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from all over whom they are enabled to After discussing the effects of the repeal obtain control. of the usury laws in some of the American Anxious for the perpetuation of this un-States, Mr. Carey continued :— happy state of things, these latter now in- We may be told, however, that at times vite their victims to give their aid towards money is abundant, and that even so late leveling the barriers by which they them- as last summer it was difficult to obtain selves are even yet to a considerable ex-legal interest. Such certainly was the tent protected, assuring them that further case with those who desired to put it out grant of power will be followed by greater on call; but at that very moment those moderation in its exercise. Misled there- who needed to obtain the use of money for by, money borrowers, traders, and manu-long periods were being taxed, even on sefacturers are seen uniting, year after year curities of unexceptionable character, at with their common enemy in the effort at double, or more than double, the legal obtaining a repeal of the laws in regard to rates. The whole tendency of the existing money, under which the State has so system is in the direction of annihilating greatly prospered. Happily our working the disposition for making those permamen, farmers, mechanics, and laborers fail nent loans of money by means of which to see that advantage is likely to accrue to the people of other countries are enabled them from a change whose obvious ten-to carry into effect operations tending to dency is that of increasing the power of secure to themselves control of the world's the few who have money to lend over the commerce. Under that system there is, many who need to borrow; and hence it and there can be, none of that stability in is that their Representatives at Harrisburg the price of money required for carrying have so steadily closed their ears against out such operations. the siren song by which it is sought to lead their constituents to give their aid to the work of their own destruction.

Under these circumstances is it that we are now asked to give place in the organic law to a provision by means of which this deplorable system is to be made permanent, the Legislature being thereby prohibited, be the necessity what it may, from placing any restraint upon the few who now control the supply of the most important of all the machinery of commerce, as against the many whose existence, and that of their wives and children, is dependent upon the obtaining the use thereof on such terms as shall not from year to year cause them to become more and more mere tools in the hands of the already rich. This being the first time in the world's history that any such idea has been suggested, it may be well, before determining on its adoption, to study what has been elsewhere done in this direction, and what has been the result.

Leaving out of view the recent great combination for the maintenance and perpetuation of slavery, there has been none so powerful, none so dangerous as that which now exists among those who, having obtained a complete control of the money power, are laboring to obtain legal recognition of the right of capital to perfect freedom as regards all the measures to which it may be pleased to resort for the purpose of obtaining more perfect control over labor. Already several of the States have to some extent yielded to the pressure that has been brought to bear upon them. Chief among these is Massachusetts, the usury laws having there been totally repealed, and with the effect, says a distinguished citizen of that State, that "all the savings institutions of the city at once raised the rate from six to seven per cent.; those out of the city to seven and a half and eight per cent. and there was no rate too high for the greedy. The conse quence," as he continues, "has been disas Mr. Carey then proceeded to quote at trous to industrial pursuits. Of farming great length from recent and able writers towns in my county, more than one quarthe results that had followed in England ter have diminished in population." Rates from the adoption of the proposition now per day have now to a great extent, as I before the convention. These may be am assured, superseded the old rates per summed up as the charging of enormous month or year; two cents per day, or $7.30 rates of interest, the London joint-stock per annum, having become the charge for banks making dividends among their stock-securities of the highest order. What, unholders to the extent of twenty, thirty, and der such circumstances, must be the rate almost forty per cent., the whole of which for paper of those who, sound and solvent has ultimately to be taken from the wages as they may be, cannot furnish such secuof labor employed in manufactures, or in rity, may readily be imagined. Let the agriculture. At no time, said Mr. Carey, monopoly system be maintained and the in Britain's history, have pauperism and rate, even at its headquarters, New Engusury traveled so closely hand in hand to- land, will attain a far higher point than gether; the rich growing rich to an extent any that has yet been reached; this, too that, till now, would have been regarded in despite of the fact that her people had as fabulous, and the wretchedness of the so promptly secured to themselves a third poor having grown in like proportion. of the whole circulation allowed to the

40,000,000 of the population of the Union | have been the usury, and discreditable as rcattered throughout almost a continent. How greatly they value the power that has been thus obtained is proved by the fact that to every effort at inducing them to surrender, for advantage of the West or South, any portion thereof, has met with resistance so determined that nothing has been yet accomplished.

