our civilization do not promote either the best physical or mental manhood.

2. Family ties remain. The relation of husband and wife, of parents and children, and the duties of their several positions in the home have not changed. The family remains the social unit as it has been in all ages. Sociology, the science of social and political organization, is a permanent science. It does not change with the shifting temporal conditions of the people. Those things which made for the general welfare of ages ago are for the public weal now, and those things that endangered the state then are to be avoided now.

3. The moral law remains unchanged and unchangeable, with all the brilliant present there is no amendment to the ten commandments. The ethical nature remains and the voice of conscience, approving the same right and condemning the same wrong, is identical with the voice of conscience in the time of Moses.

4. The laws of nature have not changed. The relation between a cause and its sequence remains. Like causes produce like effects.

No living thing has changed its nature. A lion now is of the same nature that it was in the time of Samson. So with every savage beast that roams the jungle. Even the domesticated animals, with all the effort and skill of intelligent man, have only been smoothed or speeded a little. The horse, cow, sheep, or dog have held their old forms and dispositions.

Seed time and harvest come and go and we are dependent for the same shower and sunshine that gave Adam his first harvest.

We know some things they did not know and we have bettered our tools, but the natural world has shown no signs of change.

5. The relation of things to each other have not changed. Plants must have soil to grow in, animals must have vegetation to feed upon. Fish must have water. And so with the thousands of relations of climate, elements, soils, plants, animals, fishes, birds and insects, they are the identical relations sustained ages and ages ago.

6. The nature of money has not changed. Its material and form and denominations have been modified but the functions of money as a storage of values and as a measure of values and as a medium of exchange remain the same. Our gold and silver and paper money may be more convenient and more exact, but its functions are just the same as the Indians' wampum.

The law of supply and demand and the equity in commercial transactions, great or small, are unchanged. Money could always be used to make or gather more money in business. It is no more true now than in the times of David or Nehemiah. If this had not then been possible; if there had not been tempting opportunities, there would have been no sin of usury for them to reprove.

Man's changed conditions are but trifling and incidental, relating to himself. They do not affect a single natural or moral or economic law.

The changed conditions, which are urged as a reason that the prohibition of usury is no longer binding, are only the conditions brought about by the violation of that law.

The prohibition of usury is systematically violated. The neighbor in the smallest transaction with his neighbor exacts usury, though it be but a few cents. The credit system has become universal. It is the rare exception now to "own what you have" and to "pay as you go." Interest bearing bonds are issued by the smallest manufacturing plant, by the great corporation and by the empire. These conditions do not prove usury right. They only show how far true business, commercial, and political principles have been perverted by this practice.

If violating a law annuls it, then any law can be pushed aside. Let the claims of the Sabbath day be ignored. Let the houses of worship remain closed upon that day. Let work be planned for seven days of the week. Let the hum of the mills and the roar of commerce go on. Take no note of the Sabbath day, either in business or recreation or worship, and conditions will soon be upon us, such that we may urge as plausibly, that the Sabbath is effete, possible to our slow going fathers but inconsistent with the necessary rush of our day.

If the systematic violation of a law annuls it then we can quiet the conscience and be dishonest while dealing with a Turk in Constantinople and we may lie while dickering with a Chinese merchant in Canton.

If violating a law annuls it, even the seventh commandment, the violation of which is so offensive to decency and its observance so necessary to the purity of the home, may in this way be ruled out as a binding obligation. Let polygamy be the order, supported by the example of Jacob and David and Solomon, and the families be constituted along that line, then enforced monogamy would seem to be a sundering of tender ties and hardness toward the cast off Hagars that is inconsistent with the Christian spirit. An earnest, Godly man, a missionary friend of the writer, under whose ministry a heathen chief was converted, was misled by the plausibility. The chief had a number of wives; he had children by them; he was much attached to his wives and was fond of his children, and they all seemed to love him and clung to him. The missionary in the kindness of his heart did not interfere with the family, permitting the chief to keep his wives and placed his name on the church roll of the Mission. For this act he was reproved by the ecclesiastical authorities above him. Let polygamy become as universal as usury and even the seventh commandment in its strictness will seem impracticable and unkind if not positively cruel.

It will not do to claim freedom from the prohibition of usury because we have organized commerce and the state and all society in violation of it.



CHAPTER XIV.

AMERICAN REVISION.

The Revision by the American Committee is the latest effort of scholarship to bring King James' Version up to date by eliminating effete terms and using words in their modern sense.

The references to usury are here collated so as to give a general view of the question from the translations of the passages in this the latest Revision. The reader will notice that the modern word "interest" is substituted for "usury" in nearly every passage.

Exodus 22:25: "If thou lend money to any of my people with thee that is poor, thou shalt not be to him as a creditor; neither shall ye lay upon him interest."

Leviticus 25:35-37: "And if thy brother be waxen poor, and his hand fail with thee, then thou shalt uphold him: as a stranger and a sojourner shall he live with thee. Take thou no interest of him or increase, but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon interest, nor give him thy victuals for increase."

Deuteronomy 23:19, 20: "Thou shalt not lend upon interest to thy brother: interest of money, interest of victuals, interest of anything that is lent upon interest: unto a foreigner thou mayest lend upon interest, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon interest, that Jehovah thy God may bless thee in all that thou puttest thy hand unto, in the land whither thou goest in to possess it."

Nehemiah 5:7-10: "Then I consulted with myself, and contended with the nobles and rulers and said unto them, Ye exact usury, every one of his brother. And I held a great assembly against them. And I said unto them, We after our ability have redeemed our brethren the Jews that were sold unto the nations; and would ye even sell your brethren, and should they be sold unto us? Then held they their peace and found never a word. Also I said, The thing ye do is not good: ought ye not to walk in the fear of our God, because of the reproach of the nations, our enemies? And I likewise, my brethren and my servants, do lend them money and grain. I pray you, let us leave off this usury."

The interest exacted by the princes and nobles was no doubt so extortionate that it could be called usury in the modern legal sense.

Psalm 15:

"Jehovah, Who shall sojourn in thy tabernacles? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, And speaketh the truth in his heart; He that slandereth not with his tongue, Nor doeth evil to his friend, Nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor; In whose eyes a reprobate is despised, But who honoreth them that fear Jehovah; He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not; He that putteth not out his money to interest, Nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved."

Proverbs 28:8: "He that augmenteth his substance by interest and increase, gathereth it for him that hath pity on the poor."

Jeremiah 15:10: "I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet every one of them doth curse me."

King James reads: "I have neither lent upon usury, nor have men lent to me upon usury." As Jeremiah was protesting his innocence of any wrongdoing the early translators inserted what was evidently implied while these latest revisors have omitted what was not in the original text.

