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moved back ten miles, so as to make the distance an even four thousand.

Then, sir, there is the climate of Duluth, unquestionably the most salubrious and delightful to be found anywhere on the Lord's earth. Now, I have always been under the impression, as I presume other gentlemen have, that in the region around Lake Superior it was cold enough for at least nine months in the year to freeze the smoke-stack off a locomotive. But I see it represented on this map that Duluth is situated exactly half way between the latitudes of Paris and Venice, so that gentlemen who have inhaled the exhilarating air of the one, or basked in the golden sunlight of the other, may see at a glance that Duluth must be the place of untold delight, a terrestrial paradise, fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an eternal spring, clothed in the gorgeous sheen of ever blooming flowers, and vocal with the silvery melody of nature's choicest songsters. In fact sir, since I have seen this map, I have no doubt that Byron was vainly endeavoring to convey some faint conception of the delicious charms of Duluth when his poetic soul gushed forth, in the rippling strains of that beautiful rhapsody—

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estimable. For, sir, I have been told that
when the small-pox breaks out among the
women and children of the famous tribe,
as it sometimes does, they afford the finest
subjects in the world for the strategical ex-
periments of any enterprising military hero
who desires to improve himself in the no-
ble art of war, especially for any valiant
lieutenant-general whose

"Trenchant blade, Toledo trusty,
For want of fighting has grown rusty,
And eats into itself for lack,
Of somebody to hew and hack."

Sir, the great conflict now raging in the Old World has presented a phenomenon in military science unprecedented in the annals of mankind, a phenomenon that has reversed all the traditions of the past as it has disappointed all the expectations of the present. A great and warlike people, renowned alike for their skill and valor, have been swept away before the triumphant advance of an inferior foe, like autumn stubble before a hurricane of fire. For aught I know the next flash of electric fire that simmers along the ocean cable may tell us that Paris, with every fibre quivering with the agony of impotent despair. writhes beneath the conquering heel of her loathed invader. Ere another moon shall wax and wane, the brightest star in the galaxy of nations may fall from the zenith of her glory never to rise again. Ere the modest violets of early spring shall ope their beauteous eyes, the genius of civilization may chaunt the wailing requiem of the proudest nationality the world has ever seen, as she scatters her withered and tear-moistened lilies o'er the bloody tomb of butchered France. But, sir, I wish to ask if you honestly and candidly believe that the Dutch would have overrun the French in that kind of style if General Sheridan had not gone over there, and told King William and Von Moltke how he had managed to whip the Piegan Indians.

And here, sir, recurring to this map, I find in the immediate vicinity of the Piegans "vast herds of buffalo" and "immense fields of rich wheat lands." [Here the hammer fell.]

As to the commercial resources of Duluth, sir, they are simply illimitable and inexhaustible, as is shown by this map. I see it stated here that there is a vast scope of territory, embracing an area of over two millions of square miles, rich in every element of material wealth and commercial prosperity, all tributary to Duluth. Look at it, sir, (pointing to the map.) Here are inexhaustible mines of gold, immeasurable veins of silver, impenetrable depths of boundless forest, vast coal measures, wide extended plains of richest pasturage-all, all embraced in this vast territory-which must, in the very nature of things, empty the untold treasures of its commerce into the lap of Duluth. Look at it, sir, (pointing to the map); do not you see from these broad, brown lines drawn around this immense ter- Mr. Knott-I was remarking, sir, upon ritory, that the enterprising inhabitants of these vast "wheat fields" represented on Duluth intend some day to inclose it all this map in the immediate neighborhood in one vast corrall, so that its commerce of the buffaloes and Piegans, and was about will be bound to go there whether it would to say that the idea of there being these or not? And here, sir, (still pointing to immense wheat fields in the very heart of the map), I find within a convenient dis- a wilderness, hundreds and hundreds of tance the Piegan Indians, which, of all miles beyond the utmost verge of civilizathe many accessories to the glory of tion, may appear to some gentlemen as Duluth, I consider by far the most in- rather incongruous, as rather too great a

[Many cries: "Go on!" "go on !"]