Abandonment of our present policy is strongly urged upon us for the reason that mortgages bear in New York a higher rate of interest. A Pennsylvanian in any of the northern counties has, as we are told, but to cross the line to obtain the best security at seven per cent. Why, however, is it that his neighbors find themselves compelled to go abroad when desirous of obtaining money on such security? The answer to this question is found in the fact that the taxation of mortgages is there so great as to absorb from half to two-thirds of the interest promised to be paid.

Again, we are told that Ohio legalizes "special contracts" up to eight per cent. and, that if we would prevent the efflux of capital we must follow in the same direction. Is there, however, in the exhibit now made by that State, anything to warrant us in so doing? Like Pennsylvania, she has abundant coal and ore. She has two large cities, the one fronting on the Ohio, and the other on the lakes, giving her more natural facilities for maintaining commerce than are possessed by Pennsylvania; and yet, while the addition to her population in the last decade was but 306,000, that of Pennsylvania was 615,000. In that time she added 900 to her railroad mileage, Pennsylvania meantime adding 2,500. While her capital engaged in manufactures rose from 57 to 141 millions, that of Pennsylvania grew from 109 to 406, the mere increase of the one being more than fifty per cent, in excess of the total of the other. May we find in these figures any evidence that capital has been attracted to Ohio by a higher rate of interest, or repelled from our State by a lower one? Assuredly not!

What in this direction is proposed to be done among ourselves is shown in the section now presented for our consideration. By it the legal rate in the absence of" special contracts" is to be raised to seven per cent., such " contracts," however ruinous in their character, and whatsoever the nature of the security, are to be legalized; the only exception to these sweeping changes being that national banks, issuing circulating notes are to be limited to seven per cent. Shylock asked only "the due and forfeit of his bond." Let this section be adopted, let him then present himself in any of our courts, can its judge do other than decide that "the law allows it and the court awards it," monstrous as may

may have been the arts by means of which the unfortunate debtor may have been entrapped? Assuredly not. Shylock, happily, was outwitted, the bond having made no provision for taking even "one jot of blood." Here, the unfortunate debtor, forced by his flinty-hearted creditor into a "special contract" utterly ruinous, may, in view of the destruction of all hope for the future of his wife and children, shed almost tears of blood, but they will be of no avail; yet do we claim to live under a system whose foundation-stone exhibits itself in the great precept from which we learn that duty requires of us to do to others as we would that others should do unto ourselves.

By the English law the little landowner, the mechanic who owns the house in which he lives, is protected against his wealthy mortgagee. Here, on the contrary, the farmer, suffering under the effects of blight or drought, and thus deprived of power to meet with punctuality the demands of his mortgagee, is to have no protection whatsoever. So, too, with the poor mechanic suffering temporarily by reason of acciden tal incapacity for work, and, with the sheriff full in view before him, compelled to enter into a “special contract" doubling if not trebling, the previous rate of interest. Infamous as may be its extortion the court may not deny the aid required for its enforcement.

The amount now loaned on mortgage security in this State at six per cent. is certainly not less than $400,000,000, and probably extends to $500,000,000, a large portion of which is liable to be called for at any moment. Let this section be adopted and we shall almost at once witness a combined movement among mortgagees for raising the rate of interest. Notices demanding payment will fly thick as hail throughout the State, every holder of such security knowing well that the greater the alarm that can be produced and the more utter the impossibility of obtaining other moneys the larger may be made the future rate of interest. The unfortunate mortgagor must then accept the terms, hard as they may be, dictated to him, be they 8, 10, 12, or 20 per cent. Such, as I am assured has been the course of things in Connecticut, where distress the most severe has been produced by a recent abandonment by the State of the policy under which it has in the past so greatly prospered. At this moment her savings' banks are engaged in compelling mortgagers to accept eight per cent. as the present rate. How long it will be before they will carry it up to ten or twelve, or what will be the effect, remains to be seen. Already among ourselves the effects of the sad blunders of our great financiers exhibit themselves in