Ezekiel 18:1-18: "The word of Jehovah came again unto me saying, What mean ye that ye use this proverb, concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live saith the Lord Jehovah, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine, as the soul of the father so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. But if a man be just and do that which is lawful and right, and hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbor's wife, neither hath come near to a woman in her impurity, and hath not wronged any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath taken naught by robbery, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment: he hath not given forth upon interest, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, hath executed true justice between man and man, hath walked in my statutes and hath kept my ordinances, to deal truly: he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord Jehovah.

"If he beget a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that doeth any one of these things, and that doeth not any of those duties, but even hath eaten upon the mountains, and denied his neighbor's wife, hath wronged the poor and needy, hath taken by robbery, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination, hath given forth upon interest, and hath taken increase; shall he then live? He shall not live: he hath done all these abominations: he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.

"Now, lo, if he beget a son which seeth all his father's sins which he hath done, and feareth and doeth not such like; that hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, hath not defiled his neighbor's wife, neither hath wronged any, hath not taken aught to pledge, neither hath taken by robbery, but hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment; that hath not withdrawn his hand from the poor, that hath not received interest nor increase, hath executed my ordinances, hath walked in my statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live. As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, robbed his brother, and did that which is not good among his people, behold, he shall die in his iniquity."

Ezekiel 22:6-12: "Behold, the princes of Israel, every one according to his power have been in thee to shed blood. In thee have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the sojourner; in thee have they wronged the fatherless and the widow. Thou hast despised mine holy things and hast profaned my sabbaths. Slanderous men have been in thee to shed blood; and in thee have they eaten upon the mountains; in the midst of thee they have committed lewdness. In thee have they uncovered their fathers' nakedness; in thee have they humbled her that was unclean in her impurity. And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter. In thee have they taken bribes to shed blood; thou hast taken interest and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by oppression and hast forgotten me saith the Lord Jehovah."

Matthew 25:26-27: "But his lord answered and said unto him, Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not and gather where I did not scatter; thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the bankers, and at my coming I should have received back mine own with interest."

Luke 19:22, 23: "He saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I am an austere man taking up that I laid not down and reaping that I did not sow; then wherefore gavest thou not my money into the bank, and I at my coming should have required it with usury."

Luke 16:13-15: "No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. And the Pharisees who were lovers of money heard all these things and they scoffed at him. And he said unto them, Ye are they that justify yourselves in the sight of men but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God."

It is not easy to understand how an honest, godly man, who has even medium intelligence, unclouded by prejudice, and who has confidence in the highest scholarship of the age, can deny that the revealed Word of God, in both Testaments, condemns usury or interest. It is just as difficult to explain how any one, not glaringly inconsistent, can claim that interest taking is not a sin, who bows to the divine authority of the revealed Word and who defines sin as "Any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God."



CHAPTER XV.

DUTY LEARNED FROM TWO SOURCES.

In this discussion we learn our duty from two sources. Two authorities are recognized. One is the revelation of God in his written Word. The other is the book of nature; this includes the ethical nature of man, his social relations, and the laws that govern material things.

The author of the Bible is the God of nature. They are but two volumes from the same mind and hand. They must speak in harmony when both are understood. Truth found in the inspired Word cannot be contradicted in nature; and no facts in the works of God can be found in conflict with the Word He has spoken. A truth found in either is always consistent with the truths made plain in the other.

Familiarity with one prepares us to better understand the other. The devout student of the Word has his mind aroused, and his susceptibility so quickened that he is able to read more clearly the lessons in the volumes of nature open before him. The student of nature, who has searched its mysteries and taken in its beauty and designs of infinite wisdom everywhere appearing, must be the more ready and competent to appreciate the revealed love and grace.

The Bible is not a treatise on natural science, nor does natural science teach revealed religion, yet they do not conflict. The special student of either may have perfect confidence that whatever he has found true in his chosen field will be found consistent with truth in other fields of special study.

Chemistry, biology and all studies of nature, are found only to give a higher conception of the God of all grace. The same wisdom and power shine out in His works that are revealed in His Word.

Again, the laws of God, whether fixed in nature or revealed in His Word, are for the highest interest of the physical, mental and spiritual man. Every truth in the Word works for the welfare of man's body and soul. The laws of nature, physical and psychological, obeyed, promote man's bodily and mental vigor. Strict obedience to the laws of God, as revealed in both Word and nature, produces the completest physical and mental manhood.

God had the highest welfare of every man at heart when He prepared the earth for his abode and gave him dominion over it. And He yearned for his deliverance from a fallen estate when He gave him a revelation of His infinite redeeming love. The eye of God is upon each individual of the race, as upon every sparrow. He has in thought, in word and in works, not the favoring of one of an hundred, while the ninety and nine are crushed or neglected, but the happiness and highest good of every one of the hundred.

The ethics of the Bible and the ethics of nature, as wrought out by the earnest heathen philosophers, mainly agree. It is an astonishment to some that there is so much agreement in the systems of heathen morals and the revealed moral law. The moral law is written on men's hearts, and can be read there by the diligent and careful student; but the consciences of men, enlightened and quickened by the revealed Word, produce the highest ethical types the world knows.

The Bible is not a work on political economy, yet there is nothing out of harmony with the most perfect political institutions. When we find political principles clearly revealed, we shall find the same truths when we study the most orderly relations of men in their social organization.

The Bible is not a work on economics, yet it advances no economic principles that work a hardness or injustice to any. When we find economic principles clearly stated, we shall surely find the same truths confirmed in a careful study of the nature of things.

As the written Word forbids usury or interest, it can be presumed that the nature of things and man's highest good also forbids it; that it is not an arbitrary prohibition, but is given in love because it is in its very nature a ruinous evil. As we find a positive prohibition of taking usury or interest in the old dispensation and the confirmation of it in the new, both by the words of the Master and the understanding and practice of the disciples and fathers, we may confidently expect that it will be confirmed by a correct and careful study of ethics and of the relation of man to things.

We may learn duty from either or both sources. To some men the Bible comes with the greatest clearness and the utmost force of authority. Others find in nature their highest conception of the Infinite, and their best directions for a correct life. If usury or interest is found to be a sin from the Word, there is no need for those to enter into the economic proof who have no taste for this character of study or reasoning. If it is found to be "malum per se" from the nature of things, even those who reject the divine revelation must array themselves against it. If it is shown to be evil by both revelation and economic law, then all peoples, Christian and heathen, should combine against it.



CHAPTER XVI.

RIGHTS OF MAN OVER THINGS.

Man was the last and the crowning work of the Creator. God made man in his own image and gave him dominion over all creatures.

