HISTORY OF THE FARMERS' ALLIANCE. 1 07 



class. We again examine the statistics. The total net 

 earnings of the national banks for the year 1887, were 

 $64,506,868,66. The net earnings of the national bank- 

 ing associations of the United States for the past seventeen 

 years is $857,639,430.66. This is the net profits of these 

 institutions, during a period of seventeen years, on a cir- 

 culation of notes that contain not an element of safety, nor 

 a monetary function that is not injected into them by the 

 statutes of the general government. During the last 

 twenty years the people have paid in interest on the 

 national debt, the enormous sum of $2,153,691,193. The 

 total amount of interest paid by the people in the past 

 twenty years, as interest on a bonded national debt, and on 

 a national circulation based thereon, will in the aggregate 

 amount to over $3,000,000,000, or $50 per capita. Here 

 is $3,000,000,000 that have gone into the coffers of a class 

 known as bondholders and national bankers. 



"The public debts of the states in 1880, amounted to 

 $1,056,583,146. This draws from the people, not less 

 than $74,000,000 annually in interest. 



"The people paid to the railway companies of the 

 United States in 1887, in gross earnings, $822,191,949. 

 Their net earnings for- the same year were $300,602,565. 



"At this point we beg leave to refer you to an addrer.s 

 to his Excellency, Governor L. S. Ross, dated Austin, 

 Texas, April 4, 1888, signed by thirty- two members of the 

 Texas Legislature: 



"First For six years or more the people of the 

 State have been demanding legislation to restrain the rail- 

 road corporations of this state, from violating plain 

 povisions of the constitution, and to restrict the powers of 

 the same to impose upon the products and merchandise of 

 the country, burdensome and extortionate charges for the 

 transportation of the same. 



"Second To every legislature for the past six years 



