Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 3.djvu/225

Rh it will benefit the debtor as against the creditor by enabling the former to pay off his debts in a less value than that in which they were contracted. The morality of that argument I will not discuss; I prefer to leave it to the conscience of the people. But let us look at the pretended facts upon which it is based.

Is it true, then, the poor men are the debtors of the country? To contract a debt requires credit, and credit is based upon means with which to pay. Men of very small means are seldom in debt, because they have no opportunity for being so. If we had the statistics of private indebtedness in the United States before us they would unquestionably show that more than seventy-five per cent. of it is owing by men commanding comparatively large means, and that the laborers for wages are the least indebted class of society, even in proportion to their earnings and savings, and next to them the farmers and the small business men. But the laboring people are, to a very heavy amount, among the creditors of the country. I venture to say that there is neither a manufacturer, nor a merchant, nor a professional man of means in this assembly who is not a debtor, and among his creditors are, in ninety-nine cases of a hundred, his workmen or his servants, to whom he owes wages for part of a week or a month. It has been calculated by good authority that the wages thus constantly owing for an average of half a month's service or work amount, in the whole country, to $120,000,000. And who is it that owns the deposits in the savings-banks, amounting to about $760,000,000? Not the rich, but the laboring people and persons of small means, who put their surplus earnings there for safe keeping. It is estimated that the same class has, in national and private banks and in trust companies, another $200,000,000 and that nearly $130,000,000 is owing them in other kinds of debts. There is, then,