"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.

"Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet:

"All the sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

"The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas."

This high position is in entire harmony with man's innate consciousness of his superior powers, and of his nobler spiritual nature, and of his rightful dominion over all the other material creations. Man is a person, a thinking intelligent being, and is conscious of his personality, and from his lofty height he calls all else the lower and the inferior creatures. Wherever man is found over the whole earth, of whatever faith or grade of civilization, he claims this universal dominion.

Man was commanded to subdue the earth and bring it into subjection as his servant and he is conscious of his right to use all things to promote his comfort, convenience and welfare. Anything he can make of service to himself he has a right to appropriate.

A tree is a thing which he may prepare for his own purposes, for fuel, for tools, or for a dwelling, as he pleases.

Isaiah ridiculed the idolater in his time, who made an idol of wood and worshiped it, while with another part of the same tree he built a fire and warmed himself. A part he served and a part served him. The whole tree was subject to him; in itself it had no rights.

Rights belong to persons, and not to things, and personality cannot be transferred to a thing. If there is no personal owner the question of rights is never raised. The tree, or any thing whatever, has no rights in the matter. Rights belong to the owner, the person, not to the thing he owns.

The game in the mountain forests and the fish in the rivers are things with no owner and whosoever will may take and use them.

Land is a thing, and any person may make it into a farm or garden and build upon it his home. The land has no rights and makes no protest. The whole earth is subject to man and is to be subdued by him. If no owner appears his rights are not disputed. Our fathers found an unowned continent, with all its rich resources of soil and forests and mines. It was to them free, and with the labor of a few generations they transformed it into farms and plantations and built it over with magnificent cities.

Even that which formerly was the property of another has no rights. The deserted hunter's hut in the mountains can be appropriated. The abandoned farm does not resist a new tenant. A derelict vessel, still afloat but driven before the winds, whose officers, crew and owners are at the bottom of the sea, can be appropriated, for there is no one to dispute the claim.

Even force or labor in the abstract is but a thing and has no rights. The wind is unowned and any one who will may harness it to do his work. The electric forces of nature are unowned, whoever will may gather and direct them to do his purpose. The waterfall may be made to do man's work and will not resist. The animals have no rights against man. The broncho, horse, ox, mule, or animal of any kind, may be turned to man's service. All the forces of nature were made for man. They have no rights to be regarded, when his interests can be served.

It is man's high privilege to stand above all things, to call them to his feet and to compel their service. It is the reversion of the order for him to take the subordinate place and serve the inferior creation. Things subdued, such as wealth secured, is to minister to his highest good and to promote his noblest manhood. The order is reversed when this wealth commands his service and sacrifice. The miser both reverses the divine order and violates common sense by giving the love and service of his shriveling soul to a thing.

The usurer and the borrower on usury, both, reverse the true order by assuming that a thing can claim man's service. Both grant that a thing has rights to be respected. The usurer takes the service as due to the thing he owns. It is his property that is exalted, and for which he claims the service must be rendered, and if the borrower will think closely, he will find that in paying usury he is serving a thing.

A man reverses the divine order and degrades himself, and becomes a gross idolater, when he serves things unowned instead of commanding their service, "stocks and stones." He reverses the true order when he becomes a miser and serves that which is his own, "which his own fingers have made," instead of compelling it to serve him. He is not less degraded when he exalts over himself a thing owned by another and serves it. The ownership of another does not change the nature of the thing. One can serve his neighbor's idol as truly as he can his own.

There is nothing above man but God. His fellow man is by his side, his equal, and all other material creations are beneath his feet, and he is not to permit his fellow man to lift up the inferior thing and place it above him. If he does he must step down from the pinnacle on which he was placed by his God and which his own consciousness demands he shall occupy.

"Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood." Isaiah 10:15.

If he serves the borrowed ax and saw for the claim that the ax and saw have against him, he admits his debt to things and Isaiah's ridicule of an idolater can be turned against him and he steps down from the position of conscious inborn dignified lordship and becomes a servant of the inferior things.



CHAPTER XVII.

EQUAL RIGHTS OF MEN.

All men have sacred rights that must be regarded. That these rights are equal is so familiar and stale an expression that it hardly need be spoken. "All men are created equal," each having rights, that are inalienable, and each having the right to resist the encroachment on his rights by another. To protect these rights governments are instituted.

The vital energy of a man is his own and his right to it must be regarded. Since the abolition of chattel slavery this has been indefeasible except for crime.

He has a right to his own vital energy and to all that his own vital force produces. He has a right to his property inherited, earned, or however secured, except by fraud. He has no claim against the vital energy of his fellow man, nor has he any claim whatever against the property of another.

The working man needs capital. His vital energy must waste unless there is material upon which it may be expended. There must be the tree, land or material in some form, upon which he can work. But give him the world raw and unsubdued and he can transform it again as he has. He can build again everything on land and sea, the farms, towns, and cities, and the floating palaces. He can again dig out the mines and refine the silver and gold, mould the clay, smelt the ore and shape the iron. His needs and his power, however, give him no claim to the property of another.

The man of property is dependent upon the laborer. He may be the owner of farms, forests and mines, of horses, flocks and herds, of railroads and oil wells, yet these will not minister to him nor serve him without the laborer. His coffers may be filled with gold, and his barns bursting with grain and his stalls filled with fatlings, yet all this wealth is useless and lost, unless touched with the vital energy of an intelligent laborer. But his dependence and losses give him no right to the labor of another.

He has no right, no just claim, to the services of another man, his equal. All his wealth cannot confer the right. Wealth is but a thing, in itself without rights, and can therefore add nothing to the rights of its owner.

He may however use his wealth to command service by might, but not by right. A club is but a thing having no will and no rights, yet in the hands of a savage it adds greatly to his power and may be used by him to oppress another of his tribe. A ruffian with his gun meeting a defenseless man may so command him, that he is ready for the most abject obedience. An armed highwayman may compel a brave man "to stand and deliver." So a man may use his property to secure the service of another but it gives him no right to that service.

The usurer, who has himself no rights against his fellows, uses a thing, his property, as an instrument or weapon to command service.

He may place his hand upon every material thing another must have, and withhold it, and the other is shut up and compelled, he has no alternative. He must yield to the demands or suffer. Many men are driven to the last extremity before they will borrow.

But if the borrower is very willing and urgent for the loan, this does not change the nature of the act. The game may be shot upon the wing as it is endeavoring to escape, or it may be snared in a trap by a tempting bait. The wild broncho may be captured in chase, or beguiled into the corral.

