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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA,, GA., FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1913.
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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, G-A., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the AthCtttft’ Poslfoffice as Mail Matter of
the Second Class.
JAMSS a. GRAY,
- •-r- president and Editor...
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The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on Tuesday
and Friday, and is mailed by the shortest routes for
early delivery.
it contains news from all over the world, brought
by special leased wires into our office. It has a staff
of distinguished contributors, with strong departments
of special value to the home and the farm.
Agents wanted at every postotfice. Liberal com
mission allowed. Outfit free. Write R. R. BRAD
LEY, Circulation Manager.
The only traveling representatives we have are
•1. A. Bryan, B. F. Bolton, C. C. Coyle, L H. Kim
brough. W. W. Blackburn and J. W. Brooks. We will
be responsible only for money paid to the above named
: travelin;; representatives.
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Atlanta, Ga.
Every day is a crisis in Mexican affairs.
Look for a sweet-faced girl in a calico gown if
you want to see a rfcal angel in disguise.
“Pullman porters live on the public.” Yes, and
they ought to be made to pay an income tax.
Homes for the Boy Farmers.
Atlanta cannot extend more appropriate recogni
tion to the corn club boys than by taking them into
her homes when they come here for the corn show
early in December. That the housewives will see their
way clear to help the men of this city by making
every last one of the youngsters really at home dur
ing the show, is not doubted. Those good ladies have
given clear proof in the past of their willingness to
co-operate.
It is all very well for the men folks to pat the
young corn farmers on the back and tell them they
are doing a great work and that success is waiting
for them; but when It comes to a question of satisfy
ing their country-grown appetites at the table and
giving them good comfortable beds to sleep upon, the
men of Atlanta must refer the visitors to their real
bosses, the women who rule the homes. There is the
point at which true cordiality begins. Atlanta’s
women have not failed to help by showing it at the
proper moment in the past.
Now the occasion arises again. Because the corn
clubs were more numerous this year and very many
boys joined in the statewide competition, Atlanta will
be called upon to play hostess to more young farmers
than she has entertained in previous years. Not less
than one thousand are coming, and a real home is
wanted for every one of them. The housewives who
had corn club hoys as their guests during the show
last year have written to the chamber of commerce
committee that they want the privilege again this
year. In a number of instances, boys who were here
in 1912 will revisit the homes of their former host
esses and the committee will not be called upon to
assign them to quarters.
But the number of visitors will be much greater
this year, and many additional homes will be required
by those in charge of the local arrangements. There
fore the invitation is extended again by the commit
tee. All Atlanta housewives who can offer accommo
dations for one or more boys during three days of
the first week of Demember, should givn glad response
to it.
A man with nothing to lose can afford to take
chances.
Folks who are always looking for the worst of it
usually find it.
A Child’s Primer on Safety.
An interesting announcement comes out of the
recent meeting in Chicago of the executive commit
tee of the National Council for Industrial Safety.
It is that a handbook or primer to teach the ele
mentary principles of safety will be compiled and
published and distributed at cost among school chil
dren by the committee.
There is no reason why the principles of safe
guarding one’s self should not be taught just as are
the principles of arithmetic and grammar. Truly
. they are no less essential than these latter. The
theory has been that every individual must learn by
experience how to protect himself from the ordinary
risks of daily life. The experience too often is his
own; and if it be that of some one else, he rarely
adapts it for himself until it has been impressed
upon him by repetition. It is not until several peo
ple have been killed, for instance, that drivers of au
tomobiles learn to proceed carefully when they ap-
; proach trolley cars or that passengers on the trolley
cars learn to look to the rear as they step into the
streets. The illustration might. bp applied to every
other precaution which we take in life. We are left
to learn them all from experience—our own or some
one else’s.
Yet there is no logic in that theory. As well
. might we be supposed to learn sanitation and hy
giene from lessons of experience. It is as proper
that one should be taught as the other. It is quite
as practicable to teach principles of safety as to
teach principles of any other subject. And if they
are going to he taught at all, it is much better that
they he offered to the impressionable and retentive
mind of childhood than that they be withheld during
tire period of greatest risk and offered to the adult
mind.
The step which the national council has decided
upon is in the right direction. If a beginning be
made with the child, there will result a large de
crease in the number of avoidable accidents.
Men who never have occasion to buy an umbrella
are pretty good hustlers.
