There are activities that look like virtues, but they are perverted efforts. The slave-driver may work as hard as the slave in his efforts to appropriate the earnings of others. The thief may work in the night and endure more hardness to secure the property of another than would be necessary to honestly earn it. The usurer may give his thought, night and day, to the placing of his wealth the most securely and at the best rates of interest, and at the same time abandon all effort in the direct management of useful productive enterprises.

The complete result of usury upon the habit of industry can be realized in those who have grown up under its influence; those who have an income secure from invested funds. When there is no need, present nor prospective, there is no motive to active industry, and the love of ease and pleasure grows and drives out all heart for productive effort.

The industrious habit coupled with economy is called thrift. It is not parsimony or unwillingness to give, but a disposition to save. Our Lord, who was the prince of givers and inculcated unlimited giving among his followers, gave a lesson in thrift when he said after his miracle, "Gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost."

Enforced industry and economy is not thrift. When by low wages or grinding conditions the necessities of life are with difficulty secured, the very opposite disposition may be cultivated. When the external restraints are removed, the wildest extravagance may be indulged in. This is sometimes given as an excuse for low, grinding wages; that "the workmen and their wives have no idea of saving;" that higher wages would be wasted in foolish extravagance.

No one in normal conditions will be wasteful of that which has cost him hard labor. His care for it will naturally be in proportion to the effort that was necessary to secure it. Those who waste the wealth of the world are not those who by the sweat of their faces have produced it. The habit of thrift comes from the knowledge of the value of a thing, learned by earning it. Only that which comes without effort will be spent without thought. Those who have livings secured from the increase or interest of "productive" capital, having no need of industry, are wholly occupied with the spending; but in spending only, the value of the thing spent is not appreciated, the habit of extravagance grows and they become the idlers and the spendthrifts of the world.

2. It prevents open and frank honesty. When the thought is turned to an endeavor to secure a dollar that is not earned, there is secretiveness of purpose and inward guile. No person doing business on borrowed capital advertises the number and amount of his loans nor does he welcome inquiry by others. In a column of advertisements by money lenders in a newspaper lying on this table every one promises "privacy" or "no publicity." No one can be so open and frank as the one who earns every dollar that he receives or seeks.

The possibility of speculation is ruinous. The first step in the wreck of integrity in a young man's character is when he becomes absorbed in some scheme by which he can secure gain without honestly earning it. Lotteries are outlaws not only because they defraud but they undermine integrity and honest industry.

When property earns property, and the gain is secured with no struggle on his part, the temptation is presented and the disintegration of his character has begun. When there is no gain except by production, the whole thought and energy of the man is directed to that end, and his desire to secure that earned by another is restrained. The frank, open disposition is preserved. Honest productive toil drives out the spirit of speculation. Under usury, both lender and borrower are in the attitude of expectants of unearned gain.

3. It discourages the spirit of self-reliance.

Usury causes a broad separation between a man of property and the man of mere muscle or brain. It makes such large combinations of capital possible in immense shops and department stores and other enterprises, that the individual workman is belittled. Under the principle of usury, property can produce as well as brain or muscle. One having property can control both.

His property places him in a position as a superior. He comes to forget the relations he bears to men as equals, and requires that those who have only their natural gifts shall be cringing supplicants before him or be denied his favor. The borrower or the laborer who asserts his rights is endangered by the man controlling property, who has him in his power.

That independent, self-reliant spirit, that looks every man in the face as an equal yet lingers in the country among the hills and mountains, but is fast disappearing from the city. There has come to the laborer in the town or city a feeling of dependence upon others and a desire to secure their favor. They almost feel that they must apologize for being laborers, and beg for an opportunity to earn a living in some one's employ. One of the saddest facts, and most threatening of disaster in these present commercial conditions, is the common desire to be employed, to get a job, dependent on the whim of another, instead of a determination to direct one's own labor and be the manager of one's own business. The sound educational development is wanting in the daily occupation of the hired laborer, and there is a loss of manhood that has no compensation.

The independent spirit slips away so gradually that its going is scarcely noticed, but when once gone the degradation is complete.

A family of free Hebrews went down into Egypt, and for a long time was in favor with the rulers, but they gradually lost their independence and became more and more servile and cringing until the Egyptian masters dared to go into their homes and pick up their boy babies and take them out and drown them as if they were worthless puppies.

The hopelessness of the Ottoman Empire today is more in the cringing subordination and broken spirit of the people than in the oppression of the Sultan. His government might be overthrown in a day, but it would take ages to lift up that empire of prostrate slaves and to cultivate in them the self-assertion and self-reliance necessary to a free people.

Every man who loves his country and his race must view with alarm this growing feeling of subordination and cringing disposition. It is the very reverse of that democratic spirit or consciousness of equality that must prevail to secure the permanency of our republican institutions.

4. It destroys fraternal sympathy. Two classes are found in every modern community. The one is the laborers with muscle or brain, the other class, those whose property produces for them. Between these classes there is a great wall fixed. It cannot be expected that they will mingle harmoniously and be in sympathy in civil and social relations. Producing and non-producing classes can never be congenially associated.

The question is frequently discussed in church circles, "How can the laboring man be attracted to the churches?" The discussion often presumes that the non-laboring man does find the church congenial. If he does, all efforts to win the other class will be in vain. The church itself needs to correct its teachings and reform its spirit.

The moral law commands "Six days shalt thou work," and there is no release because a man has property. So long as a man has brain or brawn he is bound by that law. If he is not, he is not a moral man, and has no rightful place in the church of God. Honest, upright, industrious Christian men, engaged in all lines of production for human needs, may be congenial and co-operate most harmoniously, but they never can be made comfortable in association with those who are unproductive and idle, yet living in luxury.

5. Usury promotes that "Covetousness which is idolatry."

"As heathens place their confidence in idols, so doth the avaricious man place his confidence in silver and gold. The covetous person, though he doth not indeed believe his riches or his money to be God, yet by so loving and trusting in them, as God alone ought to be loved and trusted in, he is as truly guilty of idolatry as if he so believed."

Idolatry is the act of ascribing to things or persons properties that are peculiar to God. The principal objects of worship are those things which bring to men the greatest good.

The sun has been the most general object of idolatrous worship in all the ages. It is the most conspicuous object, and is the source of light and heat, and rules the seasons. Its worship was so general that the Hebrew people, when they lapsed from the worship of God, turned to the worship of the sun or Baal. No natural object is more worthy of worship. Job declaring his integrity and freedom from idolatry, said that he had not kissed his hand in salute of the sun in his rising.

The river Nile was an object of idolatrous worship for ages. Its source was a mystery, and its annual rise in its rainless valley was so beneficent, that it was given the worship which belonged to the Divine alone. All the hope of the harvest depended on its annual overflow. It moistened and fertilized and prepared the ground, and then receded until the harvest was grown and gathered. Moses showed the Egyptians the impotence of their idols by making this chief idol, and the things that came out of it, a curse. The cow was worshiped because it was the most useful and necessary of their animals. A real or supposed power to give or withhold favors has been from the beginning the source and spring of idolatry.

Riches, property, as the means of supplying our needs, is an object more coveted than any other. The principle of usury greatly aggravates this tendency. The principle of usury makes it imperishable; it can be perpetuated, unimpaired from year to year and from age to age; it is a constant source of benefit; it is productive of all that is necessary to supply human needs.

It supplies, too, without effort on the part of the recipient. The sun, with his light and heat, makes the labor of the farmer successful. The rising Nile moistening and fertilizing the land, prepares the way for the sower. The cow draws the plow and the harrow, and threshes the grain, but usury makes property bring all needed material good without effort on the part of the owner. It brings him the matured fruits of the farm, though he neither plows or sows nor reaps. No labor on his part is needed. His property clothes and feeds him, and yet does not grow less, but is endowed with perpetual youth, ever giving yet never exhausted or diminished. He may die, but his idol knows no decay, and may continue to bless his children through the generations. This quality of riches makes them a greater source of blessing than the sun or any other object of idolatrous worship. This leads to unlimited self-denial and sacrifice to gain and retain property. The devotees subordinate their own ease and physical comfort, their own intellectual development, to secure it, they will themselves shrivel in body and soul; like other idolaters they will even yield the highest interests of their children, when this idol demands their sacrifice.

