“But,” said Maximilian, “how would the men get along who wanted to borrow?” “The necessity to borrow is one of the results of borrowing. The disease produces the symptoms. The men who are enriched by borrowing are infinitely less in number than those who are ruined by it; and every disaster to the middle class swells the number and decreases the opportunities of the helpless poor. Money in itself is valueless. It becomes valuable only by use—by exchange for things needful for life or comfort. If money could not be loaned it would have to be put out by the owner of it in business enterprises, which would employ labor; and as the enterprise would not then have to support a double burden—to-wit, the man engaged in it and the usurer who sits securely upon his back—but would have to support only the former usurer, that is, the present employer—its success would be more certain; the general prosperity of the community would be increased thereby, and there would be, therefore, more enterprises, more demand for labor, and consequently higher wages. Usury kills off the enterprising members of a community by bankrupting them, and leaves only the very rich and the very poor; but every dollar the employers of labor pay to the lenders of money has to come eventually out of the pockets of the laborers. Usury is therefore the cause of the first aristocracy, and out of this grow all the other aristocracies. Inquire where the money came from that now oppresses mankind, in the shape of great corporations, combinations, etc., and in nine cases out of ten you will trace it back to the fountain of interest on money loaned. The coral island is built up of the bodies of dead coral insects; large fortunes are usually the accumulations of wreckage, and every dollar represents disaster.” How Wealth Accumulates. As proof of the fact that it is a mighty fortunate thing for humanity that the Rothschilds did not conduct a bank in the year 1 A. D., I reprint from the _Twentieth Century_ the following article by H. C. Whitaker, which shows the beauties of interest-drawing: “Had one cent been loaned on the 14th day of March, A. D. 1, interest being allowed at the rate of 6 per cent., compounded yearly, then, 1894 years later—that is, on March 14, 1895—the amount due would be $8,497,840,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (8,497,840,000 decillions). If it were desired to pay this in gold, 23.2 grains to the dollar, then, taking spheres of pure gold, each the size of the earth, it would take 610,070,000,000,000,000 of them to pay for that cent. Placing these spheres in a straight row, their combined length would be 4,826,870,000,000,000,000,000 miles, a distance which it would take light (going at the rate of 186,330 miles per second) 820,890,000 years to travel.