the very unpleasant fact that sheriffs' sales of all the metals, gold and silver inare six times more numerous than they cluded. were in the period from 1861 to 1867, It will be said, however, that adoption when the country was so severely suffering of such measures as have been indicated under the waste of property, labor, and would tend to produce a general rise of life, which had but then occurred. Let prices; or, in the words of our self-styled this section be adopted, giving perfect free-economists, would cause "inflation." The dom to the Shylocks of the day, and the vulgar error here involved was examined next half dozen years will witness the some thirty years since by an eminent transfer, under the sheriff's hammer, of British economist, and with a thoroughthe larger portion of the real property of ness never before exhibited in reference tc both the city and the State. Of all the de- any other economic question whatsoever, vices yet invented for the subjugation of the result exhibiting itself in the followlabor by capital, there is none that can ing brief words of a highly distinguished claim to be entitled to take precedence of American one, published some twelve or that which has been now proposed for our fifteen years since, to wit: consideration.

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Among the innumerable influences which go to determine the general rate of prices, the quantity of money, or currency, is one of the least effective."

Rightly styled the Keystone of the Union, one duty yet remains to her to be performed, to wit: that of bringing about equality in the distribution of power over Since then we have had a great war, in that machinery for whose use men pay in- the course of which there have been terest, which is known as money. New numerous and extensive changes in the England, being rich and having her peo-price of commodities, every one of which ple concentrated within very narrow limits, is clearly traceable to causes widely differhas been allowed to absorb a portion of that power fully equal to her needs, while this State, richer still, has been so "cabined, cribbed, confined," that her mine and furnace operators find it difficult to obtain that circulating medium by whose aid alone can they distribute among their workmen their shares of the things produced. New York, already rich, has been allowed to absorb a fourth of the permitted circulation, to the almost entire exclusion of the States south of Pennsylvania and west of the Mississippi; and hence it is that her people are enabled to levy upon those of all these latter such enormous taxes. To the work of correcting this enormous evil Pennsylvania should now address herself. Instead of following in the wake of New Jersey and Connecticut, thereby giving to the monopoly an increase of strength, let her place herself side by side with the suffering States of the West, the South, and the Southwest, demanding that what has been made free to New York and New England shall be made equally free to her and them. Let her do this, and the remedy will be secured, with such increase in the general power for developing the wonderful resources of the Union as will speedily make of it an iron and cloth exporting State, with such power for retaining and controlling the precious metals as will place it on a surer footing in that respect than any of the powers of the Eastern world. The more rapid the societary circulation, and the greater the facility of making exchanges from hand to hand, and from place to place, the greater is the tendency toward reduction in the rate of interest, toward equality in the condition of laborer and employer, and toward growth and power to command the services

ent from those to which they so generally are attributed. Be that, however, as it may, the question now before us is one of right and justice, and not of mere expediency. North and east of Pennsylvania eight millions of people have been allowed a greater share of the most important of all powers, the money one, than has been allotted to the thirty-two millions south and west of New York, and have thus been granted a power of taxation that should be no longer tolerated. The basis of our whole system is to be found in equality before the law, each and every man, each and every State, being entitled to exercise the same powers that are permitted to our people, or other States. If the Union is to be maintained, it can be so on no terms other than those of recognition of the existence of the equality that has here been indicated. To the work of compelling that recognition Pennsylvania should give herself, inscribing on her shield the brief words fiat justitia, ruat cœlum-let justice be done though the heavens fall!

Speech of Gen. Simon Cameron.
On the benefits derived by Pennsylvania from the Policy of
Internal Improvements.

Any one will see, who will take the trouble to read the debates on the location of the National Capital, that the decision of that question seems to have been made solely with reference to a connection of the East with the then great wilderness of the West. All the sagacious men then in public life looked to the time when the West, with its wonderful productive soil brought under subjection by industry, would exercise a controlling influence on the destiny

of the country. Columbia, in the State of Pennsylvania, was at one time within one vote of becoming the site of the Capital; and Germantown, near, and now a part of, Philadelphia, was actually decided on as the proper location by a majority of one. The first of these was favored because it was believed to be a favorable point from which to begin a slack water route to the west. Germantown near the Schuylkill, was chosen for the same reason. All looked forward to a system of canals which would accomplish this desirable object, and experience has fully demonstrated their wisdom in that great design. About 1790, General Washington and the great financier Robert Morris, traveled on horseback from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna river, with a view of deciding whether a canal could be built over that route.

