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Annual Report of tiie 
and industrial worker in the land, for it determines to a great ex¬ 
tent “what he shall eat, what he shall drink, and wherewitliall shall 
he be clothed,what shall be the shelter for himself and family, 
what he shall sell his produce for, and what shall be the price of 
that which he buys. The fight will come between labor and capital 
on the question of distribution—between the capitalist who loans 
and gathers in his ten per cent., and those who labor in the avenues 
of industry and barely earn three per cent. Money now rules, labor 
will then. 
Capital must be taught that it shall not accumulate in interest, on 
the average, more, if as much as a like sum invested in productive in¬ 
dustry. The rate of interest should be so low that capital will seek 
the legitimate channels of industry, commerce and trade, and this, in 
my judgment cannot be done except by the General Government 
supplying the people with money at low rates of interest and 
upon such security as'they can give. Homesteads, improved real 
estate, and possibly other property, should be as good security as 
United States bonds, upon which money could be issued or loaned. 
But says one, would you have the Government regulate interest? I 
would. What are the objects of Government but to protect all the 
people in their just rights—to give to every man a right at least, to 
“life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’’neither of which he has 
under the present rates of interest, except the former, and that even 
would be denied him if necessary to increase the percentage of 
gains to capital. 
Various societies for the better protection of the producing classes 
are being organized throughout the United States, and to some ex¬ 
tent this combined effort will better their condition, enabling them 
to buy and sell to better advantage, increase their products and bet¬ 
ter their profits, but as well might these combinations of laborers 
expect to change the natural laws governing the growth of crops, 
or those of health and life, as to expect to materially better their 
condition with this mill-stone of rapidly accumulating interest, 
weighing and pressing them down. So long as this high rate of 
interest continues, the only ray of hope for the laborer is, that he 
may be allowed to live and work at the will of capital, a slave to 
those who, judged by intelligence and every element of the best 
manhood, are often his inferiors. 
Senator Windham, chairman of the Senate Committee on Trans- 