6. It destroys spirituality. Property is matter and not spirit. With the thought and heart and effort directed to a material thing, the spirit is neglected. The heathen Greek artist directed his whole attention to the material part of man. The symmetry of the human physical form was his study. The perfect man was the most symmetrically developed specimen of physical form. His thought of man was matter. The Christian directs his thought to the spirit, his mind and heart, his noble purposes, and all the qualities of true manhood. The material part is subordinated to the spiritual.

The tendency now is to appreciate a man for what he has rather than for what he is, to ignore both symmetry of form and the graces of the noble character, and to worship what he holds in his hands. The truly spiritual loves true manhood and is indifferent to the possessions.

If a noble soul is found in a Lazarus, the true child of Abraham will take him to his bosom. A perverted manhood will receive no favor though clothed and surrounded with all material splendor.

It destroys spirituality, too, because it holds the mind to a material thing as the source of all good. The spiritual man rises to the true source of our blessings, the author of all temporal good, from whose hand every living thing is fed.

This, as all idolatry, leads to a breaking away from the restraints of the moral law. The devotion to the material leads, logically and practically, to a neglect of the restraints of the spiritual, and a preponderance of subserviency to the material. Practices that will promote the material are indulged though the moral law may be broken. The material is not held subject to the needs of the higher nature, nor subject to the promotion of the kingdom of God, but man's noblest gifts and the worship of God are all made, if possible, to minister to the material interests.

To break this idol's power, the true nature of property must be shown. It is not immortal, but perishable. It can not preserve itself, but must be carefully preserved by man's own effort. It can not protect him, but he must protect it. It is but a thing which man has himself made. It must be shown absurd, as Isaiah ridiculed it, "They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made."

Other forms of gross external idolatry are exposed by the advancing light of these progressive years, but this musty old form has taken new life and now receives the service of the race. The whole world is running pell-mell after this idol. It stands in the market places, it is not a stranger in the courts of justice, and is in high favor in legislative halls. Solon is relegated and Croesus is elected.

It is given a high place in the temple of God. Pious Lazarus is neglected but Dives is promoted.

"What agreement hath the temple of God with idols?"

Until this idol is cast out the church will and must languish. Spiritual life will be low and fervor impossible.



CHAPTER XXXII.

AX AT ROOT OF THE TREE.

It is easier to cut down an evil tree than to climb up and lop off it branches; besides the branches will grow again if the stock is left undisturbed. It is easier to destroy the mother of vipers than it is to chase after, catch and kill her poisonous progeny. The reptiles will not become extinct while the mother is left to breed without restraint. There are a large number of industrial and financial evils that derive their strength from usury, which have received the close attention of benevolent reformers, but they have not exposed the cause, nor have they suggested a sufficient remedy. That the evils exist is apparent to them all, but they seem too high to reach or too swift to be caught.

It is only possible to hint at the prevailing evils in one chapter. It would require a volume to discuss them in detail and to apply the remedy.

1. There is a tendency to divergence in the material and financial conditions of men. Some are growing richer, while others are growing poorer.

The prayer of Agur, "Give me neither poverty nor riches," is the prayer we should offer and the prayer we should try ourselves to answer. We are to seek freedom from poverty on the one hand and from ensnaring riches on the other. This is the condition we should try to secure in the community and in the commonwealth. We should discourage excess of riches and we should endeavor to relieve all of distressing poverty. We should hedge about accumulation with such conditions as to make it very difficult to gain great wealth, and at the same time we should so ease the conditions of accumulation that only gross indolence or great misfortune could cause dependent poverty.

The so called middle class are those who neither have great riches nor yet are they in fear of want. The great mass of our people belonged to this class until very recent times. Now we find the excessively rich have multiplied and a vast number of our industrious, honest and virtuous population are struggling for life's necessities. The middle class is less numerous while both those in opulence and those in poverty have been increasing.

We should level up and level down to the medium which is best for the development of the highest manhood and best also for the strength and perpetuity of our republican institutions.

The rich should be limited in their accretions while the poor are lifted out of their poverty; but how can this be accomplished without interfering with individual liberty and our personal rights? The problem is not easily solved. While usury remains, which is an ever active centralizing force adding wealth to wealth, no remedy can be found. Do away with usury, and the evil is overcome.

(a) When it is recognized that vital energy alone produces all wealth, no great fortune can be gathered in the life time of one man. The earnings of any life, however long, or the earnings of a succession of industrious, energetic ancestors, could not amass a fortune to interfere with the rights and activities of others.

One may inherit a large fortune from wealthy kindred; he may discover a fortune; he may draw a grand prize in a lottery; he may as a Turk seize the properties of others and then bribe the courts to confirm his claims; or a people may be "held up" by law and one, selfish and conscienceless as a ghoul, may jump at the opportunity and appropriate their earnings and their property and yet the robber keep out of the penitentiary; but no one, however great his skill or brilliant his genius, can earn one million dollars, nor the tenth of it, in his natural life. To gain one million dollars one must earn twenty thousand dollars each year for fifty years and save it all. He must spend nothing for pleasure nor benevolence. He must spend nothing for food nor for clothes.

(b) Wealth decays unless cared for and preserved. As wealth increases, the task of protecting and preserving it increases. There comes a time when production must cease, and all energy will be required to preserve that already gained. When others preserve and pay a price for the privilege, as in usury, the vital energy can continue production, indefinitely.

(c) Abolish usury and the instant one ceases to produce he begins to consume that which he has earned. He can not live upon the increase of his earnings, but he must begin at once to diminish the supply. Exacting usury he may consume only the increase and preserve the principal untouched. He may not consume all the increase and add the remainder to his capital and thus grow richer in decrepit age. Many of those who have not inherited wealth, have not been wealthy until advanced age. It came to them by the accretions of interest after the productive period of life was past.

(d) It is not possible to secure perfect equality of conditions. If all wealth was equally distributed today differences would begin to appear tomorrow. This has seemed to some disheartening and they abandon all hope of correcting the evil. They should look deeper and promote the natural and God-ordained remedy.

The natural force for the preservation of the level of the ocean is gravity. But the surface is seldom smooth. The winds lash it into fury and pile high its waves, but gravity pulling upon every drop of water tends to draw it back to its place and smooth down the surface again. The wind cannot build permanently a mountain of water in the ocean.

The consumption and decay of wealth tends unendingly to equalize the conditions of men. In the wild rush of the struggle for supremacy and gain, like a whirlwind in the affairs of men, with their diverse gifts and tastes and plans, there will be inequalities appearing, but consumption and inevitable decay are ever present leveling powers. Usury suspends this beneficent law and aggravates the evil, making the differences in condition permanent and increasing them.

Do away with usury and there is a natural limitation to riches. The rich will find that he can not grow constantly richer; not because he is by statute deprived of any personal rights, but he is hindered by the natural law embedded in things by the Creator.

Do away with usury and the problem of poverty is solved. If we credit vital energy with the increase of wealth and give the laborer all he earns, he has a fair and equal chance, and equity requires no more. It is justice and opportunity, a fair chance, that the poor need, not pity and gifts of charity.

2. Great combines of capital in business and especially in industrial trusts are receiving the closest attention of the thoughtful. Some regard them as the necessary result of successful and enlarging business. Many others regard them as hostile to the public good and are anxiously seeking a means of restraining their great and increasing power.

These were at the first associations of manufacturers who co-operated to maintain prices. In the competitive system there is a constant pressure on the part of the consumer for lower prices. The manufacturer who is conscientious and a model employer, seeking to maintain prices sufficiently high to afford him a profit and living wages for his employes, must ever be resisting this pressure. They united for this purpose and were benevolent and just in their design. But the manufacturers were paying tribute on borrowed capital. They must meet the demands of interest on their debts and also the wages of their workmen. Between these two they struggled to secure for themselves comfortable wages. The capitalists, seeing the advantage of this co-operation and the resultant profits, undertook and accomplished the combination of their capital to secure for themselves the profits at first sought for the operators and their employes.

These great combines are the natural result of successful business with the practice of usury. They threaten evil.

The purpose and plan of the present trust is to increase the increase of the capital; to make the capital more productive; to bring larger returns for the wealth invested.

