SOME TELLING FIGURES.
But they who were engaged in this scheme over-reached themselves as the South had done before them. They over-estimated the vitality and endurance of the industries, already carrying a debt of $4,000,000,000 in railroad, State, county and municipal bonds, besides paying interest on individual loans to a still larger amount. They could not bear the added burden. With gold at par with which the interest was paid on this enormous debt before the war, they managed to get along; but when the war had raised the price of gold and had added $3,000,000,000 to the debt, it was more than they could stand. On this $11,000,000,000 debt, with the interest on some parts of it at 8, 9, 10 and even 12 and 15 per cent. per annum, and allowing for the large discounts that were frequently extorted, and adding to this the premiums paid for gold and including the dividends on stocks, the industries of the country were, and still are, taxed $1,300,000,000 every year to pay interest! Think of it, you who take this interest! Think of the toiling millions who, beneath the broiling sun, or in the murky mines, or dismal shops, or in the frozen forests, give up their lives to toil! Think of it! Taxed $1,300,000,000 annually for interest, part of which goes to enrich European bankers, and the remainder to those who, in luxurious ease, idle their lives away at home. Think of it, I repeat again, and then wonder, if you can, that industry is prostrate beneath the heel of capital! Say, if you can, whether the wonder is not rather, that there is a wheel in motion in the country, or that there is a plough moving in the soil.
The total products amount to but $5,000,000,000 annually. Out of this, there is first to come the subsistence of the 44,000,000 population. On an average it cannot be said that it costs less than $100 a year per capita to support this mass. Some people spend more than that for cigars in a single month, and others double for wines and other liquors, to say nothing about establishments costing thousands upon thousands to maintain; and yet there are so many who live upon less than $100 a year, that the average cost of subsistence may be placed at that sum. This would consume $4,400,000,000 of the $5,000,000,000 products, and leave but $600,000,000 with which to pay the $1,300,000,000 interest. Hence it is plainly to be seen that the productive interests of the country are running into debt to the capitalists at the rate of $700,000,000 every year; that their mortgages on the property of the country are increasing yearly by that amount. This is a frightful showing, but it is a true one; it is one that the labouring classes are beginning to understand; it is one that you who are oppressing them should also understand, for, by ignoring it, you are challenging swift destruction. The only question is, how long can these things go on, with the wealth of the country increasing at the rate of two and a half per cent. per annum; it is a simple thing to calculate how long it will require for money, increasing at the rate of 6, 8, 10, and even 15 and 20 per cent. per annum, to consume the wealth.