CO-OPERATION. 17 



red, until there are many times as much owed as there is cash 

 with which to pay it. So that by the fifth year, whatever the 

 crops, times begin to grow "Aarc?/" By the seventh year, with 

 wages at a minimum, capital fails to make its accustomed div- 

 idend. The mills shut down and a corner is made on the con - 

 sumer, which is facetiously termed '•'•overproduction!'''' But turn- 

 ing people out of employment is not the quickest way to make 

 them consume. So business becomes blocked, it cannot sur- 

 mount usury, engagements go by default, failure ensues, confi- 

 dence is lost, and d, panic begins, during which the people are 

 sold out for 33 cents on the dollar. Hard pan is now reached, 

 and at a nominally lower rate, the machine is wound up again! 



Pow&' of Usury. — If only one dollar had been loaned, at a 

 simple, 6 per cent, interest, when Christ \\'as born, it would have 

 now more than eaten up the entire world of solid gold! Can 

 anything be more conclusive, that interest is a legal fiction? 

 What an awful gnaAving upon the vitals of labor must there 

 have been through every dollar! There is no rate of interest, 

 but what, when compounded, will devour all property, enslave 

 all men and finally destroy itself! If Vanderbilt's income is $50. 

 per minute, and his brakemen's Si. per day, what is to become 

 of the train of human destiny by the time W. H. V. Jr. begins 

 to crawl out of has cradle? The public will surely by that time 

 be 'damned,' with Malthus to carry. Every |1,000. of teaser, in 

 Western Union, commands the seiwices of an operator; loaned 

 for 50 years, at 15 percent., it would be worth more than 20 

 skilled mechanics, at $3. per day; making them bring but $50. 

 apiece, one twentieth the price of an ordinary negro. In- 

 deed, it was recently reported that Rothschild had an incum- 

 brance on and was about to foreclose the Holy Land! 



The monopoly of money is, literally, the monopoly of every- 

 thing that money will buy. Kent tells where one may work, 

 interest, xoheii^ how long, and what one must receive. Between 

 these two mill stones, labor is completely crushed. The 

 more it writhes and struggles, the more deplorable its lot, 

 imtil it costs less to keep the average worker than the average 

 convict. 



"O tull them in their palaces. 

 These lords of land and money. 

 They must not kill the poor like bees, 

 To rob them of life's honey."' 



