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THAT VITAL THING, DEBT

Mrs. Peattie Discourses on It in Connection With Mortgage Statistics.

What the Figures Tell of the Movements and Emotions of the People-The Sowing of 1887 in Nebraska.

It is a difficult thing to make the mortgaged indebtedness of a country interesting or simple reading. Yet there is no subject which more nearly concerns the happiness of men and women that this For is proportion as men enjoy the fruits of their labors, are they free men No man is free who must give the results of his toil to another man

If this fact had always been fully appreciated by Americans, they would not, perhaps have reached a point where the present financial depression became an inovitable thing If they had been more patient in earning and less eager to borrow, if they had developed resources, instead of specuating in possiblities, they would not now, so many of them, find themselves hemmed in by a wall of debt. For men build barriers of debt so high that never while life lasts, can they surmount them. And they are too often prone to acquire these debts recklessly in the hope of large success, and then, when they fall to meet the drain they have put upon themselves, to find fault with the system which permitted them to commit such effort. On the other hand, there are circumstances which sompel a man to become a borrower. And these conditoins arise, primarily form the system of land and money which obtains here. But not to go into questons so large, and concerning which there are so many differences of oppion, it may be intercatling to those who are themselves struggling under the burden which borrowed many imposes, to know something of the condition of the people, in this respect, all over out beautiful but much siffering country.

THAT VITAL THING, DEBT

Mrs. Peattie Discourses on It in Connection With Mortgage Statistics.

What the Figures Tell of the Movements and Emotions of the People-The Sowing of 1887 in Nebraska.