FAEM CEEDITS 229 



understand lie must in the course of a reasonable 

 time begin to make some payment upon his loan 

 or suffer the consequence of his neglect. 



It is said that mortgaged indebtedness on the 

 farms is on the increase. And so is the indebted- 

 ness of city business on the increase. In fact, 

 national, state, and municipal indebtedness is on 

 the increase. The debt machine everywhere is 

 running at too high a rate of speed. Extrav- 

 agance has extended into both private and public 

 affairs. It is our national sin and there ought to 

 be a slowing down process. But at the same time 

 we must consider that it is a truth that there would 

 have been but little progress in this country of 

 ours if it had not been for the vast sums of money 

 available for the borrower. Few men would en- 

 gage in the business or undertake to carry on our 

 different enterprises and business if they were 

 the owners of large capital. The men who built up 

 both the large and small prosperous enterprises, 

 no matter whether found in city or town, have 

 been the industrious, honest men without capital, 

 who had the confidence of the money loaner and 

 began and carried to success their enterprises al- 

 most solely upon borrowed capital. There is no 

 reason to expect that there will be a change of con- 

 ditions in this respect in the future. We must 

 expect that all lines of business will be transacted 

 by men who will be large borrowers of capital. 



It is shown by statistics that in 1910 it required 

 six billions of borrowed money to produce the 

 eight billion dollar crop of the year, upon which 

 there was paid an average rate of 8% per cent, 

 interest. But statistics will show that the busi- 