(a) They are not organized for the benefit of the laborer. The object is to decrease the cost by producing with less labor. The less the labor, other things being equal, the greater the returns for the capital invested.

(b) They are not organized for the benefit of the consumer. When they do favor the consumer it is only incidental and generally temporary to meet competition. They make no pretence of being benevolent in their purposes. They are organized for the purpose of business gain.

(c) These capitalists combine their interests because they can thereby secure a greater return from their investments than they can by operating separately. They combine that they may mutually increase the rate of interest or dividends on their capital. This is the motive that draws them into cooeperation.

The learned and benevolent statesmen, teachers of economy and reformers, have not suggested an adequate remedy. The remedy is not far to find. Do away with usury and they will fall apart like balls of sand; the cohesive power will be gone; the centralization will cease and the wealth will speedily return to the various individuals from whom it was gathered. This remedy may seem heroic, but it is a specific and is the simplest of all possible methods.

3. How to secure a just distribution of the great advantages from improved machinery, new inventions and new discoveries, is a problem that is engaging the best thought of many of the wise and good. That the present distribution is inequitable and unfair; that it gives the capitalist an undue advantage over the laborer; that it aggravates the difference in conditions, seems generally admitted.

An improved machine, owned by a capitalist, enables one man to do the work that formerly required ten. One man is employed and the nine are in competition for his place and there is no advance over the wages before the machine was introduced. The owner of the machine secures the gain. His wealth is greatly increased while the laborer plods on with his old wages. With the new machine the one man produces what ten men did before, but the product of the nine are credited to the machine and becomes the capitalist's gain.

(a) The falsehood on which this claim rests must be seen and rejected before the evil can be overcome; that the machine is productive. It is but a tool in the hands of the one man, who now with it produces as much as ten men did without it. If one does the work of ten he earns the reward of ten. Because by this machine he multiplies his strength, and adds to his efficiency, he can not justly be deprived of his full reward.

(b) "But the machine is owned by another." His not owning the machine does not change its nature and make it a productive force. Whether it belongs to him or to another, it is his intelligent vital energy that produces all that is produced. The machine is but his tool with which he works.

(c) "But the machine must be paid for." Certainly, the inventors and skilled mechanics, who produced this wonderful tool, should be fully compensated, but once paid they have no claim upon it or on what another may produce with it. No honest workman objects to paying a good price for good tools. It is not the purchase of tools by one set of workmen of another that causes the unequal conditions.

(d) It is the usurer or interest taker that perverts the conditions.

He lays hold of those great inventions and discoveries, like railroads and telegraphs and telephones, and demands a perpetual compensation. He asks that the laborer shall be forever buying his tool, yet it shall be never bought, that the public shall be forever paying for privileges and the obligation remain forever unmet. This is but one of the forms of usury, by which wealth is heaped from the earnings of the many.

4. The difficulties between employers and their laborers do not cease. The continued strikes and lock-outs show how general and deep the trouble is. Laborers organize into unions to protect themselves from discharge and to promote their interests. They ask for better wages and shorter hours. They urge their petition with forceful arguments; they make demands with an implied threat; they stop work or "strike." Then follows a test of strength and endurance in which both parties greatly suffer and both are embittered and neither is satisfied.

The correction of this common evil has received close study from those who have the welfare of all classes at heart and wish to be benefactors of the race. The remedies have not been thorough but superficial, and the benefits temporary. The branches have been cut off but they grow again.

(a) The complaint of too small wages implies that more is earned than is received; but there is no standard recognized by which what a man does earn can be measured. The capitalist claims the output as the earnings of his capital and his claim is allowed by the workmen. The workmen may claim that wages are too small for a comfortable living. This is not a plea of free workmen, but of slaves begging to be better fed.

(b) They may complain of too many hours of labor; but the number of hours of labor is arbitrarily fixed. There is no valid constant reason why one should wish to work less. In the management of one's own work, and the collection of his own earnings, there are times when long hours, of the strain of labor, are necessary, and there are other times when ease can be taken. With no standard of earnings or time, it is impossible to arrive at a just and satisfactory settlement.

The reasons given sound to the employers like the pleadings of servants for richer food and more play.

(c) The laborer should find a solid basal reason for his demands. That will be found only in the utter rejection of the theory and practice of usury.

The selfishness of human nature will remain; conflicts between men in all conditions and all businesses will remain; feuds and rivalries will remain; but when employer and employe are enabled to see that capital is dead, and decaying, and that all the earnings above its preservation belong to the laborers, there will be a recognized and true basis upon which the rightful claims of each can be adjusted.

(d) In a co-operative shop, where the workmen are the owners, each receives his share of the gains. With usury done away it is possible for workmen, who are poor, to ultimately become the owners, by the accumulation of earnings, but under the pull of the usurers, continually appropriating the earnings, they are doomed to hopeless poverty.

5. There is a widespread determination to overcome the evil of war. Non-combatants are numerous and peace societies are organized in all lands. Their literature is widely distributed and their petitions, for the preservation of peace, are poured upon every "power" that is thought to have an occasion, or a disposition, to engage in warfare. The waste of treasure and blood, the cruelties and suffering that are a military necessity, are pleaded in favor of peace. The shame of intelligent rational men settling differences with brute force is presented.

The unchristian spirit, that in this age of light and saving grace should be so wanting in brotherly love as to wish to destroy those who harm us, is deprecated.

When differences do arise between nations, they urge a just settlement or mutual concessions. Or if one is found to be unreasonable, unjust and oppressive, it is better and more christian-like, they claim, to endure hardness, submitting under protest, than by force, which the Master forbade, attempt to establish righteousness.

Rulers of the greatest nations on the earth have become conscious of the cruel burdens upon their people, in the support of their great armaments. On the invitation of the Czar of Russia, peace commissioners from many nations recently met in The Hague, to devise means by which the burdens of armaments might be diminished and actual warfare avoided. This peace council advised that differences be submitted to arbitration, but while it was yet speaking two Christian powers, began open war, without having so "decent a regard to the opinions of mankind" as to make known to the world the cause of their conflict. Wars continue, and among the most highly civilized and enlightened and christianized, in the face of the arguments and advice and pleadings of non-combatants and peace societies and peace commissions.

Mammon, a sordid greed of gain, is now on the world's throne and directs the movements of the nations in peace or war.

His purposes may be often accomplished in peace by purchases of territory for which interest bearing bonds are issued. The irritation or hurts between peoples may be molified and healed by indemnities, which also serve his purpose because they necessitate the incurring of a bonded debt, interest bearing. But the history of the world for centuries proves that a condition of war is Mammon's opportunity to foist a debt upon a free people and to increase the burden of those whose bonds he already holds.

His ears are deaf to advice and reason, when material and commercial advantages are to be secured. He cares not for human suffering and shed blood, if riches can be increased. When concessions can be secured, and mortgages placed, and a people exploited with profit, the cry of suffering, the pleading for pity and the call for justice are all in vain.

To stop these modern wars they must be made unprofitable to Mammon. When they are made to deplete his treasury and to waste his wealth, instead of increasing it, he will call a halt in strife, and the gentle spirit of peace will be permitted to hover over the nations.

Away with national debts and interest bearing bonds, which are the delight of the usurers. Make present wealth bear the burden of present duty. Try the patriotism of the usurers by making war a real sacrifice of their wealth, while the blood of others is being poured upon the field. Do not permit war to be an advantage to the rich to increase his riches. A patriot's life is given and it goes out forever, let wealth be no more sacred than life; let it not be borrowed but consumed. Let the rich grow poorer as the war goes on, let there be a facing of utter poverty, as the patriot faces death on the field.

While Mammon is permitted this usury, his chief tool, he will use it for the oppression of the world. He will direct the movements among the nations to further his ends, although it may require a conflict between the most christianized and enlightened of the earth. The nations will be directed in peace or put in motion in war to make wealth increase.

Give wealth its true place as a perishable thing, instead of a productive life, and wars will cease in all the earth. The holders of the wealth of the world will never urge nor encourage war, when the property destroyed is their own and not to be replaced. When wars are no longer the usurer's opportunity, but the consumption of his wealth, Mammon himself will beg that swords may be beaten into plow-shares and spears into pruning-hooks.



CHAPTER XXXIII.

PER CONTRA; CHRISTIAN APOLOGISTS.

