Again, Mr. Adams gloomily remarks that “producers have become the subjects of the possessors of hoarded wealth,” and that among capitalists the money-lenders form an aristocracy, while debtors are helpless and the servants of the creditors. All this is really quite unworthy of Mr. Adams, or of anyone above the intellectual level of Mr. Bryan, Mr. Henry George, or Mr. Bellamy. Any man who has had the slightest practical knowledge of legislation, whether as Congressman or as State legislator, knows that nowadays laws are passed much more often with a view to benefiting the debtors than the creditors; always excepting that very large portion of the creditor class which includes the wage-earners. “Producers”--whoever they may be--are not the subjects of “hoarded wealth,” nor of anyone nor anything else. Capital is not absolute; and it is idle to compare the position of the capitalist nowadays with his position when his workmen were slaves and the law-makers were his creatures. The money-lender, by whom I suppose Mr. Adams means the banker, is not an aristocrat as compared to other capitalists,--at any rate in the United States. The merchant, the manufacturer, the railroad man, stand just as the banker does; and bankers vary among themselves just as any other business men do. They do not form a “class” at all; anyone who wishes to can go into the business; men fail and succeed in it just as in other businesses. As for the debtors being powerless, if Mr. Adams knows any persons who have lent money in Kansas or similar States they will speedily enlighten him on this subject, and will give him an exact idea of the extent to which the debtor is the servant of the creditor. In those States the creditor--and especially the Eastern money-lender or “gold-bug”--is the man who has lost all his money. Mr. Adams can readily find this out by the simple endeavor to persuade some “money-lender,” or other “Wall Street shark” to go into the business of lending money on Far-Western farm property. The money-lender in the most civilized portions of the United States always loses if the debtor is loser, or if the debtor is dishonest. Of course there are “sharpers” among bankers, as there are among producers. Moreover, the private, as distinguished from the corporate, debtor borrows for comparatively short periods, so that he is practically not at all affected by an appreciating currency; the rise is much too small to count in the case of the individual, though it may count in the long-term bonds of a nation or corporation. The wage of the working-man rises, while interest, which is the wage of the capitalist, sinks.