A lazy man does less harm than the active man
who stirs up unnecessary trouble.
- 1.- t - h 1.: .•
An Act of Plain Justice,
By interpretation of the laws, the Geqrgia, supreme
court lias upheld the- railroad mileage shall he
“pulled" on the railroads of this state,. Thfc epurt’s
decision reverses the Atlanta judge who granted an
injunction to the railroads. It holds that the commis
sion had the statutory authority to issue the order,
‘ that the order did not violate the fourteenth amend
ment of the federal constitution, that it did not vio
late the due process of law clause of the state con
stitution, and that the state has power to regulate
carriers who issue voluntarily transportation at rates
lower than the maximum fixed by law.
This decision is hut an act of plain justice. The
penalization which the railroads sought to place upon
all holders of mileage books by requiring them to.ex
change mileage tickets at ticket windows instead of
for transportation on trains, may not have been in
tended as such and may have been designed solely
to serve the greater convenience of the carriers them
selves. Yet it did work a pronounced hardship upon
the class of travelers who were the most liberal pur
chasers of mileage books—the traveling salesmen.
The argument that they were entitled to more con
sideration was used with little effect in these peti
tions to the railroads which preceded action in other
quarters. Notwithstanding that they were the busy
emissaries of trade which brought freight and rev
enue to the transportation companies, their appeals
were, refused. Then the legislature enacted a law
compelling them to continue their old practice of
pulling mileage on trains, and Governor Joseph M.
Brown saw fit to veto it. That led to the commis
sion’s order, which the supreme court now upholds.
The Journal has contended untiringly that the
moral rights lay with the traveling public in this mat
ter. The high court’s clear exposition of the law up
holds The Journal’s theory oft repeated that the legal
rights of the matter were theirs too.
The public—particularly the traveling salesmen—
are to be congratulated bn this victory. The supreme
court has done an act of plain justice.
Carranza seems to be about as elusive as Huerta.
Meanwhile, it isn’t long between drinks with
Huerta.
Did you ever meet a self-made man who was
ashamed of his job?
Caesar’s Meat.
If it be true, as a sober German philosopher as
sures us, that Man is what he eats, the thousands of
Georgians who sat down to a dinner made entirely
of products from their own commonwealth have good
reason to he optimistic. Into these savory feasts
which were given Tuesday evening in seventy-five
towns and cities, were packed all things edible that
delight the palat i and fortify the' heart. There were
rare dishes to which the old Sybarites would have
written odeB and danced bright, festivals; there were
all the honest staples from bread to butter, which
someone has quaintly called the gold head on the
walking stick of life; and, what Is particularly to
the point, not one of these luxuries or necessaries
was brought from beyond the boundaries of the State.
This Is the meat on which Georgia is growing
great; and the realization of her resources and op
portunities could not have been more keenly In
spired than through these popular dinners. In orig
inating and carrying to success this one enterprise,
the Georgia Chamber of Commerce has earned the
confidence of all our people and has opened wide the
way for its important work. All interests of the
State, agricultural, commercial, manufacturing and
civic have been awakened to a new sense of their
possibilities and hav^ been united in a forward move
ment for their common welfare.
If the spirit engendered at the Georgia-Products
dinners is sustained, as undoubtedly it will be, the
fifty-thousand dollar fund necessary to materialize
the plans of the State Chamber of Commerce will
soon be contributed and the ten thousand members
desired will soon he enrolled. A wiser or broader
plan for Georgia’s upbuilding cannot be conceived.
The State Chamber affords the practical machinery
for the accomplishment of magnificent ends. It
should have the hearty and steadfast support of all
good Georgians In every county and every town.
One can usually tell by a man’s whistle whether
things are coming his way or. not.
Nothing ever pleases his neighbors more than to
see a man get what he deserves.
Huerta likens himself to Napoleon, hut Napoleon’B
methods are a little out of date. Huerta should have
compared himself with Joe Cannon.
Parcel Post Profits.
It is estimated at Washington that the profits of
the parcel post for the first year of its operation will
approach thirty million dollars, an amount far In
excess of what the most hopeful advocates of the new
service expected. The gross income, officials predict,
will be not far short of eighty millions.
This is a truly remarkable record which attests
not only the possibilities of the parcel post, hut also
the competent manner in which it has been conducted
during its early and most difficult stage. The first
year of the system was necessarily experimental.