The voluntary sacrifice of others to the usurer does not make his gains just. The foolish ones are now willing to invest in lottery tickets, yet that does not make the lottery lawful. Slot machines are being put out of the cities, because so many are ready to part with their nickels. If there were none ensnared by them, they could stand harmless.

The borrower may be greatly elated with the hope of gain, but the injustice is the same, whether the services be secured by compelling force, or by guile, or by the folly of the victim.

If we admit the supremacy of man over the material creation, all subordinate to him, and no right to be, except to serve him, and also admit the equal rights of all men, there is no escape from the conclusion that the usurer can have no rightful claims to any portion of the labor of the borrower, without surrendering to him some portion of his property as compensation for the services received. He must have less property when the service is rendered and the borrower must have more property if the rights of both are regarded.

A false impression prevails, that the lender in some way gives the loan to the borrower; that the borrower becomes somewhat the owner of the property. The borrower is encouraged in this illusion and it becomes a plausible basis for the claim upon his services.

When a loan is made to a bank it is called a "deposit" and rightly, for it is only placed in the banker's hands and does not in any part become his. This is true of any amount, great or small, whether the deposit draws interest or not. The lender never loses his sense of ownership of the whole amount, nor does the banker encourage the fiction that he has become part owner.

Every loan is but a "deposit." The ownership of no part passes to the borrower. It is seldom that the loan or "deposit" is not safer in the keeping of the borrower than in the hands of the owner himself, when secured by mortgages or personal sureties. The usurer gains the earnings of the borrower but parts with no property. He receives the service but gives nothing.

Two usurers, A and B, are neighbors. A has a garden he wishes dug. He has an ax but no hoe. B has wood that he wishes cut. He has a hoe but no ax. The laborer appears and wishes to do their work. Usurer A agrees to lend him his ax to cut B's wood on the condition that he shall return it unimpaired and work his garden for its use.

He cuts the wood, but has no hoe to dig A's garden for the use of the ax. Usurer B now lends the laborer his hoe to dig the garden, but takes the cutting of the wood for the use of the hoe. The confused borrower knows he is defrauded of his work, though each seems to have a plausible claim upon him.

A does not give the hoe to the laborer. He retains the full ownership but deposits it in the workman's hands to be returned unimpaired. B does not give away his ax, he only places it in the laborer's hands also to be returned unimpaired. The full hoe and full ax is returned and they have taken the services without compensation.

The result is just the same as if A and B had traded tools and A had given the laborer a hoe to dig the garden, "the tool and the material with which to work," and B had given him an ax to cut his wood, "the tool and the material with which to work," without a pretence of a payment for his labor.

Taking only a part of the borrower's or laborer's services does not relieve it of injustice. The nature of the oppression is the same, only less heinous and flagrant. He who took a penny belonging to another is a thief as truly as the man who took a pound. Petit larceny and grand larceny differ only in the amount stolen. The man who takes three per cent. of the labor of another wrongfully defrauds as the man who takes fifty per cent. The nature of the wrong is the same; they only differ in degree.

It is a well known fact, however, often repeated, that ninety-five out of every hundred who go into business with borrowed capital, that is, who pay interest on "their material and tools," do give the vigor of their lives to the service of usurers and at the end have nothing.

The element of time is only a figment that clouds the question of right and deceives the borrower. In order that the labor of another may be appropriated it is necessary to give him time to work. The laborer may dig in A's garden a day or all summer and he may chop wood for B a day or all winter. The result is the same. It is necessary that the borrower be given time to earn something before it is or can be appropriated. The question is, how rapidly can he earn, and how soon can his earnings be collected? Long time loans with the frequent payments of the earnings of the victim are the ideal conditions of the usurer.



CHAPTER XVIII.

A FALSE BASAL PRINCIPLE.

That usury or interest must be held under the restraints of law is recognized in nearly all countries. It is treated as a necessary evil that cannot be abolished, and therefore must be controlled. Bacon said, "It is permitted on account of the hardness of men's hearts."

The laws differ in the various states. The rate of interest authorized by a particular state is not invariably fixed, but is changed as the condition of the people seems to demand.

That which determines the rate, of any particular people, at any particular time, is the productive ability of the borrower. The rate now in England is about three per cent. The conditions being such that the productive power of the borrower is very limited. In the United States, where the natural resources are not all occupied, and the avenues for successful effort more numerous, the average is seven per cent. In the western states of the United States the rates are higher than in the eastern, for the material resources lie so open and undeveloped that the productive power of the borrower is far greater than in the older eastern states.

The basal for the rate of interest is the benefit or the advantage of the loan to the borrower. What can the borrower do or make with this capital? How great a benefit can he gain by it? The rate is based on the earnings of the borrower.

The transfer from R. R. station to R. R. station across this city is twenty-five cents. That I may make my train and meet my appointment, that prompt and rapid transfer is of greater value to me, but that does not give the hackman the right to an increased charge.

The fare to the distant city is ten dollars, but to me, with important business waiting and suffering, it is worth an hundred. The conductor does not ask me what my profits are to be from this trip. He collects the same fare of all for the same service, whatever their interests may be in the passage.

The letter which is freighted with a proposition that affects my future life is two cents. Because of great value to me the postal service is no more than a letter of idle gossip.

Railroad freight rates are at times arbitrarily fixed on the basis of the benefit to the patron. The rates of freight from a coal mine are sometimes made by a railroad on the basis of the profits of operating the mine. The rates to a quartz mine in the mountains are often so regulated. A contractor, dependent on a transportation company, must often share his profits. Such rates are regarded as unjust and oppressive and efforts are made to correct the evil by law.

A is crossing the city and can without inconvenience carry a note to a party for B. That accommodation without sacrifice or inconvenience on the part of A is no basis for a charge upon B, though the delivery of the message was of value to B, but if A discovers that in delivering that note he can make it a matter of business gain to himself, that would not justify B in claiming a part of the profits A secured for himself. While A served his own business he also favored B. It would be unreasonable and unjust for B to forget the favor and make a charge against A, because in the delivery of the note A managed to gain a profit.

Two farmers are without barns. It will require the labor of a number of years to secure the requisite amount of lumber and other material to enable them to erect their barns. One of the farmers undertakes to shelter and protect from decay the lumber of both, until the requisite amount can be secured. This is a real favor to the other and is accepted readily. He even offers to pay him for the care and liability. But he discovers afterward that his neighbor, by wise, careful and skillful piling, has made from this lumber a shelter for his stock and grain. That he has so managed as to gain for himself a benefit. Then, with the false principle of usury he makes a charge for the keeping of the very thing for which he was willing to pay a price.

