"It will be seen at a glance that this system of transacting the business of the country on a cash basis by the people and by organized credit through banks by large operators who controlled finance and commerce could not fail to give to the latter an enormous advantage in the aggregate business of the country. The great masses of wealth producers naturally became a debtor class. As all wealth was the product of their labor, they must necessarily create the means of paying all indebtedness, interest and principal. Hence they constituted the interest paying masses while the comparatively small number of large operators constituted a powerful creditor class who were continually receiving interest, and hence always had money to loan or invest in such a manner as to be able to receive more interest. And the larger the interest-charge against the people, the more they needed money and the more inclined they were to borrow. Cities and towns often voted a bonded debt upon themselves for improvements, for the express purpose of providing employment for the workers, so that business might derive some temporary advantage by having the wages expended in their midst. The great masses of the people did not realize that a part of the same dollars they borrowed most go back to the lender to pay interest, and that the consequent deficiency in the means of payment could only be met by transferring to the creditor a portion of the wealth created by their labor equal to the interest. And the larger the aggregate indebtedness in proportion to the volume of money available for debt paying purposes, the larger must be the deficiency to be met out of their savings, or what should have been their net income from the exercise of their producing power. "But the interest on loans, public and private was only a small fraction of the burden of usury imposed upon the wealth producing masses. All the large industrial, financial and commercial enterprises of the country were on a debt-creating basis. Stock companies owned the railroads of the country; the streetcars, waterworks, gasworks and electric light and power plants of the cities; all the great manufacturing, mining and commercial enterprises; the steamship lines, and even vast bonanza farms and stock ranches. All these interests were operated with a view to paying dividends on the stock in addition to the operating expenses, and were therefore equivalent to a perpetual interest bearing debt, the principal of which never could be paid.