76 Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
annually paying for interest, $2,165,000,000, or a per capita tax 
upon every man, woman, and child in the country of about $50. 
But, as the producers of the nation are compelled to bear this bur¬ 
den, and as the census allows only about $5,000,000 to this class, 
their individual annual assessment is $133. Five millions of pro¬ 
ducers are each thus compelled to pay from their daily earnings 
$1.18 each and every day in the year to satisfy the demands of capi¬ 
tal in this matter of interest. This is certainly a startling array of 
figures, but the estimate is lower than any I have ever seen made. 
It must be admitted that, in estimating the amount of the individ¬ 
ual indebtedness, we meet with many difficulties—indeed, it is 
largely a matter of conjecture, but if it will please anybody to de¬ 
duct one-half from the estimate it will result in little to give en¬ 
couragement in any direction while the present high rates of inter¬ 
est continue. It is not more certain that the sun shines in the 
heavens than it is that this people cannot continue to pay the pres¬ 
ent rates of interest and escape the humiliation of acknowledged 
bankruptcy with its legitimate consequences of 
REPUDIATION AND DISHONOR. 
We are annually paying more for the privilege of being in debt 
than the estimated yearly increase of our wealth amounts to; and 
3 *et in the face of all this, the advocates of a high rate of interest, 
completely baffled by the stubborn facts, fall back upon what they 
call the unparalleled growth of the country and its increase of 
wealth. They are like the boy, who, finding that he couldn’t whip 
another boy, blubbered out, a Well, if I can’t lick you, I can make 
faces at your sister.” The increase of wealth has been unmistak¬ 
ably great in the past; wealth has been produced from the mine, 
the soil, and the factory, and is represented in the improvements I 
have noticed; but while this increase of wealth has gone on there 
has been a rapid increase of indebtedness which becomes more and 
more burdensome and exhausting as maturing interest is added to 
the principal or paid into the pockets of those who use capital for 
oppression only. But the payment of interest does not necessarily 
diminish the increase of wealth, immediately or in a direct way. 
If the interest be payable to our own citizens, of course the wealth 
remains in the country, but the trouble arises from diverting it 
from its legitimate and productive channels into those which are 
