101

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.

Among the extra census bulletins are some which deal whith the statistics of farms, homes and mrigages and which represent a new departure on the part of government Mr. Robert P. Porter, chief of the census bureau, says: "It is, I be lieve, the first time a government has ever attempted to invade for statistlcal purpose the realm of private indebtedness."

He gives some idea of the labor involved in the extraordinary investigation in the following sentence. "The employment of a small army of 2500 special agents and clerks to make an abstract of every mortgage placed on record in every county of the United States for the last ten years has attracted attention to the dangers of these incumbrances, to the enormous burdens in the way of interest, to the alarming extend to which usury is practived, and to the defectiveness of these records in all parts of the country. The agents of the census office have, as a matter of fact overhauled the records in every state and territory. They have travled on horseback and on foot through the most sparsely settled districts of our vast domain in search of mortgages, and have doen their work so industriously and so thoroughly that we now have on file in Washington, as a result of their labor, the abstracts of about 9,000,000 mortgages."

It would be impossible in the space of such an article as this to deal with all of the states of the union. Therefore it may be best simply to use Mr. Porter's figures as they refer to states which topographically, or naturally, or in products, or manner of people, greatly contrast with one another.

In a letter accompanying his report to the secretary of the interior Mr. Porter says concerning this state:

"The reall catate mortgage business of Nebraska during the ten years 1880-1800 is represented by 837,873 mortgages made to secure a debt of $274808,858. Of this debt 48 44 por cent remained unpaid January 1,1800. Nenty one-third (81 90 percent) of the existing debt is on village and city lots, and the principal prtion of this is in the counties of Douglas and Lancaster, containing, respectively, the cities of Omaha and Lincoln In Douglas county the existing debt is $27,004,041, of which 87 60 percent is on lots In Lancaster county the exisiting debt is $9,172,266, of which 64 97 per cent is on lots

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.