194 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



This table will not agree with Bradstreet's, because a certain 

 per cent is added for failures of a smaller amount than that 

 agency recognizes. 



After a careful examination of these tables, the question 

 must naturally present itself to every honest man : Was it 

 necessary for 162,000 business men to pass through the horrors 

 of bankruptcy, and suffer the torture which always waits upon 

 such conditions, or that $4,000,000,000 of hard-earned property 

 should be unnaturally and wrongfully transferred, because of 

 the power of an inadequate volume of money to oppress ? Has 

 the experiment been a success, and is the nation greater or 

 stronger for having passed through this trying ordeal in order 

 to make United States bonds bear a premium of twenty-five per 

 cent ? Human nature and honest convictions revolt at the plain 

 facts contained in this statement, and the universal verdict must 

 be that conditions which conspire to bring about such results 

 must be unwise and unjust. While the first table given dis- 

 closes "the power of money to oppress," the second table fur- 

 nishes ample proof of its existence. 



But there is other and stronger evidence of the destructive 

 forces contained in the first table, that cannot be disproved. 

 It is as plain as the noon-day sun, and is found in the increase 

 of the national debt, notwithstanding the vast sums that have 

 been paid as principal, interest, and premium. A careful and 

 thorough analysis of the following statement and table is 

 requested of the reader : 



The national debt in 1866 amounted to $2,783,000,000. We 

 have paid on the principal of the public debt $1,599,665,312; 

 and as interest on same, $2,540,726,049; and a further sum of 

 $58,540,000 as premiums on bonds purchased; amounting in all 

 to $4,198,931,361. Yet we find the debt of the nation has 

 actually increased, if paid in the labor and products of the peo- 

 ple, (any person of ordinary intelligence knows it cannot be 

 paid in anything else) ; that is to say, it will take more labor 

 products to pay what we now owe, at present prices, than it 

 would have taken to pay the entire indebtedness in 1866, at the 

 prices then. As proof of this, the table below is given. In 

 regard to its correctness, reference is called to any authentic 

 price lists of products for the years named. 