Shortly after this, some gentlemen near Philadelphia actually began building a canal to the west, did some work on its eastern end, built one or two locks on the dividing ridge near Lebanon, and for want of sufficient funds and knowledge of the subject the work was stopped. The money expended on the enterprise was lost.

were provided for transporting their wealth to market, now sent millions of tons in every direction. Progress in every walk of advanced civilization was realized, and we were on the high road to permanent prosperity. But in the meantime a new and better means of communication had been discovered, and the building of railroads quickly reduced the value of canals, and the works we had completed at so much cost, and with such infinite labor, were suddenly superseded. We lost nearly all the money they had cost us, but this investment was wisely made. The return to our State was many times greater than the outlay.

Like all great projects intended for the public good, that of Internal Improvement progressed. In 1823, the New York canal -which had been pushed through against the prejudiced opposition of the people, by the genius of De Witt Clinton-was opened. Its success caused a revolution in the public mind all over the country. The effect was so marked in the State, that in 1825 a convention was called to consider the subject. Every county in the State was represented, I believe. That But the progressive men of the country, body pronounced in favor of a grand syskeeping their minds on the subject, con- tem of public works, which should not tinued to agitate the popular mind on it only connect the East and West, but also until 1820, when the Legislature of Penn- the waters of the Susquehanna with the sylvania chartered the Union Canal Com- great lakes, the West and the North-west. pany, and appropriated one million dollars Appropriations were recommended to the to aid its construction. In a few years the amount of three millions of dollars, and in canal was completed between the Schuyl- 1826, I think the work began. This sum kill and Susquehanna. Although very seemed to be enormous, and the estimates small, this improvement did a great deal of the engineers reached a total of six milof good. And the most remarkable thing lions of dollars. Meeting an ardent friend about it was its unpopularity with the of the system one day, he declared that a masses. Not only the members of General sum of that magnitude could never be exAssembly who passed the bill, but Gov-pended on these works. I ventured to reernor Heister, who signed the act of in-ply, with great deference to his age and corporation, were driven from office at the experience, that I thought it would be infirst opportunity legally presented for test- sufficient, and before they were completed ing public opinion, and the party to which I would not be surprised if ten millions they belonged went into a minority. I remember well what a mighty sum a million dollars seemed to be; and the political revolution caused by this appropriation showed me that the idea of its vastness in full possession of his opinion of me. was not confined by any means to myself. But after we had spent $41,698,594.74 in Our system of cananals was completed, the construction of these works, I found and the benefits derived from them were my estimate of his judgment was singular incalculable. When they were commenced ly in harmony with my opinion of his our State was poor. Industry languished. politeness. His candor I never doubted. The interchange of her products was dif- In the convention of 1825, there were two ficult. Population was sparse. Intelli- gentlemen who voted for railways instead gence was not generally diffused. Manu- of canals. One was professor Vethake of factures struggled weakly along. Work Dickinson College, Carlisle; and the other was not plentiful. Wages were low. When was Jacob Alter, a man of very little eduthey were finished the busy hum of indus- cation, but of strong understanding. The try was heard on every hand. Our popu- professor was looked upon as a dreamer, lation had grown until we numbered mil- and was supposed to have led his colleague lions. Our iron ore beds were yielding astray in his vagaries. But they both lived their precious hoards for human use. Coal to see railroads extended over the whole mines, unknown or useless until means world. As a part of our system of public

would be found necessary. Looking at me
steadily for a few moments, he closed the
conversation by exclaiming, "Young man,
you are a d-
-d fool!" I was thus left