A gentleman not wanting his coach for a time, but wishing it to be kept in perfect repair, and his team fed and exercised, to be kept sleek and strong, leaves it in his coachman's care. The coachman agrees to keep from decay, and to replace should one die, and at the end of the term, return the coach in perfect condition, no mar or wear, and the team sleek and strong from good care, feed and daily exercise. But the coachman discovers that in the daily exercise of the team he can carry a party of business men to and from their offices, and secure for himself a gain. He, at the end of the term, returns the carriage and equipage complete as he received it. The owner has had his property perfectly cared for during the term he could not use it. But the owner learning of the benefit to the keeper, which would not have been possible without his equipage, demands a portion of the benefit which cost him nothing, nor in the least diminished his property.

A gentleman has a warm, rich and beautiful robe, but is about to travel a number of years among the countries of Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Philippines, where he will not need it, and afterward visit Siberia, where he will need and use it. Another undertakes to relieve him of all care of it during these years and deliver it to the Siberian home ready for his use. He protects it from the moths in summer, and guards it against all touch or taint, and delivers it in the perfect condition in which it was received. In justice he deserves a reward from the owner, and if he received no benefit, would receive it, but it is found that he needed it for his comfort by the way, and that without it he should have perished. Then the owner demands a reward for the benefit the carrier received. The owner did no service. He received a positive benefit, but the porter, who carried the burden all the way, must pay interest or rental because he was kept from perishing by it.

The surprise or discovery feature is introduced into the above illustrations to emphasize the false basis upon which the rates of interest rest. In the actual practice of usury the lender may have full information as to the use of the loan and its advantages to the borrower. If we eliminate this feature the basis still remains untenable. By no tortion of ethics can I demand that he, who does me a favor, shall pay me for the privilege.

A man has one thousand dollars of money he is not using. He gives it to another to keep or place in a drawer in his vault. To care for this and be responsible for it, a commission is allowed, for it is no benefit to the keeper. Even an amount is asked for the drawer in the vault, without responsibility. To care for this a term of years is deserving of a reward. But now keeping the property equally safe, and returning every dollar when the owner calls for it, is not satisfactory to the usurer. If this money has in any way proved a benefit to the keeper, through his wisdom and energy and skill, he demands an increase. What is this loan worth to you? is the question of the usurer to the borrower.

The basis of legal interest rates is the amount of benefit the borrower gains by the loan. If his opportunities in a state are favorable, and he may by diligence make a large gain, the rates are high. If in another state his opportunities are so limited that, strive as he may, he can make little gain, the legal rates will be low.

The basis is so absurd that many have urged the repeal of all laws regulating the rates of interest. "Why should the laws presume to level the rates for a whole state? The possibilities and opportunities of gain are infinitely varied. Every borrower knows his own conditions and the amount of advantage the loan is to him and he should be permitted to pay for money whatever he is willing to pay."

One writer thus expresses it, "No man of ripe years and of sound mind, acting freely, and with his eyes open, ought to be hindered, with a view to his advantage, from making such bargains in the way of obtaining money, as he thinks fit; nor anybody hindered from supplying him upon any terms he thinks proper to accede to."

Jeremy Bentham is often quoted to prove the absurdity of all laws regulating the rates of interest, and yet all his elaborate arguments are based on this false principle.

If usury is wrong only when the borrower can make no profit, and is right whenever the borrower can make a gain by it, and the rate of interest is to be measured by that gain, then all laws are illogical that limit the rate, and may be classed among those restraining trade.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE TRUE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE.

The true ethical principle that should govern the relation between the owner of property and the person holding that property as a loan, does not differ from the principle that is recognized as prevailing in all the other relations of life. The party to whom the service is rendered is under obligation. The party served is the one who must pay for the service. The party served must pay in proportion to the amount of service rendered him. If that service is great, then the payment must be large. If the service is slight, then the payment is small, and when there is no service then no payment can be claimed.

This principle is recognized in all worthy and upright transactions. It is the service rendered that is rewarded in a court of justice. An employe recovers his wages from his employer for his services rendered. The condition of the employer's business does not enter into the count. It may have been unprofitable or a great success but that cannot affect the claim either way.

A physician charges for the services given a patient. The recovery or death of the patient can neither increase nor diminish them.

In service we always surrender something of ourselves or of our own, and each knows the sacrifice or effort he has made; he cannot know the value of this to the other, and he need not know. Full compensation is due from the party served but no compensation is due when no service is given nor property surrendered.

The usurer's whole claim is for the service of his property. But he does not surrender a particle of his wealth. He does not become poorer in making his loan. He holds all his wealth as fully as before, whether it be a loan of money or grains or tools. There has been no outgo of property for which, in any other relation, he could claim a reward or compensation from his fellow. He simply deposits his property with his fellow and takes security for its safe keeping. It must be preserved perfectly and restored fully.

When we consider the true principle, that compensation is due always for services rendered, the obligation is upon the lender for the care and preservation of his property. The borrower in any and every case gives a real and valuable service in preservation and restoration at the end of the term, while the lender renders no personal service nor does he part with a particle of his wealth.

There is always a service rendered in caring for and preserving the property of another. It may be very great or it may be very small. It may be so great that no one would undertake it though the property should be freely given him.

In 1800 the "Faithful Steward" was wrecked in Delaware bay near the shore. It had on board a large number of passengers, emigrants, who nearly all perished. Few lives were saved and all the property was lost. One young man, of the kin of the writer, swam ashore through the breakers. Before he left the vessel an old man offered him a stocking full of gold if he cared to try and save it. Though young and vigorous he would not undertake to try to save it for it. This was an extreme case of risk and danger.

In another extreme case the service may be very small, reduced to the minimum, for instance, caring for the gold of another by locking it up in a fire and burglar-proof safe. For this simple service a comparatively small charge is made. But caring for the property of another is always some service that earns a reward great or small.

The nature of the service is not changed and the principle still holds when the deposit is made with a person who gives ample pledges for its full return; the principle still holds when the deposit is made in a farm and secured there by mortgage, making it safer than in the iron vault.

The true ethical principle, equity between man and man, requires that the holder of the property of another shall be compensated by the owner of the property for his services in caring for and preserving it. The amount of compensation depends on the difficult or favorable conditions attending its care. These conditions greatly vary, perhaps in no two cases are exactly alike, and so there can be no fixed price or rate at which one will receive and care for the property of another. The extreme limit of liberality permitted is that he may care for the property of another for nothing. He is not permitted to pay a price for the privilege. The revealed divine law, true ethics and equity and duty of self preservation forbid him. Perfect preservation of any amount, large or small, for any time, long or short, whatever the incidental advantages to the borrower, is the highest compensation a borrower is permitted to give for any loan. The demand for more than this by the owner is to be resisted as unjust and oppressive.