Every argument favoring the continuance of the practice of usury can be met from the propositions established in the preceding chapters. Indeed, there are no true arguments to be presented in its favor. Truth is consistent with truth. We are not placed in a dilemma and compelled to decide which are the strongest of the arguments arrayed against each other. We are not deciding which is the greater of two blessings nor which the less of two evils, but this is a question of evil or good, of sin or righteousness. If usury is wrong then every argument brought forward to support it is a falsehood, though it may be covered with a very beautiful and attractive and plausible form in its presentation.

1. The old Wilson Catechism published in Dundee in 1737 is perhaps the most familiar defense.

"Q. Is the gaining of money by usury unlawful?

"A. Yes, Prov. 28:8. Psalm 15:5.

"Q. What is usury?

"A. The taking unlawful profit for money that is lent out.

"Q. Is it lawful to take any interest or gain for money lent?

"A. Yes, when it is taken according to the laws of the land, and from these who make gain by it, by trading or purchasing of lands; seeing it is equally just for the owner of money to ask a share of the profit which others make by it, as for the owner of the land to demand farm from the tenant of it, money being improvable by art and labor as well as land.

"Q. What is the unlawful profit for money, which may be called usury?

"A. The taking profit for money from the poor who borrow for mere necessity, or taking needful things from them in pawn for it; or the taking more profit for any than law allows, as these who take ten, fifteen, or twenty in the hundred. Exod. 22:25, 26. Deut. 24:12, 17. Ezek. 18:7, 8.

"Q. But were not the people of Israel discharged to take any usury or profit for lent money from their brethren? Deut. 23:19.

"A. This law seems to have been peculiar to the Jewish state, and that in regard of their estates being so divided, settled, and secured to their families by the year jubilee, and their not being employed in trading or making purchases like other nations, so that they had no occasion to borrow money but for the present subsistence of their families. But for strangers, who had another way of living, the Israelites were allowed to lend upon usury, and to share with them in their profits, Deut. 23:20, which shows that the taking of interest is not oppressive in itself; for they are frequently prohibited to oppress a stranger, and yet allowed to take usury from him. Exod. 22:21, and 23:9."

The reader will notice that the definition of usury is defective. The reader will also notice that there are no Scripture references given to prove that any interest can be taken. This is singular, since throughout the Catechism Scripture references are profuse in confirmation of the answers. If a single passage had been found that could be twisted into an approval the reference would have been given. He rests the permission to take usury wholly on human reason, though in direct opposition to the Scripture references he had first given to prove that the gaining of wealth by usury was unlawful. He does not claim to get this answer from the Bible. He rests this answer on the law of the land and the purposes of the borrower, and says it is not worse than taking a rental for land anyway.

The questions with regard to the customs of the people of Israel are completely met in the Second and Third Chapters of this book.

Fisher, also, we find from his catechism published in 1753, thought it necessary to make some excuse for the custom in his time. High interest he finds condemned, but moderate interest he tries to defend.

"Q. 32. What is it to take usury, according to the proper signification of the word?

"A. It is to take gain, profit, or interest, for the loan of money.

"Q. 33. What kind of usury or interest is lawful?

"A. That which is moderate, easy, and no way oppressive. Deut. 23:20, compared with Ex. 22:21.

"Q. 34. How do you prove that moderate usury is lawful?

"A. From the very light of nature, which teaches, that since the borrower proposes to gain by the loan, the lender should have a reasonable share of his profit, as a recompense for the use of his money, which he might otherwise have disposed of to his own advantage. 1 Cor. 8:13.

"Q. 35. What is the usury condemned in scripture and by what reason?

"A. It is the exacting of more interest or gain for the loan of money, than is settled by universal consent, and the laws of the land. Prov. 28:8. 'He that by usury, and unjust gain, increaseth his substance, shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.'

"Q. 36. How do you prove from scripture, that moderate usury, or common interest, is not oppression in itself?

"A. From the express command laid upon the Israelites not to oppress a stranger, Ex. 23:9; and yet their being allowed to take usury from him, Deut. 23:20; which they would not have been permitted to do, if there had been an intrinsic evil in the thing itself.

"Q. 37. Is it warrantable to take interest from the poor?

"A. By no means; for, if such as are honest, and in needy circumstances, borrow a small sum towards a livelihood, and repay it in due time, it is all that can be expected of them; and therefore the demanding of any profit or interest, or even taking any of their necessaries of life in pledge, for the sum, seems to be plainly contrary to the law of charity. Ex. 22:25-28. Ps. 15:5.

"Q. 38. Were not the Israelites forbidden to take usury from their brethren, whether poor or rich? Deut. 23:19: 'Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother.'

"A. This text is to be restricted to their poor brethren, as it is explained, Ex. 22:25, and Lev. 25:35, 36; or, if it respects the Israelites indifferently, then it is one of the judicial laws peculiar to that people, and of no binding force now."

In the answer to the 34th question he appeals to the light of nature. That light, as he interprets it, may be applied as follows. We follow his language closely and his argument perfectly.

From the very light of nature which teaches, that since the borrower of the hoe purposes to dig his own garden with it, the lender should have a reasonable amount of his garden dug, as a recompense for the use of the hoe, which he might otherwise have used himself to dig his own garden.

Fisher confirms his conclusion with a Scripture reference but it is so irrelevant that it would seem Wilson was wiser in omitting Scripture reference altogether. 1 Cor. 8:13, "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no meat while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."

The only explanation the writer ever saw or heard of, that was seriously made was this: "If using my brother's money without interest offends him, then I will never while the world standeth accept his money without interest lest I make my brother to offend." If this is the intended application then it may be further applied. If using a brother's money at six per cent. offends him then I will surely give him ten per cent. lest I cause my brother offence. Could there be a more absurd application of a Scripture passage?

The later theologians have seldom mentioned usury and none have discussed it at any length, and no divine to our knowledge has undertaken a defence. The "Systematic Theology" of Dr. Charles Hodge is perhaps the most elaborate and exhaustive. He does not more than refer to usury; he does not even mention it by name. But in his discussion of the violation of the eighth commandment, he ridicules the idea that "a thing is worth what it is worth to the man who demands it." He says: "If this be so, then if a man perishing from thirst is willing to give his whole estate for a glass of water it is right to exact that price; or if a man in danger of drowning should offer a thousand dollars for a rope, we might refuse to throw it to him for a less reward. Such conduct every man feels is worthy of execration."

He closes the discussion of the eighth commandment with this significant and emphatic sentence: "Many who have stood well in society and even in the church will be astonished at the last day to find the word 'Thieves' written after their names in the great book of judgment."

2. "To prohibit usury is revolutionary."

Revolutions are not necessarily evil. They have been justified in all the ages to overthrow tyranny and oppression and to secure freedom and establish justice. Oppressors and evil-doers in power have ever been anxious to maintain the "statu quo": that is, to be let alone. The "Man of Galilee" is the prince of revolutionists. He has overthrown and turned down the civilizations of the world and has brought in his own, called by his name, Christian civilization. His followers were revolutionists. The idolatrous craftsmen of Ephesus, not wishing to be disturbed in their profitable business, in order to defeat the work of Paul and his associates, raised the cry of revolution. "These that have turned the world upside down have come hither also."

The things that are wrong side up must be revolved. When material things are found superior to true manhood and womanhood, they must be reversed. When the works of men's hands are given a place above the hands that formed them, when the results of labor are given a place above the vital energy of the laborer, there is call for revolution.

But this revolution should be the most peaceful the world ever saw. This need not require the destruction of any property nor the shedding of one drop of blood. It need interfere with no man's rights nor enforce upon any man a burden he should not be willing to bear. A man is not interfering with the rights of another when he is paying his debts, and a man should not feel that there is placed upon him a burden he is unwilling to carry, when his own property is returned to him. Yet that is the ultimate, the extreme goal, to be reached by the abolition of usury; every man free from debt and every man caring for his own property.

3. "If usury is not permitted, the great modern enterprises are impossible."

