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TI1E GEORGIAN’S NEWS BRIEFS
WHAT IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A YOUNG MAN?
- We have received many letters from young men recently
complaining of lack of opportunities. One in particular asked
this question:
“Are the opportunities for the young man in the present
day and generation equal to what they were twenty-five or fifty
years ago—the days of his father and grandfather?’’
It is a question that is probably asked in this country thou
sands of times every day. It is an important question to the in
dividual. It is especially important to the nation. For the na
tion declines in which opportunities for the young diminish.
We feel that we can conscientiously and positively say that
REAL opportunities are better to-day, both for young men and
young women, than they ever have been.
Opportunities are greater BECAUSE POSSIBILITIES
ARE GREATER.
Science, machinery, organisation of all kinds, especially
widespread publicity, have put into men’s hands in less than
fifty years a power undreamed of in the boyhood of our grand
fathers.
Humanity and the individual are powerful, and their oppor
tunities are great, in proportion to the machinery at their com
mand.
Our opportunities were never so great as now, but this state
ment is made assuming that our correspondent means real and
worthy opportunities.
Unfortunately, in this country, where sudden prosperity,
great extravagance and uneasiness as to the future make money
all-important, the word “opportunity” is apt to be a synonym
for money. Money and opportunity are taken to mean the same
thing.
But we purpose to answer this question quite apart from
money.
Undoubtedly, the very able money-getter, no matter how
humble his start, can build up to-day such a fortune an was un
known fifty years ago—or twenty-five years ago. There are
young men without a penny that will earn (or, rather, more or
less honestly ACCUMULATE) their hundreds of millions in the
next few years, before the common sense of the country shall
have realized the importance of regulating accumulation through
increased distribution.
There will be, perhaps, fewer small, middle-class fortunes
piled up, for there will be fewer men in business on their own
account, thanks to the trusts.
Many men will earn very large salaries, ranging from $150,-
000 a year downward, and there will probably be very many
MILLIONS OF AMERICANS NEED TO
In this country millions of industrious, careful human be
ings, anxious to provide for the future, are willing to save—and
it is practically impossible for them to get a decent rate of inter
est on their savings and NOT risk being robbed at the same time.
In this country, where the millions are anxious to save,
you have millions of farmers and small business men who are
compelled to borrow—as their operations for the year exceed
necessarily at one time or another the amount,of money that
they have on hand.
You have the savers on the one hand getting only 2 per cent
if they put their money in the United States Postal Bank. And
even then they are limited as to the amount they can put in.
They get 3 per cent if they put their money in private savings
banks—and take the usual risk of having the money lost through
dishonesty or withheld from them in time of panic.
You have the farmers, upon whose labor and intelligence
the nation depends, compelled to borrow for the purchase of
seeds, of machinery. And, while the SAVING, careful American
who accumulates %is earnings can get only 2 per cent or 3 per
cent interest, THE FARMER MUST PAY, ON THE AVER
AGE, EIGHT AND A HALF PER CENT FOR THE MONEY
THAT HE BORROWS.
Isn’t there some way of getting the AMERICAN WHO
SAVES and the AMERICAN WHO BORROWS closer together?
Is it not an outrage that the hundreds of millions that the
careful American saves should be lent to the hard-working
farmer with SOME BANKING ORGANIZATION BETWEEN
THE TWO GETTING A “RAKE OFF” OF FIVE AND A
HALF PER CENT ON THE MONEY?
That is exactly what happens.
The money that the bankers are lending is simply the
money that others have SAVED.
And the money that the fanners are borrowing is simply
the money that the savers have deposited in the banks.
The people who save in this country get 3 per cent at most
on their savings. And the farmers who borrow pay 8y s per cent.
And in the process 5y 2 per cent goes to build up a non-pro
ducing class THAT IS NOT NECESSARY.
Why should not the Government of the United States pay
a decent rate of interest to the American citizen for his savings,
and lend to the farmers at a fair rate of interest when the
farmers need to borrow?
It doesn't cost 5y 2 per cent to handle money, to take it in
with one hand and lend it with the other.
The United States Government might well afford to pay
the careful, saving American 3 per cent on his money and LEND
THAT SAME MONEY TO THE FARMER AT 4 PER CENT.
This would give the Government a margin of 1 per cent to
cover expenses.
more large INCOMES in the land within the next twenty-five
years than there were in the last twenty-five years.