Had mistakes been made, there would have been no
cause for surprise. Many matters could be deter
mined only by trial, many errors were likely to creep
in and opportunities likely to be neglected. It Is
evident, however, that on the whole the service has
been administeVed with foresight and thoroughly busi
nesslike methods.
The United States postofflee in all its branches is
steadily improving under the admirable policies which
the new administration has established. The follies
and shames of the old regime are melting away. The
institution which had sunk to a disgracefully low
plane of sordid politics and inefficiency is being
steadily restored to Its true place of usefulness to
the public.
The continuance of these methods will, in time,
not only redeem the postoffice from the. annual de
ficits in which it has been plunged but will also make
Its service what it ought to be. As for the parcel
post, its future is assured. A profit of thjrty million
dollars the first year will open the way for a more
liberal and economic extension of the new service
frpm which the people will pro-t.
A Study in Civil Service
By Savoyard
l have very .great admiration for Robert Mu La FoL
' lette* a • senator ill congress from Wisconsin He; has
not only exceptionally great intellectual parts, but he
is a man of extraordinary personal integrity and of
distinguished civic virtue; but when he condemns the
«
Wilson administration for its construction of the civil
• service as applied to appointing men to office he is
talking arrant nonsense. Of all the grabs clutched
.by the spoilsmen the greediest was that of the stand-
pat Taft administration putting fourth-class posmas-
ers in the classified service, and next to it was that
other grab throwing the mantle of safety over the sub
ordinates of the internal revenue service in the collec
tive districts.
I want to see one honest political party before I
die—I have not yet met with one. I want to see a
party brave enough to say. and strong enough to do,
that in a Republican community no Democrat shall be
appointed postmaster and that in a Democratic commu
nity only a Democrat shall be made postmaster. And
. the same of the internal revenue districts—let the ap
pointees fit the political complexion of the people they
have to deal with. It is an outrage to appoint a Dem
ocrat postmaster in a Republican community in Ver
mont. It is even a greater outrage to give a Demo
cratic community of Mississippi a Republican for post
master. Let the officer fit the people he has to serve.
• • *
Now, in Texas, Mississippi and every southern state
the fourth-class postmasters are members of the old
Mark Hanna machine. Mr. Taft sought to cover them
in the classified service. It was a grab, an outrage,
an indecency, a despotism. Such civil service reform
ers as La Follette, that man Villard, and that ret iri-
dorse the spoils grab of the G. O. P.
They go by labels. They see, but have not the
gift of observation. One day I passed through a street,
in this town not far from the capitol edifice and saw
displayed in the window of a doggery a bottle of
liquid with this inscription: “Genune Old Crow Whis
ky, twenty-five cents a pint.”
It was horrible—I would not h&ve taken “two fin
gers” of the stuff for a $10 note on the Chemical Na
tional bank of New York, for ir my time at Rassinier’s,
Louisville, Ky., I had paid 25 cents for a single mod
erate dram of “Old Crow,” and here was a vile con
coction under the name label offered at as much a
pint!
And that reminds—the other day I entered the ele
vator of a tall office building to go to the top loft of
the edifice. The conductor wa, a young “Afro-Ameri
can,” and he laid down a volume he had been reading.
I am so constituted that I cannot see a book without
desire to finger it, and so I took this one up and read
the title—“Science of Government.” I threw it down
in some disgust and remarked that there was no such
thing as the science of government.
“O, yes, day is, boss,” he protested, “the ’fessor
told me so at Hampden, college and give me this book
to study.”
I retorted, “You are doing a devilish deal more to
promote what you call the ‘science of government* run
ning this car than studying such rot as that.”
• • •
«. Now, there is no such thing as the “science of gov
ernment.” If it were a science long ago it would have
been mastered by somebody and all governments would
be perfect, all peoples free, all mankind content.
There is an “art” of government, and that Is entirely
speculative. Peter the Great was the master of an
art of government; so.was Edmund Burke. Louis XI
practiced an art of government and he was a master
hand at the game; Thomas Jefferson preached an art
of government that stamps him as one of the first po
litical philosophers of all the ages; but there is no sci
ence of government—if there was we would arrive at
just and profound policies just as we solve a problem
in mathematics.
