AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 717 



incurred indicates that it was voluntarily assumed that, in the 

 judgment of those who subjected themselves to its burden, there 

 was reasonable ground to expect success to attend their venture. 

 The owners of capital who made the loans were evidently of the 

 same opinion. Professor Gunton has rightly said : 



Debts, it is true, are often contracted to relieve personal distress, or to pre- 

 vent a great loss of capital. . . . But this is not the chief function of debts. 

 It occupies about the same relation to borrowing, as a whole, that auction 

 sales do to the traffic of the merchants. 



At the same time, the fact that the employment of credit is 

 increasingly necessary on the part of those who are struggling 

 for industrial independence, is indicative of an inequality in the 

 distribution of wealth. 



The psychological conditions that have promoted the vast ex- 

 tension in the use of credit in general have played a part in the 

 increase of mortgage debt. Of chief importance here is the 

 tendency of the American people to discount the future in their 

 calculations and undertakings. Past experience shows such phe- 

 nomenal social and material prosperity that it is natural for them 

 to be animated with a spirit of hopefulness. As a consequence, 

 debts are incurred, risks are assumed, and enterprises started with 

 a courage born of confidence in the future. It is probable that 

 this spirit of unexampled and undoubted faith in the industrial 

 future of the country is largely responsible for the startling 

 growth of mortgage indebtedness. 



That such a spirit stimulates borrowing is a truism. During 

 every' panic and period of commercial depression mortgage debts 

 are contracted with reluctance, while during times of business 

 revival and prosperity they are incurred as a matter of course. 

 When the atmosphere is filled with hope, when confidence is 

 unbounded, when there is not a threatening cloud above the in- 

 dustrial horizon then it is that men of enterprise willingly 

 assume the obligations of mortgage debt, and that capital most 

 cordially welcomes the borrower. In accordance with this theory, 

 we should expect a large amount of mortgage indebtedness in 

 countries where the future is brightest, where industrial develop- 

 ment is yet in its youth, and where there are many in the prime of 