But when men earn SALARIES, they do not keep their
money, and of the middle-class fortunes we shall have fewer.
But we trust that our correspondent will agree with us that
money is a pretty mean measurement for opportunity.
What do the merely rich men really amount to? When
they have been dead two or three years they are as unknown
and forgotten as the pigs and chickens that they ate, the horses
that they drove, or the flunkies whose time they wasted.
Opportunity means A CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING
WORTH WHILE.
And we assure our correspondent that the young man of to
day has a greater chance to do something worth while than a
young man has ever had in the history of this country.
Our form of government is changing; the power has prac
tically passed from the hands of the majority of the people into
the hands of a majority of trust stockholders.
The young man who has genius and force, the ability to
lead, and the character to refuse his share of the spoils, has a
great opportunity to-day. It is the opportunity to return the
government to the hands of those who are governed.
Working scientists are needed and sadly lacking in all the
great departments of human thought. Every one of these new
fields of intellectual activity, research and discovery offers un
limited opportunities to young men.
The newspapers, read by millions of human beings every
day, enable the man who can think intelligently, the man who
will be sincere and interesting at the same time to address (and,
if he is able, to convince) a million or two millions of his fellow-
citizens every day in the year. Was there ever a greater oppor
tunity than this for influencing the thoughts of other men?
Every page of a scientific newspaper will show to the young
man a glorious opportunity.
Every phase of our great industrial organization, every new
development in the struggle of manhood against money, offers
to the young man a great opportunity for public service.
The horrible poverty and wretchedness in the great cities,
contrasting with ignorant and ostentatious wealth, offer oppor
tunities unlimited to him who would help the poor to help them
selves, to him able to cajole or frighten the rich into doing their
duty.
This is the age of opportunity, but the young man must
think for himself, strike out on his own line, make up his mind
what to do, and stick at it, INSTEAD OF FOLLOWING
ALONG THE USUAL LINES OF LEAST RESISTANCE, doing
the same as everybody else does, keeping at nothing in particu
lar, and then wondering what has become of the world’s oppor
tunities.
BORROW-FARMERS ESPECIALLY
Why isn’t it possible to do this?
It isn’t possible for various reasons.
The first reason is that the finances of the United States
are usually run by bankers for bankers.
The second reason is that the banking class represents Gov
ernment, which in this country means money.
The little man who is saving his few hundred dollars and
who must be content to get 3 per cent and risk losing it, and the
farmer who is borrowing his few thousand dollars and who must
go almost on his knees to get it, AND THEN PAY EIGHT AND
a half per cent-those two classes are not
the Government.
The Government of this country is the banking class, the
money class, the money itself.
And therefore the man who saves must accept 3 per cent
interest and worry about his money’s safety.
And the farmer who borrows must pay 8 1 / 2 per cent and
worry about his payments promptly on time, and pay a commis
sion for extensions, and find himself sold out in time of panics.
And those who profit are the middlemen, the NON-PRO
DUCERS, the parasites, the blood-suckers of the community.
When will the people find a leader big enough and able
enough to hand the savings of the frugal workmen in the shape
of a loan to the equally frugal and valuable farmer, and take
from both of them ONLY ENOUGH TO PAY FOR THE
TRANSACTION?
They do these things in other countries.
In Germany and France they lend thousands of millions to
the farmers at 4 per cent a year and less.
The farmers of this country borrow thousands of millions
of dollars THROUGH A PRIVATE EXTORTIONATE BANK
ING SYSTEM AND THE AVERAGE CHARGE IS EIGHT
AND ONE HALF PER CENT.
Eight and one-half per cent on one thousand millions is
eighty-five millions of dollars. And this is, at the least, FIFTY
MILLIONS MORE THAN THE FARMERS SHOULD PAY.
Money is as much a TOOL in these days as any other.
If you make money, the most important tool, expensive for
the farmer, YOU MAKE LIVING AND THE COST OF LIV
ING EXPENSIVE FOR ALL.
This nation should let the farmers have cheap money, and
at the same time give to the saving mechanic a fair rate of
interest AND ABSOLUTE SAFETY WITH A GOVERNMENT
GUARANTEE.
That can be done, if MONEY will permit the people of this
country to run the Government and the finances of the country
for the benefit of the people—and not for the benefit of the
blood sucking middleman, called the banking system.