Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 231 
other values, this servant created b} T the people to aid in the neces¬ 
sary distribution of the products of the people, assumes to dictate 
and control all other values, so that the law of supply and de¬ 
mand is not allowed to obtain legitimately and for the best interests 
of humanity? Instead of occupying the more humble position of 
servant, it now becomes, by long sanctioned usage and unwise en¬ 
actments of law, absolutely master, and dictates with a despots 
power the rate of interest or amount of the products of labor it will 
draw to itself annually. 
Money, to be valuable, must be parted with, as it cannot accum¬ 
ulate interest in the hands of the possessor. Not that money has 
the power to produce money, but to draw to itself the accumula¬ 
tions, labor or products of others. For instance, if A loan to B 
$1,000 in the legal currency of the United States at the rate of ten 
per cent, per annum, he does not expect this money to accumulate 
its like to the amount of $100 at the expiration of the year, but that 
said sum shall be paid to A from the profits of the labor of B or 
others he may employ. 
This accumulation of money is what constitutes its power and 
determines its value, as much as the value of a common laborer or 
skilled workman is determined by the amount and kind of labor 
each can perform, or as the quality and quantity of crops grown 
upon certain soils determine the value of such land for agricultural 
purposes. In proportion to the power of money to accumulate by 
interest is this power and value increased. A workman who can 
do double the work of his fellow laborer, and do it as well, can 
command twice the wages, for his labor is doubly as valuable. So 
money, the higher the rate of interest, the more valuable it be¬ 
comes to him who parts with it for this increase. If the rate be 
ten per cent., it is twice as valuable as though it was only five. 
One hundred dollars in the one case is equivalent to two huudred in 
the other. The same is true of bank and railroad stocks and other 
forms of investment. They are valuable just in proportion to the 
dividends they will pay per annum. By a high or low rate of in¬ 
terest, money measures or represents more or less property, labor or 
products of the country, just in proportion as it varies, while its 
nominal value remains the same. 
Conceding that money loaned should bear a just rate of interest, 
let us for a moment consider whether the present rate is right and 