A great modern enterprise that is not for the general good has no right to be. Splendid enterprises are often made possible by the sacrifice of the welfare of the many for the interests of the few. The splendid plantations of the southern states flourished in time of slavery, when the labor of many was subordinate to the welfare of one. They are not now possible; yet the present and future general good is better secured by the sacrifice of the splendid past. A splendid military campaign is only possible by the complete subordination of the many to the will and order of the commanding head. One hundred thousand in an army is now receiving the attention of the world. One hundred thousand in happy homes are commonplace. The pyramids are splendid monuments, but they were not a blessing to the slaves, who built them.

Splendid enterprises in which the few command the many may be an unmitigated curse.

"Ye friends to truth, ye statesmen who survey The rich man's joys increase, the poor's decay; 'Tis yours to judge, how wide the limits stand, Between a splendid and a happy land."

No enterprise, however brilliant, can be in the model state, that blesses the few by the losses of the many.

Great and benign enterprises are possible without usury. There is no greater enterprise than the postal system in this land and extending to all the nations in the postal union. You owe it nothing; like poor Richard, "you pay as you go." It owes nothing, pays no interest and renders a great service for the small amount you pay. It is a standing illustration of the success of a strictly cash business.

The great benevolent missionary enterprises, that send their messengers to all lands, over the whole earth, receive and disburse the gifts of the benevolent. Their work is not interrupted, but continues from age to age.

The commerce of the world can be carried on just as effectively without usury. A mortgage does not make a farm more productive nor does a bonded debt make a railroad or a navigation company more efficient. The railroads and express and telegraph and telephone and other enterprises are greatly hindered in the service of the public by the tribute they are returning to the usurers. Had this farmer not this mortgage he could improve his farm and bring from his land better results. Were it not for the unceasing drain upon the income of great enterprises to meet the interest on bonds, the properties could be improved and the public better served at greatly reduced rates. Indeed the most successful enterprises are now operated by the owners.

4. "It will be hard to borrow, if you will not pay interest."

It would be a happy condition if no one should want to borrow except in urgent need from an accidental strait; if that old independent, self-reliant spirit that refused to be indebted to any man could be universal, that preferred frank and honest poverty in a cabin, to a sham affluence in a mortgaged palace.

It should be hard to borrow, but easy to pay. Usury makes it easy to borrow, but hard to repay. Usurers even make it attractive and entice the victim into the trap of debt and then it is all but impossible to find a way out. An honest, industrious man of good habits must be ever on the alert or he will be entangled, sooner or later, with debts.

It will not be harder for an honest man, who is in need, to borrow. He will not be able to borrow more than his need requires. The debt will not increase during the period of disability, and it will be easier to repay without increase. The usurer requires more than honesty for the security of his loan. The loan to him is precious seed, that must be planted where it will grow. To merely have the loan returned without increase does not meet his claim. To remit the increase, to make it easier for the poor debtor to pay, he would regard as a positive loss to himself and a gift to his victim. The usurer prefers rich debtors, who have abundant property to secure the loan and its increase.

There is a despised class of pawn usurers who prey upon the poor. They are regarded as robbers of the poor in their distresses, but their business would be impossible, were it not that all avenues of relief are closed by usury; "interest must be paid anywhere; why not borrow of them though the rates are high?" The moral quality of the act is the same; the difference is wholly in the degree of turpitude.



CHAPTER XXXIV.

PER CONTRA; LAND RENTALS.

"If no interest should be charged on money, then no rents should be collected."

The early Christian apologists for usury, who felt it imperative to explain why it was permitted and practiced among Christians, found few arguments. They all agreed that the letter and spirit of the Scriptures forbade lending to the poor, upon interest. They also found it impossible to show from reason the right of money to an increase, but as money can readily be changed into other forms of property, as lands, they reversed the arguments; beginning with the assumed premise that it is right to charge rental for lands, and as money may represent lands, it is therefore right, they say, to charge interest on money.

"It seems as lawful for a man to receive interest for money, which another takes pains with, improves, but runs the hazard in trade, as it is to receive rent for our land, which another takes pains with, improves, but runs the hazard of in husbandry."

True logic would have led them to reason forward from the truth they had determined; that there is no valid reason justifying interest on money. Resting on this truth, and then discovering that money may represent lands, the necessary conclusion must be, that land rentals are without justice. Reversing the order of their argument, they assumed a false premise, and from it attempted to prove true the very proposition they had found to be false.

There is the usury of lands as well as of "money or victuals."

Forty years ago the Omaha Indians went across the river and cut some fine grass growing on open land, and carried it to their reservation. The owner of the land, living in a distant state, learning of this, claimed pay of the Indians and brought suit against them before the agent to recover it. The Indians admitted that they had cut and taken the grass; they also admitted its value. Their defense was that this man had no right superior to theirs. This was a natural growth that had cost him no labor, and they had not injured the land. Their speaker said, "If the man had dug the land and planted it in corn and hoed and tended the corn, the corn would have been his; but the Great Spirit made the grass grow and this man gave it no labor nor care; the buffalo or the cattle could eat it. Have we not the rights of the cattle? This man has no right to it."

The agent decided against them and compelled them to pay the man. They were much dissatisfied and felt they were unjustly treated and oppressed, because they had to pay that which the man had never earned. The red men were not versed in legal statutes nor educated in the tutelage of usury, but it can not be denied that they interpreted very accurately the law written in the reason and conscience: that no man has any especial claim to that which he has not earned.

The convictions of white men, and their method of compelling absentee owners to pay for the increase in value of their lands, came under the writer's observation in a new settlement near the Indians' reservation. He found three poor families in a district. They had little land and extremely plain homes, but there was a good school-house and a good school and an expensive bridge had been built across a stream to enable one of the families to reach it. Enquiring how they could afford to erect such improvements and support such a school, they replied that the lands all around them were owned by absentees, speculators in the east, who were holding the lands for the advance in value, which they, in their struggling poverty, should make by the improvement of the country, when they would gather in an "unearned increment." They said they had the power to levy taxes for bridges and for schools and they had determined to make the absentees in this way compensate them, in part, for the increment they were earning for them.

The conviction of right and justice in the white settler did not differ from the innate and untutored argument of the Indian. The Indians felt oppressed because they were compelled to pay the man for what that man had never earned. The white settlers determined to thwart the purpose of the absentee owners to gain an increment from their sacrifice and labor.

The landlord has a right to all that he has produced. When he has cleared away the forest or broken up the land; when he has planted the vineyard and builded the winepress, he has a right to let this out to husbandmen to gather the fruits of his preparation and planting and to share with them in the proportion each has contributed to the production, but to hold all that he himself has produced and yet claim a part of the product of another, is usury. A farmer retires from his farm because no longer able or willing to continue its cultivation. He has an undisputed right to a full reward for all his own labor, and for all he has purchased from others that he leaves in the farm. There must be a compensation for the transformation of the wilderness into a farm at the first, for the fertility that may have been added to the soil, for the orchards, vineyards, houses, barns and every improvement he may have made and left on the farm. He has an undisputed right to all the labor remaining in the farm. If he sells he expects compensation for all this.

But if he sells, he must begin at once to consume its price, unless he becomes a usurer and is supported by the interest. If he does not sell, but retains his farm, he must also begin at once to consume the farm.

For him to demand of his tenant that the farm shall remain as valuable as when he left it, the soil not permitted to become less fertile, the buildings to be kept from decay and restored when destroyed, the orchards to be kept vigorous and young by the planting of new trees and vines; in short, the farm to be preserved in full value and yet pay a rental, is usury in land.

The preservation of a farm or land and its restoration to the owner unimpaired after a term of years involves far more than persons not informed suppose. It seems to them unreasonable to farm a field and only return the unimpaired field to the owner.

While land is stable and possibly the most easily preserved of all forms of property, at least a thief cannot carry it away, yet the preservation of land involves great care and risk.

The taking of any crop from any land reduces its fertility. On the virgin, western fertile lands the farmers laughed at the thought that they should ever need to return fertilizers, but it was only a few years until they yearned for the fertility they had extravagantly wasted. Buildings inevitably decay and they may be destroyed by fire or storm. Orchards may be overturned by a cyclone or be destroyed by blight or by the thousand enemies of the various varieties of fruit trees. The land may be injured by washing that may require years to repair. A single storm has destroyed fields in this way that never can be restored. Noxious weeds take possession of land that can only be eradicated by infinite pains. In this state certain weeds are declared outlaws and must be destroyed by the farmer for the protection of his neighbors. The farmer in this locality must have an alert eye for Canada thistles and oxeye daisy. It often causes more labor to eradicate them than the land is worth on which they are growing.