An express company receives a package of money for which it receipts and becomes responsible and agrees to deliver to the owner at some distant point. For this service it receives compensation in accordance with the amount of service. If the conditions are dangerous and the distance great the charge is large. If the conditions are very favorable and safe the charges are small.

If the amount of service is reduced to the minimum, in rare cases, no charge may be made. But that a price should be paid for the privilege of caring for and conveying it, is inconsistent with the management of an honest business. The purpose would be either to rob the owner of his wealth or to rob the employes of their services.

An insurance company undertakes to protect a property for a term of years, to a distant date. A rate is given for protection from a single element, as fire. If all destructive agents are included the rate is higher. The rate is higher for a long than a short period. All the business world recognize the value of this service and nearly every kind of property may now be insured. The premium is cheerfully paid by the owner of the property for the service rendered him. It is a real and valuable service to have his property protected, preserved, or restored, so that it cannot be lost before the distant date. It is conceivable that a property might be so indestructible that the risk would be practically nothing and a policy might be issued without a premium, but that a price should be paid for the privilege of protecting any property is utterly inconsistent with rational insurance.

Now usury presumes to reverse this ethical order and requires that the insurance company shall pay the owner of the property for the privilege of protecting it. Under usury the property given into the care of another, and called a loan, must be perfectly protected and preserved by the borrower, restored if lost, and returned in full to the owner at the agreed distant date, and a price paid for the privilege of performing the service.

The true ethical principle and equity in the relations between the owner of a property and the one who holds, protects and preserves it, require that the owner shall render to the holder a just compensation. This will vary in different conditions, it may be very small, it may in rare cases be entirely eliminated; but they also utterly forbid that the party rendering the service shall pay for the privilege of serving.

One may submit to an injustice in order to gain an advantage. He can do better for himself by submitting than by resisting. His employer may be hard and oppressive but this is the best job he can get and he holds on, but that does not justify the oppressions of the employer up to the breaking point. It may be to the advantage of a borrower to submit to the exactions of usury, that is, he may gain more wealth by borrowing upon interest than not, but that does not relieve usury of its oppression up to the breaking point when it can no longer be endured. There is no better ethical basis for low interest than high interest. Low rates of interest are oppressions that may be suffered or endured for a possible gain, but high rates are intolerable. The principle is the same whatever the rate of interest, whether it be low or high. They only differ in the degrees of their severity.



CHAPTER XX.

WEALTH IS BARREN.

That wealth can produce wealth is the assumption of Shylock.

Shylock—"When Jacob grazed his Uncle Laban's sheep— This Jacob from our holy Abraham was The third possessor; ay, he was the third."

Antonio—"And what of him? Did he take interest?"

Shylock—"No, not take interest; not as you would say, Directly interest. Mark what Jacob did." * * *

Antonio—"This was a venture, sir, that Jacob served for; A thing not in his power to bring to pass— But swayed and fashioned by the hand of Heaven. Was this inserted to make interest good? Or is your gold and silver, ewes and rams?"

Shylock—"I can not tell; I make them breed as fast."

—Merchant of Venice.

It is only intelligent energy that can produce wealth. Even the natural resources must be subdued and shaped by intelligent energy to be of service to man. Trees do not betake themselves into the form of houses. Land does not transform itself into farms and gardens. Coal does not come to our fires without hands. Ore is not iron, nor is clay pottery. They must be carefully manipulated by the intelligent laborer.

Nothing man can make has the power of self propagation. All wealth is as barren as silver and gold, though Shylock claimed he could make them breed like ewes and rams. Life alone is productive, and the secrets of life man has not touched.

A tree or animal grows by the life that is in it, but the accretions of wealth are from the efforts of intelligent energy outside of itself. Wealth is an effect, a result. The vital energy of a person, of "a willing intelligent being" produces wealth, but it does not follow that it has the qualities of its cause. It has no intelligence, nor has it self-determining power, nor is it vital, nor has it energy, it has not in itself the force to overcome its inertia, the energy must be applied. It has no power to increase or grow. A fortune is built, as a building is built, brick after brick is added by intelligent hands.

All wealth must have the living hands applied to cause it to increase even the smallest amount. There is no such thing as "productive" capital. It is so called when it is used to gather and appropriate the earnings of others, but wealth in none of its forms has the quality or power of producing.

Money, the most familiar form, is barren. A bag of dollars stored for ages will not have increased a single coin. No one holds or handles money on the assumption that it will increase in his hands. Money is a care, and the broker who holds or handles it relies for his compensation, not on the increase of the dollars in his hands, but on the increase from some producer to whom he lends it. If there is no borrower he takes a direct commission from the amount itself, as trustee or administrator or custodian.

Money is readily exchanged for any other property. Money has a number of functions but in exchange it is a medium by which the value of articles is conveyed. It takes the place of the bags which conveyed the wheat, of the crates which contained the potatoes, of the baskets which carried the peaches, and the wrapping which held the cotton or the wool.

Col. Irish, who was chief of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing at Washington, when he died, and under whose administration the present building was erected, at one time sent to the wife of the writer a ten dollar bill, wrapped up so that it looked like a picture, cabinet size; this was accompanied by a note, to be opened first. In this note he said he took pleasure in sending her an excellent likeness of our late lamented president, which he would be pleased to have her accept. If she should prefer it in some other form, it was a peculiarity of this likeness that it would change instantly at the will of the holder into any form desired; that this was the peculiarity that troubled him, as he had been unable to decide what would please her best, and had finally decided to send it in this form, and let her change it into any other she might like better.

Money is a peculiar medium which will hold and carry the value of anything. You pour in your wheat and take it to the merchant, who empties your wheat and fills it with clothes, he carries it to the dealer in any article needed and the vessel is instantly emptied and refilled.

The values of the products of laborers in the various occupations of life or the products of the various climates are thus readily exchanged by money, but the gain is not in the money. The art in trade is to study and know the products and needs of the laborers of one class or country, and the varied products and needs of the producers of another class or local community. The skill in trade is in supplying the needs of one from the products of the other.

The profit in trade is the gain from securing for an article a greater portion of the product of those whose needs are supplied, than was given to those who produced it. The harvester cost the manufacturer twenty days' work. The farmer, who needs and purchases it, pays forty days' work for it. The farmer may produce one hundred bushels of wheat with twenty-five days' work, but the mechanics in the city, who need it for bread, may give twice that amount of labor for that quantity of wheat. There is a wide field for skill and profit in trade, when the products and needs of all classes and all lands are considered. But money does not add to wealth in trade. There is nothing produced by it in trade. It is but the tool by which values are conveyed, and no more productive than baskets or crates or sacks. Intelligent energy produces all the profits that are secured by trading.

