the city tax upon the bank, if there were any
What is the result? The stockholders own-
ing one million of dollars and employing six
millions, receive upon their one million of
dollars the interest upon six millions, secured
from all share in the city, county, State and
United States tax. You have the result that
one class in the community is always ex-
empted from every particle of your tax.
That is the policy of the amendment of the
gentleman from Kent.
The proposition of the report is fair both
to the lender and to the borrower. It gives
a chance to the stockholders of the banks,
after paying their taxes, city, county. State
and United States, upon the capital of the
banks, if their deposits shall have been used
at the rate of seven per cent., to pay probably
a dividend clear of all taxes, of six per cent.
upon the amount of their capital; because
they will have used, to loan, five six times
the capital of their banks. That is fair and
just. But the instant you transfer the whole
burden from the money lender's back to the
shoulders of the men who have to borrow,
you are exempting the wealthy class of men
in the community from paying taxes, and
forcing all the taxes lo be paid by the poor
Mr. SANDS, Will the gentleman allow me
to ask him a question ?
Mr. CUSHING. Yes; if the gentleman will
confine himself to a question, and not make
an argument.
Mr. SANDS. I would like to know if the
gentleman has been accustomed to prepare
mortgages for money lenders ?
Mr. CUSHING. I presume that is nearer the
business of the gentleman himself, than to
mine; and if in drawing them he was in-
structed to put it twelve per cent., I think be
would do it. I do not think he would be
found arguing with the man who asked him
to draw up the mortgage that it was immoral
to require twelve per cent., but I think he
would simply inscribe upon the paper what
he was told.
We have heard a great deal said on the
floor of the house about money lenders being
Shylocks, It is patent to every sensible man
that all the men of means are not Shylocks,
with a most ferocious and villainous coante-
nance, peering about the highways and alleys
of the towns, to Bee if they cannot destroy
some poor man. It is a tact well known that
all the impetus through the length and
breadth of our land has come from moneyed
men; that every great enterprise is carried
on only by moneyed men. it is a great tact
that from the beginning of the war, it was
the moneyed men, and the banks, which sup-
plied the money needed by the government
The Rothschilds are not in the habit of going
around lanes and alleys for poor victims to
devour; but their's is such an institution
that I doubt whether without it many of the |
governments of Europe would have to-day
been in existence.
if the gentleman means to represent all the
great banking institutions, the Barings, the
Bank of England, as many kings, combining
together to destroy and take away the poor
man's earnings, the thing is so absurd that
except to a congregation of men assembled to
hear a stump speaker, it would hardly meet
with an attentive audience. Let wealth have
its true place. Recognize it for what it is, a
great lever and necessary instrument in work-
ing out the advancement and progress of the
people. Let it be understood that with in-
crease in wealth comes increase in refinement,
increase in comfort; that just in proportion
to the increasing wealth of the State, the
laboring classes, and the poorer classes are
better provided for.
We had an appeal from the gentleman with
regard to the agricultural classes; that by
imposing seven per cent. interest, the agricul-
tural classes would bedepressed. If the ag-
ricultural classes want money, it is certainly
desirable that they should be able to get it,
As it is now, they do not get it at six per
cent., because it is gone to New York at seven.
They cannot get it through the regular chan-
nels, the banks, and they are forced to go to
men whom they oblige by the inducement of
gain to break the laws of your State and de-
moralize both the lender and the borrower,
the one by inducing to break ana the other by
breaking the law. You have the gentleman.
from Anne Arundel (Mr. Miller) arguing
here that when a man has gone to a money
lender and has obtained from him money at
a given per cent., it is the borrower's bounden
duty to the rest of his creditors to go into a
court of law and to claim the benefit of the
law, and to say that this interest has been
usurious; to confess that under a false confi-
dence in him he has induced a man to lend
him his money; lo break away all reliance
between man and man in regard to money
contracts, and to reduce the whole business of
borrowing money throughout the State to the
mere" question of diamond cut diamond, and
let the man who is the sharpest, and can lie
tire best have the benefit of it. Thus he raises
the interest to ten per cent. or more on account
of the danger of going into the courts
of law and pleading usury. He would ac-
tually break down all confidence between man
and man, and take advantage of having broken
the law. It is truly a novel way of improv-
ing the character of the money lender. It is
a comical way of making the money lender a
less disgraceful person than he has been rep-
resented to be upon the floor of this house.
The gentleman from Howard (Mr. Sands)
seemed to think that every money lender was
a pawn-broker, sitting on the front steps of
some house in a little alley with three gilt
balls over his door, decoying in the poor to
[ their destruction. That is a way of dealing |