If the annual renter was required to give bond for the return of the farm unimpaired, returning that which the crops and time must consume and destroy, taking all risks of every character upon himself, a thoughtful man, though poor and needing the opportunity, would hesitate. It might involve him in an obligation he could not discharge in his whole life through conditions and providences over which he has no control.

Practically in this country the owner renting a farm from year to year does consume it. It begins at once to decline in fertility, the improvements begin to fall into decay, weeds take possession, washes occur and are not repaired, and in a few years the half of the value is gone. The owner is fortunate if he has received in rentals sufficient to restore its former value.

Under a system of perpetual tenantry the case is different. If the fertility declines it is the tenant's loss. The improvements are his and may be sold as one could sell ordinary farm tools, but not to be removed. If they are impaired or destroyed it does not affect the annual rental.

The landed proprietor in city or country, who has permanent tenants, who are required to make every improvement and keep up perfectly the fertility, and who pay an annual rental, is in the same class as those who are receiving annual interest. The landlord practically holds a perpetual mortgage, and the rental is the interest or increase exacted generation after generation.

The debtor working under a mortgage is cheered by the hope that he may be able, some day, to lift it, but the perpetual tenant on entailed lands knows that he is doomed to hopeless tenantry. He can never own the land and he is in the power of the landlord, who is often oppressive.

Calvin, in his letter of apology for usury of money, speaks of the injustice of the landlords in requiring a rental for "some barren farm" and of the "harsher" conditions imposed upon the tenants. Indeed his whole argument, when summed up, is, that the usury of lands is more cruel and oppressive than the usury of money.

While it is not yet true in America, yet considering the landlordships of Ireland and Great Britain and the older countries, with their unremitted exactions, grinding the life out of their tenants for a mere subsistence, it is likely that the race is today suffering more from the injustice and oppression of usury of land than from the usury of money.

The land question is too large for one short chapter or for one small book. It requires more and deeper study than the subject has ever yet received. The ownership of lands cannot be absolute; it must be limited by the rights of those who live upon them, but the limitations have never yet been clearly defined. If a man has a right to live he must have a right to a place to live. If a child has a right to be born it must have a right to a place to be born. It cannot be that the mass of our race only touch the earth by the sufferance of those who claim to own it.

The unprecedented rapidity of the development of this country is owing more to its wise and beneficent land laws than to anything else. They are not perfect but the most favorable to the landless that the world has ever known. No landlordism, no binding up lands by entail to make it forever impossible to gain a title to a portion of the soil, but our land laws, wisely devised, gave hope of a home to the homeless everywhere. The result was that our people from the eastern part of our own country, and the landless from across the seas, swarmed over the mountains and filled the Ohio valley and pushed on to the great Mississippi and Missouri valleys, and in three generations have transformed this waste into happy homes. The possession of land, of a home, ennobles the character, produces a patriotic love of this country and stimulates devotion to her institutions. The landless foreigner who makes here a home of his own is unwavering in his loyalty to the country of his adoption. Those foreigners, who do not fall in love with our institutions and do not become assimilated with our people, are tenants here as they were before they came here. They are not attached to our soil; they do not secure homes of their own and are therefore restless and a menace.

A dangerous tendency has been developing throughout our whole land in these later years. The usury of lands is on the increase. Tenantry is becoming more common on the farms in the country, while the mass of our city populations are living in rented houses or flats or crowded tenements.

The yearning for a home of one's own is deeply imbedded in human nature. To be denied the privilege of living in one's own house is one of the greatest trials of a life. This tendency to tenantry is not because our people have come to care less for a home of their own, but the conditions are not such as to make a purchase of a home profitable; the interest on the purchase price is greater than the usury of the land or rental. The natural and desirable state is for every family to own and occupy their home, and those conditions should be encouraged which make it unprofitable for any one to own real property he does not himself occupy, and which make it easy and profitable for every family to own their own home.

When all lands are owned by those who occupy them, the prophet Micah's picture of the millennial dawn will be realized. Every man shall sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree and no one shall molest him or make him afraid, by demanding a rental or by serving a writ of ejectment.



CHAPTER XXXV.

PER CONTRA; POLITICAL ECONOMIST.

The students of political economy are not always reformers. It is not their purpose nor the object of their studies to transform society. They only endeavor to explain why things are as they are. They find the taking of usury all but universal, and they endeavor to give the reasons for the prevailing custom. The subject is usually but slightly touched upon and dismissed with a few sentences.

Few economists claim that interest or rental is a part of the cost of production. They mostly affirm that it is no part of production; that it is merely the price paid for the opportunity to produce. The lender of money makes a loan to the borrower and thus gives him a better opportunity to produce than he had before. The landlord for the rental withdraws his hand from over his land and gives the renter the opportunity to produce a harvest.

In justification, or at least in explanation of this exaction for an opportunity, three reasons are usually given. These may be briefly stated as risk, time and abstinence.

1. There is some risk in every investment. There is a possibility that the most honest, industrious and careful debtor may by some misfortune not be able to return the loan and it would therefore be lost. To guard against this the usurer requires the rate of interest to be graded by the measure of risk.

This is claimed to be of the nature of insurance, the borrower paying the premium. The profits of insurance are secured by collecting a larger premium than necessary to pay all losses. On this theory, the gain of usury is in the excess that can be secured of increase over the amounts lost.

This is the reverse of insurance. Insurance is the payment by an owner of property to a company who guarantees its preservation. Usury is the payment by the company to the owner for the privilege of guaranteeing that he shall not suffer loss.

Business involves a risk usually covered by insurance, but no honest man expects to make a profit out of his insurance.

2. A loan is made for a more or less extended time. Time is therefore claimed to be a ground for usury charges.

This claim rests on the assumption that time will increase wealth. But time is the great destroyer; time does not make gardens and farms, but covers them with weeds and sends them back to a wilderness; time does not erect a house, but pulls it down; time does not build a city, but causes it to crumble and a few ages buries it under the dust; time does not "incubate eggs, but turns them putrid; it does not transform into fowls. If eggs are developed into chickens the difference between eggs and chickens is the reward of the incubator."

Aside from the spirit of benevolence and sympathy with the needy there are three selfish reasons why a time loan may be made. First, the owner has no present need of it and wishes to be rid of its care. Second, the owner shall need it at a distant date and he wishes it preserved intact against that time. But these afford no ground for a charge of increase. He who stands and resists the ravages of time until the day it is needed does a positive service and deserves a reward. Third, the lender wishes to appropriate the earnings of another during the period of time given. This is the usurer's reason, and were it not for this time would lose its importance as an element; it is certain that long time loans would not be so attractive.

3. "The reward of abstinence" is a reward for refraining from consuming one's own wealth.

"You can not have your cake and eat it. If you do not eat it, you have your cake, but not a cake and a half. Not a cake and a quarter tomorrow, dunce, however abstinent you may be, only the cake you have, if the mice do not eat it in the night."—Ruskin.

The usual illustration is that of Jacob. He practiced abstinence in refraining from eating the bowl of pottage and giving it to his hungry brother. The reward of his abstinence was his brother's birthright.

If I do not take my soup now it is a great favor to have it preserved for me and served later, not cold and stale, but fresh and hot. If I deny myself now, for any cause, I can ask no more than that my meal shall be served, perfectly, later. This was all that Jacob could in justice demand of Esau.

It should be remembered, that because Jacob took Esau's birthright, as a reward of his abstinence, he was accounted a robber, was compelled to flee from his home, and not for twenty years see his father's face; that the consciousness of this sin and of the merited vengeance of the brother, whom he thereby defrauded and whom he thought was on his track, caused that night of struggle when he could not let the angel go, until he had his promise of deliverance.

Abstinence, to be benevolent, must be an act of personal loving self-sacrifice for another. Benevolent abstinence is its own reward and asks no more. Abstinence in hope of gain, denying himself while another is using his wealth, cannot be regarded as an act of benevolence, but of a selfish grovelling greed; more gratified to see his wealth increase than to himself enjoy its use. That is the spirit of the miser and receives the contempt of all right thinking people.