Modern apologists for usury, knowing that money is unproductive itself, call it a tool for production, and as it can be readily transformed into any tool, they try to avoid the logical conclusion that the taking of interest on money is unjust and oppressive to the producer.

But no tool is productive. All tools are but the reaching out of man for the better control and mastery of material things.

The tool is but dead matter; the productive efficiency is in the vital energy of the intelligent laborer. The most complicated and ingenious tool ever made is useless without the operator. It is as helpless as the wire without the electric current; as helpless as the body without its life, for the body is but man's tool, preserved, and kept efficient, and made productive, by the living energy alone.

Tools are but the reaching out of the vital energy beyond the body. Tools are but the means, invented and constructed, by which the man can overcome his physical limitations and accomplish wonders, the impossible to a creature wanting in his intelligence.

These glasses enable dim eyes to see clearly. There is no ability in the glasses to see; they would be of no use on blind eyes. I see, these spectacles cannot see. Enlarge and so place these lenses that I can see bacteria, or the mountains of the moon, yet this microscope or this telescope has no more life nor sight than this single lens. I, with it, see the minute creation or examine the distant planet. It is but the extension of my eye.

This pen and paper and this book are but the means by which I reach and reason with my fellow-men. They are but my tools to convey my thought. I am reasoning with you, not this paper and ink.

My hand is the natural tool with which I labor. I may work in the garden and plant the seed and destroy the weeds with my hand alone, and there is no dispute but that I do the work. I take a small weeder in my hand and greatly increase my efficiency. I take a hoe and reach out further and greatly add to my efficiency. I am the efficient agent. There is no power in the weeder or the hoe. I take my plow, as my tool, and I tear up the soil and prepare it for my harvest. I take the complicated harvester and gather it into my barn. In every part of that process the tool is but the reaching out of my energy beyond my body. There is no place where that tool becomes vitalized and productive.

I am a porter, I carry packages in my hands. To increase my efficiency I build me a cart, and smooth a roadway, by which I am able to carry more and heavier packages with ease. I construct a roadway across the continent, and with the power which I employ I carry the commerce of the nation. I build ships and direct them from continent to continent and handle the commerce of the world. Now there is no place from this simple carriage in the hand, to the complicated and stupendous system of transportation, where the tool is not wholly dependent on the vital intelligent energy.

When the vital principle leaves this body, then hands, eyes and the whole body is helpless. Withdraw the vital energy from these means by which man extends his power beyond the body, and all the implements of agriculture will not produce a harvest, and the wheels of commerce on land and sea would instantly stop.

There is no place in the most complicated machine where it begins to produce. The machine may show the greatest ingenuity in its invention and the perfection of skill in its construction, and the intelligence necessary to its operation may be reduced to the minimum, yet no where and at no time can it produce of itself.

When a criminal is arraigned in court the responsibility is placed upon the person, the intelligent energy, always. It matters not by what tools the burglary or other criminal act was committed. The man who handled the tools is held accountable for the results. His tools may show the greatest ingenuity and the highest skill in their construction but they do not share his guilt. He is the efficient and responsible cause. If this were not so justice could be so perverted that the preservation of the order and the security of society would be impossible.

Every tool is itself produced, and its maker must be rewarded or paid once, but there the claim for the tool ends. The laborer who constructs the machine cannot demand repayment over and over. The skilled mechanic who produced this pair of lenses must be paid, but he has no claim for second payment. To secure repayment he must make another pair. The maker of this pen and this paper must be paid, but that ends his claim. The maker of the hoe or cart or engine must have the reward he has earned, but can prefer no second claim.

There is no question when the laborer makes and owns his own tool. The labor of constructing the tool must be rewarded as well as the laborer in its operation.

When the tools are complicated and require the skill of many, the makers of the machine are usually different persons from the laborers who operate it. In this case the payment of all must come from the finished product. Those who constructed the machine and those who operate it must be paid by the consumers.

If the shoe plant is built and operated, then from the shoes produced must come the payment for all. The workmen who built the plant and the engines and machinery for the manufacture of the different parts of the shoe, must be paid by the consumer of shoes. The workmen who built the plant must be as fully compensated as those who operate it, but being compensated, they have no claim for recompensation for the same work. To be paid again they must build a new plant. The operators must be compensated for every shoe they make, but they can not reclaim payment over and over again. To receive more pay they must make more shoes.

Both classes of laborers have a right to full compensation for all the labor performed. Neither party has a right to demand a second payment for the same labor.

It would be manifestly as unjust for the constructors of the plant to compel the operators to pay them over and over again, as it would be for the operators of the machine, having supplied the community with shoes, to demand payment over and over without making another shoe. The shoes will wear out, so will the machines. It is as unreasonable for the first class of laborers to compel the operators of their machinery to keep the same in repair, as for the operators to compel their customers to keep their shoes in perfect condition. For the first laborers to receive a new payment they must build a new plant, and for the operators to receive a new payment they must make new shoes.

The confusion of ideas comes in when there intervenes a third party between these two classes of laborers. This third party meets the demands of the class of laborers who build the plant and machines, from hoarded wealth, and then exacts payment from those who operate it. This is then called productive capital, but it is no more productive than the money in the bank vault. The producing, so called, is but the exacting of a part of that which the operators produce. It is the exacting of payment that never pays. The operators are compelled to be forever buying, yet the plant is never bought. The capitalist is forever selling, yet the plant is never sold.

Usually, the usurer is a fourth party that stands yet behind the third party, taking no risks, demanding complete security for his loan and also an increase out of the products of the operators. The third party assumes all care and guarantees against all losses and depends for his compensation on a portion of the product after the demands of the fourth party are satisfied. This third party may be an active producer. All that he receives may be fully earned in care, oversight and management of the business of the plant.

But the fourth party can have no claim for his services, he has no part in the production. The absurdity, the figment that his capital is productive, is introduced to cover the evident fraud of appropriating, without compensation, a portion of the products of the operators. He has no more claim to an increase of his capital year by year and a doubling in a term of years, than the laborers who built it have to the same plant, perfect and unworn at the end of a term, and in addition, another plant equal in every respect. They built but one, they have no claim upon a second. For the usurer, who takes their place, to double his wealth, and yet the debt be undischarged, is a flagrant fraud.