We hear about the science of war. There is no such
thing. There is the art of; war. Since Hannibal, Napo
leon Bonaparte was the most skillful of men In the
practice of the art of war. Had not Hannibal fallen a
victim to the seductions of the wine and women of
Capua, our civilization today would be radically differ
ent from what it is. Hannibal was not only the great
est of soldiers, but he was one of the greatest of states
men—certainly the greatest of diplomats. It recalls
Bolingbroke’s fine epigram, “When Hannibal entered
Capua the walls of Carthage trembled.” Napoleon, too,
might have found a Capua in Italy; but he was not
that sort of man—he confronted the “Caudine Forks”
amid the snow and ice of the north; Hannibal found
it in voluptuous Capua; Caesar met it at Pompey’s
Pillar.
Had war or government been a science neither Han
nibal nor Napoleon could have failed, for both would
have mastered both. And I hope the Hon. La Follette
will see his way to a more careful study of the art of
government.
Washington, November 17:
In a Hundred Years or So
BY SB. FRAXTX CBAXE,
(Copyright, 1913, by Frank Crane.)
Twelve millions a year—not dollars But souls! A
German philosopher, says Prof. Noyes, estimates that
the world contains 1,700,000,000 people, and that they
are Increasing at the rate of 12,000,000 a year. This
would add to the population of the globe every ten
years a number of people greater than the present
population of the United States.
We will not be here to see it, but there is coming a
day when this habitable earth is going to be rather
crowded. At present there is plenty of room, as all
the people of this country could live in the state or
Texas and have as much room as the population of
Belgium has now.
But the people are not going to Texas. They are
congesting in great cities. Some way must be dis
covered to get the people to the land.
And that suggests sotne other things that must be
done before the world population becomes too dense.
Present systems of government will have to be
changed. The existing nations must get together.
Thero must be a world-Qonsclousness to meet racial
wants. We cannot stop at international arbitration;
we must devise some "federation of the world.”
The principle of competition we now work under
must be changed into some acceptable plan of co-op
eration. To produce and distribute the goods of life
as we do now, in a struggle of "devil-take-the-hind-
most,” is manifestly unthinkable for the future.
Some other motive for human activity must be dis
covered besides the desire to make money and leave
it to our children. This is not so startling. Men
now work at art, at literature, at philosophy, at medi
cine, even at bridge building, because they love their
work and seek honor as a reward. In. an overcrowded
world these higher motives than wage will have to
prevail even in menial labor.
John Fiske wrote “As evolution advances the
struggle for existence ceases to be a determining fac
tor. This elimination of strife is a fact of utterly
unparalleled grandeur; words cannot do justice to
such a fact.”
The world must be better organized. By perfect
organization a thousand people can live comfortably
where a hundred unprganized people would starve.
There’ll be a large party here in a hundred years
or so, and we had as well be setting our house In
order. -
Pointed Paragraphs
"I think you had better convene,” pleasantly says
Huerta to the alleged Mexican senate. “Some men
who disagreed with me are banished, some are in jail
and there are some whose friends do not know where
they are, though they may suspect. Do just as you
like, of course, but—I really wish you would meet.”—
New York World.
Most men would be only too glad to be considered
land poor.
* * *
Be a busy bee. It’s always better to sting than to
get stung.
* * *
There are hut two kinds of men, one talks while
the other acts.
JjOME
i^Conwcra wjm’UHJn.'im
EXPERIENCES OF THREE-QUARTERS OP A CEN
TURY.
f
WRITTEN BY A VETERAN.