That the political economists are right in their analysis of the common thought of usury; that risk, time and abstinence are the elements of its basis in the popular mind, may not be denied, but if these are in fact the elements, then usury has no standing in equity and must be condemned by every enlightened conscience.



CHAPTER XXXVI.

USURY IN HISTORY.

It would require volumes to fully present the history of usury. A very brief summary must suffice in this place. Yet this synopsis may serve as a guide to those who may wish to pursue the investigation further and who have access to any considerable library of general and ecclesiastical history.

The exacting of usury has always been more or less practiced, and there has always been a contention against it as impolitic and wrong. In heathendom the philosophers and economists and common people were usually arrayed against it, and the voice of christendom has been practically unanimous in its denunciation until the 17th century. (For History of Usury in the Church, see Chapter X.)

Greece: Greece had no laws forbidding usury. The trade in money was left, like the trade in every thing else, without legal restraint. The law declared that the usurer should not demand a higher rate than that fixed by the original contract; it also advised "Let the usury on money be moderate." One per cent. per month was the usual rate.

There were among the Greeks at various times thoughtful men, who violently opposed the taking of increase. Solon, of aristocratic blood, but with strong sympathies for the oppressed classes, led a Nehemiah-like reformation. Solon was wise and patriotic. His name is a synonym for unselfish devotion to the public good. He was given authority in Greece in times of great financial distress. Debts were increasing. Mortgage stones were erected at the borders of each tract of land, giving the name of the creditor and the amount of his claim. The interest could not be paid. Interest taking had concentrated the wealth and power of the state in a few hands. The farmer lost all hope and was only a laborer on the farm he once owned. The debtor who had no farm to work for his creditor was yet in a worse condition; he was the mere slave of his creditor and could be sold by him. The free farmers were fast disappearing. The most of them were struggling with miserable poverty. Solon at once came to the relief of this suffering class. He released those who were enslaved and brought back those who had been sold abroad. The great work of Solon for this oppressed class has caused his name to be revered by all who have studied the history of his times.

Plato opposed usury, but he does not give extended reasons. Also the philosopher, Aristotle. His name is yet illustrious in the departments of natural and moral science and economics. With regard to usury he said: "Of all modes of accumulation, the worst and most unnatural is interest. This is the utmost corruption of artificial degeneracy; standing in the same relation to commerce that commerce does to economy. By commerce money is perverted from the purpose of exchange to that of gain; still this gain is occasioned by the mutual transfer of different objects; but interest, by transferring merely the same object from one hand to another generates money from money, and the product thus generated is called offspring (toxos) as being precisely the same nature as that from which it proceeds."

Rome: In the early ages of Rome there were no laws regulating the loans of money. The practice was common and was one of the most frequent subjects of popular complaint. In the celebrated secession of the lower classes of the people to Mons Sacer, when civil strife and fraternal bloodshed was threatened, the loudest outcry was against the oppression of exhorbitant interest exacted by wealthy citizens of those who were obliged to borrow. The common rate was twelve per cent. per annum. This is inferred from the fact that six per cent. was called half interest and three per cent. one-fourth interest.

The early records of Rome prove conclusively the odium attached to the business of money-lending for profit. In the codification of laws in the fifth century B.C. the rate of usury was fixed at one per cent. per month. This limitation of usury was enacted after a long and bitter contest between the rich lenders and the poorer classes.

A compromise seems to have been made in the assigned punishments. The laws for the collection of debts and the punishment of exacting more than the law permitted were alike extremely cruel.

The creditors of an insolvent debtor were given the power of cutting his body in pieces and the power of selling his children into slavery. The penalty of taking more than this legal interest was punished with more severity than theft. The thief must restore double, but the usurer must restore fourfold. This we learn from Cato's treatise on "Agriculture." Cato's own opinion of usury is shown in the answer which he made when he was asked what he thought of usury, his reply was, "What do you think of murder?"

Nearly a hundred years later the Licinian law forbade all increase. A little later we find the one-half of one per cent. permitted by law. Then under Sylla the legal rate is made three per cent. In the time of Antony and Cleopatra it is four per cent. For a time there was utter confusion and intolerably oppressive rates prevailed. Horace, in his Satires, speaks of one lending at sixty per cent. In the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Rome was again shaken with another usury sedition, an uprising of the people against the usurers. The law was finally adjusted in the Justinian Code, by a compromise permitting six per cent. and severely restraining the exorbitant rates.

Three hundred and twenty-three years B.C., Livy speaks of a creditor who kept his debtor in irons, claiming, besides the debt, the interest which he exacted with greatest severity. It was soon after decreed that this cruelty should end and that no citizen should be placed in irons or sold into slavery for debt.

At the close of the republic the rate was twenty-four per cent.

England: In the earliest periods of which we have any records we find that the doctrine, that letting money to hire was sinful, prevailed universally over the island of Great Britain. It was the prevailing opinion that interest, or usury, as it was then called, was unjust gain, forbidden by divine law, and which a good Christian could neither receive nor pay. In common law the practice of taking increase was classed among the lowest crimes against public morals. So odious was it among Christians that the practice was confined almost wholly to the Jews, who did not exact usury of Jews but of the Christians.

The laws of King Alfred, about 900 A.D., directed that the effects of money-lenders upon usury should be forfeited to the king, their lands to the lords under whom they were held, and they should not be buried in consecrated ground.

By the laws of Edward the Confessor, about 1050 A.D., the usurer forfeited all his property and was declared an outlaw and banished from England. In the reign of Henry II, about the close of the twelfth century, the estates of usurers were forfeited at their death and their children were disinherited.

His successor, Richard I, was yet more severe, forbidding the usurers attending his coronation, nor would he protect them from mob violence.

During the thirteenth century the severities against the usurers were not relaxed. King John confiscated their gathered wealth without scruple. It is recorded that he exacted an enormous fine of a Jew in Bristol for his usuries, and when the Jew refused to pay he ordered one of his teeth to be drawn daily until he should pay. The Jew is said to have endured the pulling of seven, but then weakened and paid the fine.

Henry III was equally harsh and severe in his measures. He exacted all he could and then turned them over to the Earl of Cornwall. "The one flayed and the other emboweled." It is written in the chronicles of England, 1251 A.D., "By such usurers and licentious liurs as belong to him, the realme had alreadie become sore corrupted."

In the fourteenth century, under the three Edwards, the taking of interest was an indictable offence and Edward III made it a capital crime.

In the fifteenth century, under Henry VII, the penalty was fixed at one hundred pounds and the penalty of the church added, which was excommunication.

Attorney General Noy, in the reign of James I, thought the taking of money by usury was no better than taking a man's life. He said: "Usurers are well ranked with murderers."

In the sixteenth century, under Henry VIII, it was enacted that all interest above ten per cent. was unlawful. Less was not collectable by law, but was not a punishable offence.

Edward VI revived the old laws condemning all interest.

Mary I, next following, executed these laws with extreme severity.

Elizabeth restored the laws of Henry VIII, in which usury less than ten per cent. was not a punishable offence. This edict of Elizabeth adds: "In the interpretation of the law it shall be largely and strongly construed for the repression of usury."

This law of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, with the rate of interest reduced, was the statute law of England until 1854, when all the usury laws were repealed.

In 1694 William and Mary II entered into a contract to secure a permanent loan and pledged the kingdom to pay interest on it forever.

The loan marked the turning point in the popular mind with regard to usury. As it was approved in their necessity by the king and queen at the head of the Protestant world, ecclesiastics began to shift their ground and to apologize for, and excuse, that which had been formerly unequivocably condemned. As the crown was the head of both the church and the state, the condemnation of usury seemed tinged both with disloyalty and heresy. The courts too began to modify their decisions to bring them into harmony with the action of the crown.

The change in the usury laws were not made by enactments of Parliament, but by the decisions of courts. The precedents were gradually accumulated and the statutes were merely made to conform to them.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

FRANCIS BACON.

From the short dissertation on usury found in the works of Bacon we learn that the taking of usury was a recognized evil and odious in his time.

It will be noticed that he eliminates risk from usury and sees that "In the game of certainties against uncertainties" usury is sure to win. It will be noticed also that he mentions only economic arguments against usury. He does not give ethical and moral reasons. He does not mention the want of sympathy for the poor and their oppression.