The underlying falsehood is that wealth changes its nature when put in the hands of a live man and becomes productive. It is acknowledged that wealth lying in the vault is barren and at the same time it is claimed that it produces in the hands of an intelligent agent. But it is the same dead, helpless, barren thing wherever it may be found and whatever form it may be made to take. The dollar taken from the vault and exchanged for a hoe does not receive this new quality. The hoe is as dead as the dollar. When this hoe is in the hands of the workman it is the same barren thing is was before he picked it up. These glasses are precisely the same when astride my nose as when lying on the table. It is not true that wealth in any form, though it be that of a useful tool, takes on this new quality or attribute when in the hands of a live man.

A man's labor is more productive with suitable tools than without them. The same energy will secure far greater returns. If it were not so he would not trouble to make tools or use them. But to call tools productive agents and so reward them is to rob intelligent energy, skill and inventive genius of that which they alone can produce. This degrades the man to the level of the tool or exalts the tool to the height of its maker.



CHAPTER XXI.

WEALTH DECAYS.

All man-made wealth is subject to inevitable decay. Aristotle said, "Labor produces all wealth," but the product has no sooner left the laborer's hands than it begins to perish. The vital energy that produced it must follow to preserve it from the ravages of time.

Take the life, the vital part, from the body, and corruption begins. So with all that has been produced, withdraw the vital force and ruin immediately follows. The vital energy must ever be present and active to preserve it.

Fruits and grains and provisions of all kinds for human food rapidly perish. The laborer must be continually active, producing and preserving, or the race would be starving in a fortnight. Even the miraculously bestowed manna became corrupt in a night. It had to be gathered day by day.

Flocks and herds need the shepherd's care. They are subject to disease and natural enemies and are short lived, so that however large and strong, and healthy the herd of cattle, or the flock of sheep, it would be soon scattered and lost to the owner without watchful care.

Tools and instruments of production, great or small, if used, soon need to be renewed, or if unused perish even sooner. Neglected they speedily decay. The locomotive left unattended on the track would soon be utterly useless from the destructive elements of rain and heat, frosts and sunshine.

The palace, that floats on the ocean, would be a prey to barnacles, to winds and waves, to shoals and rocks, and would soon disappear, without the constant hand of intelligent vital energy to direct and preserve it. Houses untenanted and uncared for soon decay. Leaks unstopped, broken windows unrepaired, and vermin unrestrained, soon make them unfit for habitation. Farms and plantations go back speedily to weeds and wilderness when uncultivated. Great cities like Babylon and Nineveh are soon so covered with dust that we have to dig to find their ruins.

Decay is written over every form of man-made wealth. There is needed constantly the touch of the laborer for its preservation.

Gold, silver and precious stones are the least subject to decay. They are not, however, made, but found, and simply refined and polished. The indestructibility of silver and gold have made them the money metals of the world, quite as much as their rarity, their beauty and malleability. In them wealth could be stored and moth and rust would not corrupt.

But even gold and silver will disappear. The thief will break through and steal. They must be, therefore, carefully guarded. The tax or levy of the government for its part in the protection must be met, so that even gold and silver must also gradually slip away.

Decay is upon all wealth and the hand of the laborer must be ever present for its preservation.

This law is universal. Even the Divine Creator must continue to uphold his creation. His sustaining hand cannot be withdrawn. He must preserve by his power and ever guide and direct, or disorder and chaos will ensue.

Usury or interest presumes to ignore this order of nature and demands not only that the borrower shall resist this tendency of capital to decay, but shall also pay a price for the privilege.

That any one should undertake to care for and preserve the property of another without compensation is unreasonable, but that any one should voluntarily pay a premium for the privilege can only be explained by misguided judgment or a perverted moral sense.

No one would be responsible for, and care for and pay tax upon the money of another and himself get from it no return. Trustees and administrators receive, and feel they earn, a commission for this caring for the property of others.

When this wealth is in the form of a tool, or manufacturing plant, the responsibility is greater. The owner asks that it be preserved perfectly. There must be no decline in value, from new improved machinery, and all accidents must be made good; if destroyed by fire, it must be rebuilt. To take this for a year or term of years, is a responsibility no one would feel justified in assuming in justice to himself. He would be using his own vital force to preserve the perishable property of another.

A man has a farm, fertile and well improved, and well stocked. He is to be absent for a time. He asks as a favor that another watch it with care, preserve the stock in condition, if any die, replace them, and in short, so preserve that he shall have the farm at his return, just as fertile, the stock just as young and valuable, the implements unworn and no signs of decay on the buildings; if any burn, rebuild them. This would be a favor only the kindest and weakest of neighbors or friends would undertake, and what no man would be justified in asking of another. This is loaning without interest and this is the borrower, who pays only the principal and no increase.

The usurer says, Care for my property and pay me for the opportunity. Keep it intact. Make good every loss and return to me an increase which you by your energy and effort may produce.

The rates of interest greatly vary. The average in the United States is about seven per cent., by statistics of the government only recently issued. At seven per cent., interest paid annually or added to debt for ten years, the debt is doubled.

The usurer or interest taker says, You take this hundred dollars and care for it for me for ten years and then bring me two hundred dollars. Take this wheat and this corn and in ten years bring me back just twice the amount. Take these horses and these sheep and cattle and care for them for ten years and return them just as good as they are now, and other horses, cattle and sheep in equal number, which you have produced in these ten years.

Take this shop with all its tools and implements and care for it so that in ten years you can return it to me in as perfect order as now, and also build me with your labor and energy another shop, just like it, and equip it in every way just as complete as this, and on my return give both to me. Take this farm, fertile as it is, with its buildings and animals and implements, and preserve them perfectly, not a thing shall decay or decline in value; make good every loss, and at the end of ten years return it to me and also another farm which you have earned during these ten years, of equal acreage and fertility, equally improved with live stock and implements.

The usurer gains the preservation of his own perishable property, and he gains also the product of the vital force of his victim.

This law of decay is a natural limitation to the accumulation of any producer. As decay begins at once, a part of the vital energy must be expended in the preservation of that already produced. As the accumulations increase, more energy is required for its preservation, and less remains for active production. Time does not relax his work of ruin, and the resisting energy must be constant. The tendency to decay is such that soon the energy required to preserve that already gained leaves none to produce, and the accumulations must cease.

To this point the rich fool in the parable had come. He had abundance accumulated and the problem was to preserve it, until he could consume it. "This will I do, I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry."

The usurer hands his goods to another to build the barns and keep for him, while he is free from its care; and, more, he requires of his victim not only that he shall preserve, resisting all decay, but that he shall actually pay him for the privilege.

Had the rich fool not lived in his day, when usury was a crime, but in this age of folly, he would have apportioned his goods among his foolisher neighbors upon interest, to keep for him, and then not only he, for "many years," but his posterity forever, could be at ease, eating, drinking, and making merry. The silly borrowers would supply all the needs of his endowed family, for the privilege of caring for the goods.