I’ve be^n ruminating over some things I’ve wit
nessed since I could remember first: The passing of
eight-tenths of the companions of my youth; the intro
duction of buggies, cook stoves and sewing machines,
the latter patented by Elias Howe, a,New Yorker, later
Other added improvements; the perfection of the mow
er and reaper by Cyrus McCormick, a Virginian; the
' , w
improved breaking plows’, harrows and cultivators by
B. F. Avery and others, the threshing machines and
separators; the circular saw which completely revo
lutionized the manufacture of lumber and depleted our
forests; before that the lumber we had was .cut by a
perpendicular saw , hung In a sash- driven by a water
wheel and crank; the manufacturing of brick by ma
chinery; machinery for making boots and shoes; the
introduction of steel grain scoops, rakes and pitch-
forks; traction engines and steam shovels; the intro
duction of telegraphy by Prof.' Morse; the laying of
the Atlanta cable from Queenstown to Halifax, Nova
Scotia, and while laying it during a storm the cable
parted in mid-ocean; they had to drag the ocean with
grappling. irons for quite a while to find the broken
end, but finally v succeeded and the cable 1 was com
pleted; the building of the first transcontinental rail
road across our country;, the biiilding of the Suez ca
nal by Ferdinand'' d© Lesseps, a Frenchman; the dam
ming of the Nile at Assuan ‘in Egypt by the English
people; damming the Mississippi between Iowa and
Illinois; the Colorado, the Gila, Tennessee and others
since *have been dammed; more recently the comple-
tioh of the Panama canal by Colonel Goethals; the in
troduction of steel rails, air brakes and automatic cou
plers; the planvoL making watered railroad bonds and
officials without scruples or, ocnsctence; the ^oming
of the auto, the flying ihachine, the telephone, type-, ,
writer, graphdphone and 'megaphone; the' introduction
of anesthetics for the mitigation of pain in surgical
operations, by a southern man; the Introduction of
repeating firearms by Samuel Colt, a Connecticut yan-
kee; then the breech-loading small arms and cannon;
the ocean-going vessels made of steel and propelled
by turbines; wireless telegraphy; the modern turreted
war vessels introduced by John Ericsson, a Dane (he
also erected the first tdbular steel bridge across the
Mississippi at St Louis); tunneling under mountains
and under the beds of rivers; electric street cars and
lighting plants; sawing granite and marble by machin
ery; burial caskets that cost the friends of the occu
pants $20 to $200 and the manufacturer one-tenth the
amount; concrete buildings, bridges and dams; iron
bedsteads and porcelain bath tubs; the cream separa
tor and automatic .milker, and oleomargarine; the roll
er process for making flour; the practice of adulterat
ing drugs, spices and groceries. In my boyhood many
farmers made their fruit into brandy at home, and
considered it no harm to take a toddy before breakfast
for the “stomach’s sake,” and there were none to con
demn or criticize. Now the old copper still has been
driven to the mountains and run by men who go armed
to defend themselves from government officials. And
In conclusion I will add that it looks like at this writ
ing I will soon witness another invasion of Mexico by
our people in the interest of good government and
peace. T. J. H.
• • •
A MIRACLE OP GRACE.
It is presumable that the majority of the readers
of The Semi-Weekly Journal have read extracts from
a late temperance speech made in Columbus, Ohio, by
fromer Governor Malcolm Patterson, of Tennessee. In
• days past and gone he was the bitterest of all the bit
ter foes against prohibition in the state of Tennessee,
especially while he was chief executive of that state.
When Senator Carmack was shot and killed in the
streets of Nashville by intimate political friends of
Governor Patterson it was common talk that his excel
lency was accessory 1 to the murder. His pardon for the
slayer of Carmack convulsed the'state, and the excite
ment spread until the commonwealth became the di
vided territory of two violent factions, Governor Pat
terson on the liquor side, and Candidate Ben Hooper
on the anti-liquor side.
y The result placed Governor Hooper in the state
house and returned Mr. Patterson to private life. For
several years the feud continued until Mr. Patterson
fell into other bad habits as well as drink, and almost
“touched bottom,” a saying that old-timers will un
derstand as' the lowest ebb in political and social life
for a noted man to experience.
But the great national temperance gathering of this
present week in Columbus, Ohio, told a different tale.
Mr. Malcolm Patterson was a chosen speaker and ap
peared on the rostrum vHth Governor Ben Hooper, his
aforetime political foe, and ‘announced himself as a
thorough convert, to prohibition doctrines as well as an
humble convert to Christian religion. My heart was
deeply touched with his confession of past errors and
his, determination to be a better man (and like Paul,
checked on the road to Damascus)—intent on the un
doing of all the regrettable things of his evil career
and serving the Lord in newness of spirit in his every
day life.
I do not suppose ,lie could place me, or I would
write him a line of congratulation and rejoicing over
the change, etc. , There .jtyill be plenty of people who
will criticise him, and maybe say slighting things about
his profession of religion, but we must not forget that
it was a marvelous confession for a once proud spirit
to make in the* presence of so many witnesses. I
trust the good Lord will strengthen his resolutions and
help him to walk In the straight but narrow way, for
he will need help and the prayers of good people.