In his statement of the arguments in defence he implies that the usurer is less grasping than the man he knew who said "The devil take this usury."

This is the very opposite of the picture of the usurer given by his contemporary, Shakespeare, in his character, Shylock.

His specious argument for the regulation of the evil "For some small matter for the license" is familiar to modern reformers in connection with other sins. He speaks of the reduction of the usury rates as a general good and believes "It will no whit discourage the lender." Wrong-doers in all the ages have been ready to part with a portion of the profits of an unlawful business for the cover of the authority of the state.

The following is his discussion in full

OF USURY.

"Many have made witty invectives against usury. They say that it is a pity the devil should have God's part, which is the tithe. That the usurer is the greatest Sabbath breaker, because his plough goeth every Sunday. That the usurer is the drone that Virgil speaketh of:

"Ignavum fucos pecus a praesepibus arcent.

"That the usurer breaketh the first law that was made for mankind after the fall, which was, in sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum; non in sudore vultus alieni; (in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread—not in the sweat of another's face.) That usurers should have orange-tawney bonnets, because they do Judaize. That it is against nature for money to beget money; and the like. I say only this, that usury is a concessum propter duritiem cordis; (a thing allowed by reason of the hardness of men's hearts): for since there must be borrowing and lending, and men are so hard of heart as they will not lend freely, usury must be permitted. Some others have made suspicious and cunning propositions of banks, discovery of men's estates and other inventions. But few have spoken of usury usefully. It is good to set before us the incommodities and the commodities of usury, that the good may be either weighed out or culled out; and warily to provide, that while we make forth to that which is better, we meet not with that which is worse.

"The discommodities of usury are, first, it makes fewer merchants. For were it not for this lazy trade of usury, money would not lie still, but would in great part be employed upon merchandising; which is the vena porta of wealth in a state. The second, that it makes poor merchants. For as a farmer can not husband his ground so well if he sit at a great rent, so the merchant can not drive his trade so well, if he sit at great usury. The third is incident to the other two; and that is the decay of customs of kings or states, which ebb or flow with merchandising. The fourth that it bringeth the wealth or treasure of a realm or state into a few hands.

"For the usurer being at certainties, and others at uncertainties, at the end of the game most of the money will be in the box; and ever a state flourisheth when wealth is more equally spread. The fifth that it beats down the price of land; for the employment of money is chiefly either purchasing or merchandising; and usury waylays both. The sixth, that it doth dull and damp all industries, improvements and new inventions, wherein money would be stirring, if it were not for this slug. The last, that it is the canker and ruin of many men's estates; which in process of time breeds a public poverty.

"On the other side, the commodities of usury are, first, that howsoever usury in some respect hindereth merchandising, yet in some other it advanceth it; for it is certain that the greatest part of trade is driven by young merchants upon borrowing at interest; so as if the usurer either call in or keep back his money, there will ensue presently a great stand of trade. The second is, that were it not for this easy borrowing upon interest, man's necessities would draw upon them a most sudden undoing; in that they would be forced to sell their means (be it lands or goods) far under foot; and so, whereas usury doth but gnaw upon them, bad markets would swallow them quite up. As for mortgaging or pawning, it will little mend the matter; for either men will not take pawns without use; or if they do, they will look precisely for the forfeiture. I remember a cruel monied man in the country that would say: 'The devil take this usury, it keeps us from forfeitures of mortagages and bonds.' The third and last is, that it is a vanity to conceive that there would be ordinary borrowing without profit; and it is impossible to conceive the number of inconveniences that would ensue if borrowing be cramped. Therefore, to speak of the abolishing of usury is idle. All states have ever had it, in one kind or rate, or other. So as that opinion must be sent to Utopia.

"To speak now of the reformation and reiglement of usury; how the discommodities of it may be best avoided, and the commodities of it retained. It appears by the balance of commodities and discommodities of usury, two things are to be reconciled. The one, that the tooth of usury be grinded that it bite not too much; the other, that there be left open a means to invite monied men to lend to the merchants for the continuing and quickening of trade. This can not be done except you introduce two several sorts of usury, a less and a greater. For if you reduce usury to one low rate it will ease the common borrower, but the merchant will be to seek for money. And it is to be noted, that the trade of merchandise, being the most lucrative, may bear usury at a good rate: other contracts not so.

"To serve both intentions, the way would be briefly thus: That there be two rates of interest; the one free and general for all, the other under license only, to certain persons and in certain places of merchandising. First, therefore, let usury in general be reduced to five in the hundred; and let that rate be proclaimed free and current; and, let the state shut itself out to take any penalty for the same. This will preserve borrowing from any general stop or dryness. This will ease infinite borrowers in the country. This will, in great part, raise the price of land, because land purchased at sixteen years' purchase will yield six in the hundred and somewhat more; whereas this rate of interest yields but five. This, by like reason, will encourage and edge industrious and profitable improvements; because many will rather venture in that kind than take five in the hundred, especially having been used to greater profit. Secondly, let there be certain persons licensed to lend to known merchants upon usury at a higher rate; and let it be with the cautions following: Let the rate be, even with the merchant himself, somewhat more easy than that he used formerly to pay; for by that means all borrowers shall have some ease by this reformation, be he merchant or whosoever. Let it be bank or common stock, but every man be master of his own money. Not that I altogether mislike banks, but they will hardly be brooked in regard of certain suspicions. Let the state be answered some small matter for the license, and the rest left to the lender; for if the abatement be but small, it will no whit discourage the lender. For he, for example, that took before ten or nine in the hundred, will sooner descend to eight in the hundred than give over his trade in usury, and go from certain gains to gains of hazard. Let these licensed lenders be in number indefinite, but restrained to certain principal cities and towns of merchandising; for then they will be hardly able to color other men's monies in the country. So as the license of nine will not suck away the current rate of five; for no man will lend his monies far off, nor put them into unknown hands.

"If it be objected that this doth in a sort authorize usury, which before was in some places but permissive; the answer is, that it is better to mitigate usury by declaration, than to suffer it to rage by connivance."

(Works of Francis Bacon, Vol. 12, Page 218.)



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

WHY THIS TRUTH WAS NEGLECTED.

That we may find the way of return, we must consider the reasons of our wandering. We must reverse our direction and retrace our steps. These reasons are not occult or hard to find.

1. The departure had its root in man's depraved nature. The natural tendency is evil, while the graces must be cultivated with great diligence. Evils grow as weeds grow in the garden, as thorns and thistles and briers cover the untended fields. This evil has not been disturbed by any book exposing its harm for a hundred years, and it has been two hundred since it was treated as a violation of the Eighth Commandment. This evil, thus left undisturbed, has flourished and spread over all the world.

2. Two and three hundred years ago the great doctrines were occupying the thought of Christendom. The doctrines of free grace, by repentance and an exercise of faith, were receiving close attention. The creeds of the denominations were being unfolded, and their defense and proof absorbed the thought of the wise and good. What shall we believe was the question?

3. Other great evils stood before the faces of those who labored for the uplifting of the race. Practices attached to the ecclesiastics, and degrading the organized church, were flaunted before the eyes of those who stood for true faith and pure living. These were attacked with vigor, while this evil, which had been especially the sin of the Jew, crept in and entrenched itself.

4. Covetousness is one of those secret sins that may lurk in the heart while there is maintained a fair outward life. Few will admit this sin. Priests declare that this is the one sin that is never voluntarily confessed. Usury is the common outward activity of this inward state, and when usury was made lawful by the statutes of the realm, the voice of conscience was silenced. The conscience that would cry out in protest against a rate of interest forbidden by law, will permit the same rate when the statutes of the state are changed.

5. Early education and natural buoyancy have led the debtors to be less sensitive to the burdens of usury upon them.

A large portion of our present arithmetic is taken up with percentage. The position of the student, in mind, is that of the creditor. This is presumed in the statements of the problems and lies in the thought of the student in all the calculations. If the statements of propositions and their conclusions were made to place the student on the debtor side, then the study of percentage would educate him to a horror of this sin.

When a loan is made, the attention of the borrower is seldom called to the rapidity of increase and the dangers of accumulation. If this were done, and a prompt return of both principal and interest required, at the end of the term the borrower would soon be alarmed at the hopelessness of permanent gain through debt.