The Speaker-Is there any objection to the gentleman from Kentucky continuing his remarks? The chair hears none. The gentleman will proceed.

Henry Carey's Speech on the Rates or
Interest.

In the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 1873.
In the Constitutional Convention, in
Committee of the Whole on the article re-
ported from the Committee on Agriculture,
Mining, Manufactures, and Commerce, the
first section being as follows:-"In the
absence of special contracts the legal rate
of interest and discount shall be seven per
centum per annum, but special contracts
for higher or lower rates shall be lawful.
All national and other banks of issue shall
be restricted to the rate of seven per cen-
tum per annum." Mr. H. C. Carey made
an address in favor of striking out the sec-
tion. The following is an abstract of his
remarks :—

strain on the "blankets" of veracity. But recently left this capital for that free and to my mind there is no difficulty in the mat- enlightened republic, would be better friter whatever. The phenomenon is very casseed, boiled, or roasted, and, in the seceasily accounted for. It is evident, sir, ond place, these lands, which I am asked that the Piegans sowed that wheat there to give away, alas, are not mine to bestow! and ploughed it in with buffalo bulls. Now, My relation to them is simply that of trustee sir, this fortunate combination of buffaloes to an express trust. And shall I ever beand Piegans, considering their relative po- tray that trust? Never, sir! Rather perish sitions to each other and to Duluth, as they Duluth! Perish the paragon of cities! are arranged on this map, satisfies me that Rather let the freezing cyclones of the Duluth is destined to be the best market of bleak northwest bury it forever beneath the world. Here, you will observe, (point- the eddying sands of the raging St. Croix. ing to the map), are the buffaloes, directly between the Piegans and Duluth; and here, right on the road to Duluth, are the Creeks. Now, sir, when the buffaloes are sufficiently fat from grazing on those immense wheat fields, you see it will be the easiest thing in the world for the Piegans to drive them on down, stay all night with their friends, the Creeks, and go into Duluth in the morning. I think I see them, now, sir, a vast herd of buffaloes, with their heads down, their eyes glaring, their nostrils dilated, their tongues out, and their tails curled over their backs, tearing along toward Duluth, with about a thousand Piegans on their grass-bellied ponies, yelling at their heels! On they come! And as they sweep past the Creeks, they join in the chase, and away they all go, yelling, bellowing, ripping and tearing along, amid clouds of dust, until the last buffalo is safely penned in the stock-yards at Duluth. Sir, I might stand here for hours and Precisely a century and a half since, in hours, and expatiate with rapture upon 1723, the General Assembly of Pennsylvathe gorgeous prospects of Duluth, as de-nia reduced the legal charge for the use of picted upon this map. But human life is too short, and the time of this house far too valuable to allow me to linger longer upon this delightful theme. I think every gentleman upon this floor is as well satisfied as I am that Duluth is destined to become the commercial metropolis of the universe and that this road should be built at once. I am fully persuaded that no patriotic representative of the American people, who has a proper appreciation of the associated glories of Duluth and the St. Croix, will hesitate a moment that every able-bodied female in the land, between the ages of eighteen and forty-five, who is in favor of woman's rights," should be drafted and set to work upon this great work without delay. Nevertheless, sir, it grieves my very soul to be compelled to say that I cannot vote for the grant of lands provided for in this bill. Ah, sir, you can have no conception of the poignancy of my anguish that I am deprived of that blessed privilege! There are two insuperable obstacles in the way. In the first place my constituents, for whom I am acting here, have no more interest in this road than they have in the great question of culinary taste now, perhaps, agitating the public mind of Dominica, as to whether the illustrious commissioners, who

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money from eight to six per cent. per annum. This was a great step in the direction of civilization, proving, as it did, that the labor of the present was obtaining increased power over accumulations of the past, the laborer approaching toward equality with the capitalist. At that point it has since remained, with, however, some change in the penalties which had been then prescribed for violations of the law.

