No sooner would one borrower pay off an old seven or eight per cent. mortgage at the banks than would some depositor withdraw the money, carry it to his county treasurer, deposit it, and another borrower would deposit a new four per cent. mortgage and pay off an old seven or eight per cent. mortgage at possibly the same bank.
This continued for nearly six months, by which time most of the loans on which the people had been paying seven or eight per cent. had been converted into four per cent. mortgages, payable to the various counties. Most of the bankers were honest and continued to take in money on old mortgages and pay it out to the depositors until their business was settled up in full.
In Tuscarawas County the aggregate of the mortgages held by the six banks was $1,048,692. On this amount the people saved by the new law an average of three and one-half per cent., or $37,703.22. This sum, instead of being paid to the bankers of the county each year, was saved by the borrowers, and, being applied on the principal, helped pay off the burdens of the people.
The first man in New Philadelphia to withdraw his deposit was Clem Waltz. He had $2,200 in the First National. He drew it out at 9:10 a. m., took it to the county treasurer, deposited it at 9:28 a. m.; and at 9:52 a. m. Seymour Grimes borrowed $1,600 of it on his River Bottom farm, and paid off a mortgage against him held by the same First National. About the same time Jacob Moore borrowed $500 on his house and lot on Eighth Street for the same purpose. So by 10 o’clock $2,100 of that $2,200 taken out by Waltz was back in the bank, and two hardworking, honest, industrious citizens were paying only four per cent. interest instead of seven or eight. And Clem Waltz had all of Tuscarawas County back of him as security for his $2,200, and would receive three per cent. interest on his money clear of taxes.
About 11 o’clock Robert Witt came into the county treasurer’s office with $2,000 of the same money that had been paid to the bank by Moore and Grimes, and by noon it was loaned out to other persons who would rather pay four per cent. interest than seven or eight. In the afternoon business was still brisker.
The first day there was $38,000 withdrawn from the various banks; deposited with the county treasurer; loaned to the same people that owed the banks; paid back into the banks; taken out and placed in the treasury, etc.
The first week loans to the amount of $356,828 were thus changed. Everybody seemed to be happy except a banker here and there. Many bankers, however, admitted that they were pleased to see the poor have more chance in life.
In six months’ time all the banks except the First National had closed up their business and quit. Business in all other lines has picked up. Two of the ex-bankers are clerks in the county treasurer’s office, while the others, being rich, have decided not to engage in any business for a while, feeling that it is due themselves and the community that they take a long-needed rest.
Betsy’s dream has, at least in part, come true. Jobe’s dream still remains to be realized. Millions of men are still out of work. But the people have been aroused. They are thinking hard, and soon they will act. They will act at the ballot-box, and by their votes they will declare that “the chief aim of human government should be to secure to each individual contentment and happiness, and that this can be done only by securing to all the unrestricted opportunity to labor.”
“Work for the unemployed” is the issue on which the people will fight and win the battle of the ballots.