.. 'I, *. * 7*jr
TRICKS IN TRADE.
One of the very latest is the feeding of market
raised poultry with a good dose of red pepper to in
crease an appetite and then feeding this good appetite
with all the fine sand that a little corn doligh will
cover, tpe day before the chickens go to market. This
is to make them weigh heavy. Now, did you ever?'
It is a brand-new trick to me.
What one chicken would eat of the sand dough
wouldn’t amount to much, I am very sure. I have
seen the gizzards, strutted to carry the small gravel
that poultry needs to aid its digestion, but even the
gravel will not weigh but a trifle. I suppose it
might affect the weight if there were some hundreds
“s.nci fed,” but it might that sand might also make
the poor things’ sick or drowsy. I have heard of sand
ing.sugar, but this is the very first of sanding chickens
that has come my way.
It has been said that doses have been given to
beef cattle which would make them thirsty. Then the
cattle would drink gallons upon gallons of water so as
to swell them out and make them look in fine order
until the sale was over and the price was in pocket,
then the shrinkage might come as soon as possible.
In slavery times, when negroes were sold on the block,
an ,ashy looking one would not bring so much cash, so
it was proper to feed them up and then grease the
skin, etc-, before the auction.
A good deal of Hour has its ample allowance of
corn meal to make it sell at good weight in the mar
ket. We have all heard of raised bottoms in berry
baskets If we never bought any. We are also fa
miliar with baskets and crates where the top ones
are all fine and the bottom ones not so much so.
are all fine and the bottom ones not so much so.
An apple wagon stopped at my door and the owner
came in with two nice looking apples in his hand. He
sold them at 10 cents per dozen. I handed out the
dime and he brought me four like his sample and
eight little ones. I rermirked that his sample was
good, but the dozen were poor stock. He said he sold
that .way. .. .. .
RURAL CREDITS
IX,—THE GERMAN LAND MORTGAGE BANKS.
Bi FREDERIC J. HA SKIN.
Cooperative credit is a product of a bloody war.
It was first developed with reference to land, then with
reference to. personal liability. It is also the product
. ft-'? 'tv.. •* ' ■ .
of tyranny, although it has sufficed to release mil
lions frorr\ the tyranny of debt and the thralldom of
poverty. Looked apon when ii began as an unmiti
gated evil by the rich landholders upon whom it was
forced, it has persisted and has brought innumerable
blessings to millions of poor peasants, the while not
hurting the rich landholder.
• • •
;1* *»•. • ■'
We mu'st. go. back to the Seven Years’ war in Gen*
many to see the beginnings of the present system of
co-operative credit. That war hit the noble landhold
ers a terrific blow, leaving them land-poor in the su
perlative degree. They had acres and acres of land,
but they nau not a mark with which to cultivate it. To
add to the confusion, Frederick the Great suspended
all interest charges against debtors for a period of
three years, and i.fterward extended the period, thereby
banisning the money lender, and leaving the landowner
with, no power to get money.
\ * * *
At this Juncture there came upon the scene a Ber
lin business man, ±ierr Buhring, who had the ear of
the great monarch. “Require the nobles to pool their
credit,” said he to Frederick, “and then they can bor
row money.” So a royal edict was issued, forcing the
nobles to join the association whether they wanted to
borrow money or not, and to make their lands liable,
without limit, for all loans granted by the association.
In that idea were born the two greatest factors in
modern commercial life—the trust and the co-opera
tive credit association.
• • * •
The experiment worked like a charm. Soon the as
sociation found itself with unlimited credit iu keeping
with the unlimited liability it extended, and so the
first landschaft started. Others were formed volun
tarily. And from that day to this, nearly a century
and a half, the associations of borrowers in Germany
have thrive^ and have made German agriculture the
world’s best example of the possibilities of the soil.
• • •
The principle behind the land mortgage bank, what
ever Its nature, Is largely the same as that behind our
currency system. The government tells us that there
is a dollar of gold behind every paper dollar in circu
lation, and so we prefer the paper to the coin. So the
land mortgage bank says there is a mortgage behind
every bond it Issues—a mortgage that has perhaps two
dollars of property behind every dollar It represents
—and the investor is glad to get hold of it.