Throughout the recent war the financial policy of the National Government so greatly favored the money-borrower and the laborer as to have afforded reason for believing that the actual rate of interest was about to fall permanently below the legal one, with the effect of speedily causing usury laws to fall into entire disuse. Since its close, however, under a mistaken idea that such was the real road to resumption, all the Treasury operation of favoring the money-lender; the result exhibiting itself in the facts that combinations are being everywhere formed for raising the price of money; that the long loans of the past are being daily more and more superseded by the call loans of the present; that manufacturer and merchant are more and more fleeced by Shylocks who would gladly take "the pound of flesh nearest the heart"

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 consequence," as he continues, "has been disasMr. 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 agriculture. At no time, said Mr. Carey, in Britain's history, have pauperism and usury traveled so closely hand in hand together; the rich growing rich to an extent that, till now, would have been regarded as fabulous, and the wretchedness of the poor having grown in like proportion.

rity, may readily be imagined. Let the monopoly system be maintained and the rate, even at its headquarters, New England, will attain a far higher point than any that has yet been reached; this, too in despite of the fact that her people had so promptly secured to themselves a third of the whole circulation allowed to the

40,000,000 of the population of the Union | have been the usury, and discreditable as scattered 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 atrongly 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.

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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 en

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 Pennsyl-forcement. vania; 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!

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

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 are engaged in compelling mortgagers to 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

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 both the city and the State. Of all the devices yet invented for the subjugation of labor by capital, there is none that can claim to be entitled to take precedence of that which has been now proposed for our consideration.

ness never before exhibited in reference tc any other economic question whatsoever, the result exhibiting itself in the following brief words of a highly distinguished American one, published some twelve or fifteen years since, to wit:

"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 ent from those to which they so generally that power fully equal to her needs, while are attributed. Be that, however, as it this State, richer still, has been so "cabined, may, the question now before us is one of cribbed, confined," that her mine and fur-right and justice, and not of mere expedinace operators find it difficult to obtain ency. North and east of Pennsylvania that circulating medium by whose aid eight millions of people have been allowed alone can they distribute among their a greater share of the most important of workmen their shares of the things pro- all powers, the money one, than has been duced.-New York, already rich, has been allotted to the thirty-two millions south allowed to absorb a fourth of the permitted and west of New York, and have thus been circulation, to the almost entire exclusion granted a power of taxation that should be of the States south of Pennsylvania and no longer tolerated. The basis of our west of the Mississippi; and hence it is whole system is to be found in equality that her people are enabled to levy upon before the law, each and every man, each those of all these latter such enormous and every State, being entitled to exercise taxes. To the work of correcting this the same powers that are permitted to our enormous evil Pennsylvania should now people, or other States. If the Union is address herself. Instead of following in to be maintained, it can be so on no terms the wake of New Jersey and Connecticut, other than those of recognition of the exthereby giving to the monopoly an increase istence of the equality that has here been of strength, let her place herself side by indicated. To the work of compelling side with the suffering States of the West, that recognition Pennsylvania should give the South, and the Southwest, demanding herself, inscribing on her shield the brief that what has been made free to New words fiat justitia, ruat cœlum—let justice York and New England shall be made be done though the heavens fall! 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 Any one will see, who will take the metals as will place it on a surer footing in trouble to read the debates on the location that respect than any of the powers of the of the National Capital, that the decision Eastern world. The more rapid the socie- of that question seems to have been made tary circulation, and the greater the facili- solely with reference to a connection of the ty of making exchanges from hand to East with the then great wilderness of the hand, and from place to place, the greater West. All the sagacious men then in pubis the tendency toward reduction in the lic life looked to the time when the West, rate of interest, toward equality in the con- with its wonderful productive soil brought dition of laborer and employer, and toward under subjection by industry, would exergrowth and power to command the services | cise a controlling influence on the destiny

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

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