In addition to this, nearly every city or incorporated town, and many of the counties, have a bonded indebtedness as large as they can possibly carry. In some cases bonds have been issued and sold to pay interest on other bonds, and in one case at least—Pratt Centre—the interest payments have been discontinued “by order of the council.”
The Future Prospect.
So far I have been dealing only with the past and the present, and have given only a plain statement of facts, the value of which must depend upon my capacity as an observer, my opportunities for observation, and my truthfulness as a writer. If you are inclined to be sceptical, inquire of your neighbors who hold, or have held, Western mortgages. The value of my forecast of the immediate future must depend upon the character of my reasoning and judgment.
As “death and taxes” are certain, it is safe to predict that taxes will be levied to pay the interest, and afterwards the principal, of city bonds. Also, it may be assumed that you, who own the larger and more valuable share of the property, will pay the lion’s share of the taxes. The Western man has “let go”; he is not “in the deal”; and when one capitalist is taxed to pay another, he is not an “interested” party. I sympathize with you. You have exchanged good money for bad property; and with the property you have assumed the bulk of our burden of taxation. You must pay our bonds, pay for the repairs and improvements of public property, pay for educating our children and making our laws, and yet you have no voice in determining when, how, or to what extent these things shall be done; nor power to prevent the jobs and steals which accompany such transactions in Kansas as well as in New York.
But, notwithstanding my sympathy, and the additional fact that I must indirectly suffer from the effects of your suicidal policy, it is amusing to see you trying to squeeze the remaining value out of your own property. For, I repeat, it is yours. Interest payments will cease in the same ratio that they have ceased, and for the same reasons. And the principal cause will be that the mortgagor has discovered that he has no equity in the property. If property is worth only “what it will bring in money,” there are few pieces of mortgaged property in the West in which there still remains an equity. But many farmers are economizing and wearing rags in order to make interest payments, which can only result in putting the evil day a little further off.
The Westerner is a practical man. When he finds that the equity is all squeezed out of his property, and that it is still being squeezed at the same rate, he stops paying taxes and interest, uses the property free while you are foreclosing, saves up a little money, buys a house for about one-tenth of the money it cost to build it, moves it onto a “clear” lot, and is then ready to help you squeeze your property by voting for taxes for various purposes. Under like circumstances the farmer raises one or two crops without rent, taxes, or interest, clothes his family more comfortably, replaces worn-out machinery, rents a farm, and is in better circumstances than he has been for years.
The Proposed Remedy.
It may be that there is no remedy, but that will not prevent us from trying to find one. During the last ten years we have experimented. We have tried Democratic rule and Republican rule; the “McKinley bill” and the “Wilson bill”; “tariff for protection” and “tariff for revenue only”; a Treasury “surplus” and a Treasury “deficit”; yet none of these things have sensibly affected the squeezing process. We have lost our faith in the tariff and in tariff-tinkering, as well as in the leaders who recommend it. We have dismissed our old political leaders and chosen new ones; and as your “gold-standard” squeezing policy is the only rational cause “in sight” for the origin and continuance of our condition—to use an expressive Western phrase—we are “going for it.”
We are willing that you should own and control the property which was ours, and in which your money was invested, but when you attempt to force upon us your financial policy, your politics, and your religion, we object. You may own and control the property, but not us; here we draw the line. This is what Marsh Murdock had in his mental view when he said at the St. Louis Convention, “You want to own the country and run it too.” But the veteran editor of the Eagle has changed his mind and consented to being “run.”
You have bought the leading papers, caused our editors to “change their minds,” flooded the country with a trashy literature that is an insult to our intelligence, and provided funds to pay third-rate preachers for preaching to us a religion which we do not want. We are not rich, yet we are able to pay for our education and our religion—if it is a kind that will be of any use to us.