668 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



sharks, with all the congregation, shouted 'Amen. ' I would 

 like to see a congregation of usurers in America that could 

 shout amen to a proposition of that kind. 



u Why, my friends, it has been my duty in the last 

 ten years to look into these great questions, and what do 

 you suppose I have found in America to-day. One hun- 

 dred years only have we lived as a nation, but I find we 

 are in debt $20,000,000,000 out of say $60, ooo, ooo, ooo of 

 wealth; and I find that our average rate of interest is 6^ 

 per cent, on the lowest estimate; and 6^ per cent, on $20,- 

 000,000,000 is $1,300,000,000 of simple interest, to say 

 nothing of the compound interest that the people are pay- 

 ing on national, state, corporate, municipal and private 

 indebtedness. Twenty billions of it altogether, at an aver- 

 age interest of 6^ per cent.; an annual interest of 

 $1,300,000,000! And yet, what is the annual net increase 

 of wealth in this nation? Scarcely 3 per cent, or call it 

 that to be fair. Three per cent of $60,000,000,000 is 

 $1,800,000,000, and you pay in usury alone, simple inter- 

 est, $1,300,000,000 of it to money loaners. Now add 

 compound interest; then add the extortionate charges of 

 railroads; then add the enormous rentals paid by the labor- 

 ing poor, and you find that you haven't a farthing left to 

 add to the wealth of the country as a whole. And that 

 has been why the wealth of this nation has accumulated 

 in the hands of a few people, because the debit has to be 

 made up from the earnings, and made up annually. So 

 the operation of the system which we have here at the end 

 of the first hundred years under our federal constitution 

 and glorious Declaration of Independence, is such as to 

 amass the wealth that is produced into the hands of a few 

 men in this country, and the impoverishment of the great 

 mass of mankind." 



The condition of the people of this country is little less 

 deplorable than that of the Israelites in the days of Arta- 