• • •
Under our system the matter of mortgage loans is
a personal one. Each lender must know the financial
responsibility of the borrower, and the value of the
mortgaged property. Under the mortgage bank system
the banking experts look after this. The result is
that the land mortgage becomes as impersonal as a
railroad mortgage.
• • •
Under the German system, when one buys a land
bond he buys it just as the American investor buys a
railroad bond; Behind it lies , a mass of underlying
mortgages, in addition to the other assets of the bank
issuing it, and behind that the liability of all its mem
bers. In former years every member of a cd-opera-
tive land mortgage bank was liable without limit, al
though the tendency now is toward a limited liaoility
and a large cash reserve.
• • •
Originally, the landschaften did not give cash to a
member in exchange for his mortgage. It gave him,
instead, a bond containing a promise to pay both prin
cipal and interest in case of default; by the deblfcr.
This was simply a process of guaranteeing an indi-'
vidual mortgage with an individual bond. Later tney
undertook to collect the interest and principal on be
half of the lender, and afterward adopted the present
practice of handling the whole transaction—advancing
the money to the debtor, selling the bond to the cred
itor, collecting principal and interest from the debtor,
and redeeming the bond for the creditor.
• • •
This revolutionized the money lending business,
and built up a system of credit, combining the issu
ance of bonds, the gradual repayment of^ the princi
pal by the mortgage maker, and the building up of a
sinking fund to meet the bonds when they should fail
due. Each of these functions is indispensable to the
success of the system, but the greatest among them
is the principle of amortization. The borrower de
cides how many years he requires to pay back the
loan, $nd it is then divided into so many annual in
stallments. He must meet these as well as his inter
est payments, and that means frugality and sustained
effort at getting out of debt, thereby inculcating the
habit of thrift. It also reduces the interest burden of
the borrower from year to year, at the same time in
creasing with each passing year the margin between
the value of the mortgage and the size of the debt.
* • *
The present day landschaften are simply syndicates
of borrowers, who supply themselves with capital upon
the lowest possible terms and upon the easiest possible
methods of repayment. In most of these societies
there are no shares paid in, and when there are they
are usually a certain percentage of the loan to be made.
The candidate for a loan simply asks that a bond be
issued against a mortgage, on his property. If his
mortgage is approved he gets his money and the soci
ety sells the bond in the open security market, the
mortgage maturing before the bond does. The securi
ty for the bond does not lie in a particular mortgage,
but in the masses of the mortgages held. The result
is that 4 per cent bonds are usually at a premium.
While the debt is usually amortized in fifty years, the
borrower does not have to let it run that long. He
can anticipate just as many annual payments as he de
sires.
• • •
The tendency in the landschaften of German today
is to place especial borrowing facilities in the hands of
the small borrower. He is furnished a loan up to a
closer margin of the value of' the property pledged.
Where the big borrower cannot pledge his buildings or
his stock, the smaller borrower can get advances based
upon them in connectiop with his land. Under the law
no landschaft can refuse to place a loan where the bor
rower meets the conditions of security required, and
must inform the borrower of the results of its ap
praisal of his property. Appraisal is made by a com
mittee of neighbors, none of whom may be relatives
of the borrower. Loans cannot be recalled except
where the borrower allows his property to deteriorate
in such a way as to affect , the selling value of the
pledged property.
• • •
The result of the operation of the co-operative land
mortgage banks has brought into existence a large
number of non-co-operativfe banks of this nature, and
this in turn has brought about in Germany a condition
where farm motgages have become the fayorite sources
of .investment. Even government bonds mean no more
to the inestor than the land mortgage bonds, and the
German farmer finds his securities the most sought
after of any on the market. His .credit is gilt-edged.
He can borrow on as .good terms, both with respect to
low interest rates and easy installments of repayment
of. the principal; as the government itself canr
• * * *
Compared with cur American system, where the
land mortgagees about.the most difficult of all securi
ties to handle, where the term‘'Of repayment is less
than a .fourth as long as that of other glasses of securi
ties, and where the farmer finds himself up against
the highest rates of interest, large commissions and
short terms of repayment, the German s3 r steni makes
ours look more than a century out .of date. Although
the American farm. is at the basis of all American,
values, it has never been touched by the/simple alche
my of transmutation of property-into money apd money
into property as the needs of the farmer requires; and
consequently the farmer mtfst labor under financial
conditions that wer e regarded as out of^date in Ger
many. soon after American achieved its independence.