Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
273 
Resolved , That this convention do hereby memorialize the Legislature of Wiscon¬ 
sin to so amend the laws regulating interest on money that the rate shall not exceed 
seven per cent, per annum, and that excess of interest shall be forfeited, with penal¬ 
ties for such violation. 
Mr. Flint. I came from a state where the rate of interest was 
six per cent., and I was in the Wisconsin Legislature when the 
rate was seven per cent, in Wisconsin, and I remember how the 
bankers came to us and argued that unless the interest was raised 
to ten per cent, no capital could be had in the state. But I found 
that the difference was a mere extortion, and the three per cent, 
that was added, was just so much taken right from the industries of 
Wisconsin and put into the pockets of the money-lenders. 
Mr. Benton. Argued at some length that the government which 
makes the money should control the rate of interest on that money. 
Mr. Borland, Thought that the cost of production, which did 
not pay over three and one-third per cent, was the cause of the de¬ 
pression in the business of the country, and not the rate of interest; 
that the cost of production is respoasible for the lack of the indus¬ 
tries of the country paying better than they do; that the question 
of interest should be left to the natural law of supply and demand, 
when it would work out its own proper results. 
Secretary Field. I reiterate that the question of interest lies at 
the bottom of all the trouble, and the fluctuations in prices are 
largely caused by the ever-changing value of the dollar, or rise and 
fall of interest. 
I wish to reply here to one or two statements of President Bas- 
com, and then I will close upon this subject. He says we talk 
about capitalists as though they were a u condemned class, 11 and 
u curse the men who help us. 11 Now, Mr. President, I have never 
harbored such a thought; and I don’t think the language used by 
any gentleman in the discussion of the merits of this ’paper will 
warrant such inference. I desire to have it distinctly understood 
that T make no war on individuals; neither do I blame them for 
loaning money for all the law allows. I would do the same, and so 
will every one. It is the power of money, by high rates of legal 
interest, that I am talking about; it matters not in whose hands 
it is, and the importance to the industries of the state and nation 
that it be controlled and fixed at a rate as low as arises annually 
from the great channels of business. 
. 18 A 
