Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
259 
want to borrow some money and how are you going to help me do 
it with your theory? 
Secretary Field. I would have Government fix interest at not 
more than three to four per cent., and fix severe penalties for a viola¬ 
tion of the law. That rate is as high as the industries of the people 
will warrant them in paying. 
Mr. Robbins. What are } T ou going to do with me, I want to 
borrow some money ? 
Secretary Field. When the law was ten per cent., people loaned 
at ten per cent., and if you will bring it down to six per cent., a 
large portion of the capital will be loaned at that, provided it was 
uniform throughout the whole country. 
Mr. Anderson. The farmers of Nebraska, last year, when they 
wanted a dollar, had to send to Massachusetts and get Professor 
Perry to tell them what kind of money they should have, and his 
theory or speech was given to the Chicago and St. Louis papers and 
published. And those papers have been hired by capitalists to edu¬ 
cate the people to that theory. And if those people had been alive 
in the days of old Belshazzar, they would have been burned, rather 
than bow down to the golden image. 
I want to sav that the reason bullion is worth as much as coin 
* 
is because they charge nothing for coining bullion into coin. 
If our Government would undertake to manufacture woolen goods 
and give as many pounds of cloth as it received of wool, wool would 
be worth as much as cloth. 
Is a mortgage less valuable because it is written on paper than if 
it was written on gold? It is the land that contains the value and 
not the paper. It is the land and real estate that is the basis of the 
whole wealth of this country, and has to pay for our money, and it 
make no difference, whether that money is gold or paper. I 
want to tell the Professor that we have not flourished in the West 
as well as he thinks for, and if we did, it is not because we had gold 
as a circulating medium. We had plenty of money in the olden 
time. 
Now, gentlemen, I want you to understand that if these green¬ 
backs are lies, we have been committing a notorious crime, we have 
been compelling our soldiers to stand up and be shot at and then to 
take lies in payment; and when they have been killed, we have com¬ 
pelled their widows to take lies for their pensions and losses. If so, 