works, we built a railroad from the Dela- | subscriptions to the stock of the Harrisburg ware to the Susquehanna, from Philadel- and Lancaster Railroad. This road was phia to Columbia, and one from the east- intended to complete the railway between ern base of the Allegheny mountains to Philadelphia and Harrisburg, one hundred their western base. They were originally and five miles. A large concourse had intended to be used with horse power. In gathered. Ovid F. Johnson, Attorney-. the meantime the railroad system had been General of our State, and a brilliant orator, commenced, and the Pennsylvania Rail- made an excellent speech; but the effect road, under the charge of a man of extra- was not in proportion to the effort. I deterordinary ability, John Edgar Thompson, mined to make an appeal, and I gave such was rapidly pushed to completion. An- arguments as I could. In closing I preother great railway, the Philadelphia and dicted that those now listening to me would Reading, was built to carry anthracite coal see the day when a man could breakfast in from the Schuylkill mines to the market. Harrisburg, go to Philadelphia, transact a A railroad was built each side of the Le- fair day's business there, and returning, high river, that another part of our coal eat his supper at home. Great applause territory might find a market in New York. followed this, and some additional subscripAnother was built from the north branch tions. Abram Harnly, a friend of the of the Susquehanna, connecting with the road, and one of the most intelligent of his New York roads, and leading to the class, worked his way to me, and taking northern coal field. And yet another was me aside whispered, "That was a good idea built along the Susquehanna, through the about going to Philadelphia and back to southern coal basin, to the city of Balti- Harrisburg the same day;" and then, more. The total cost of these roads, inde- bursting with laughter, he added,“But pendent of the Pennsylvania railroad, was you and I know better than that!" We $95,250,410.10, as shown by official reports. | both lived to see the road built; and now Their earnings last year are officially given people can come and go over the distance at $24,753,065.32. Each of these was forced twice a day, which Abram seemed to conto contend with difficulty and prejudice. sider impossible for a single daily trip. All were unpopular, and all were looked upon with suspicion until they actually forced their usefulness on the public mind. Those who made the fight for canals were forced to go over the whole ground again for railroads, and their double victory is greater than the success generally vouchsafed to the pioneers in any cause. These roads, with the Pennsylvania railroad and the lesser lines of improvements running through the coal region cost over $207,000,000.

The Reading Railroad will serve to illustrate the struggle of these great schemes. Its stock, now worth over par, once sold for twenty cents on the dollar; and at one time it was forced to sell its bonds at forty cents on the dollar to pay operating expen

ses.

The vindication of the sagacity of the pioneers in these great enterprises is complete. All these lines are now profitable, and it has been demonstrated everywhere in the United States, that every new railroad creates the business from which its stockholders receive their dividends. It seems, therefore, scarcely possible to fix a limit to our profitable railroad expansion. They open new fields of enterprise, and this enterprise in turn, makes the traffic which fills the coffers of the companies.

I cannot now look back to the struggle to impress the people with the advantages of railways, without a feeling of weariness at the seeming hopeless struggle, and one of merriment at the general unbelief in our new-fangled project. Once at Elizabethtown in this State a public meeting had been called for the purpose of securing

The peculiar condition of the States then known as "the West" was the subject of anxiety to many. They had attracted a large population, but the people were exclusively devoted to agriculture. Lacking diversified industry, they were without accumulated wealth to enable them to build railways; nor were the States in condition to undertake such an onerous duty, although several of them made a feeble attempt to do so. At one time the bonds of Illinois, issued to build her canals, sold as low as thirty cents on the dollar. So with Indiana. Both States were supposed to be bankrupt. It became, therefore, an important problem as to how means of communication should be supplied to the people of the West. Congress, in 1846, gave a grant of land to aid in building a railroad in Illinois. Every alternate seetion was given to the Company, and each alternate section was reserved by the Government. The road was built; and the one-half of the land retained by the government sold for a great deal more than all was worth before the road was constructed. This idea was original, I think, with Mr. Whitney of Mass., who spent two winters in Washington, about 1845, endeavoring to induce Congress to adopt that plan for the construction of a Trans-Continental Railway.

He died before seeing his scheme succeed. Others have built a road across the continent on the Central route. Another on the Northern route is now progressing, and the wealth and enterprise of those having it in charge renders its completion

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