Later on and for what real reason no one knows--except that it wasn't from soft-heartedness--a portion of the usurious loot was disgorged by the Atlanta Federal Reserve pawnbrokery. That isn't really interesting. What is really interesting is the super-supernal and subter-brutal gall to first extort it. Many a usurer when caught and cornered has disgorged loot--that's as old as usury. Jesse James' press agent could boast of as much. When grilled on this interesting subject the multi-initialed Governor Harding of the Federal Reserve Board chittered and chattered about "basic lines of credit" and "progressive rates of interest," but that doesn't chlorinate such sandbaggery. Any pawnbroker can mutter and mumble such phrases. When a bank has to pay up to _eighty-seven and a half per cent_ interest you can imagine what its customers must pay it. And at the very time--during these very two weeks ending September 30, 1920--when this little Alabama National Bank right at the door of real production was being charged those Shylock rates for a paltry loan, banks in New York were getting as high as $100,000,000 handed out to them at from _five to seven per cent_. And yet you read about the Federal Reserve System "equalizing interest rates," "emancipating credit" and the like bunk! Why, it's enough to make Shylock and Pecksniff rend their cerements and jump from their graves and have another try at extortion and at applied hypocrisy. A difference of _eighty per cent per annum_ between New York City--where nothing but parasitism is grown--and Alabama--where real wealth of real cotton grows--is some difference, isn't it? And the eighty per cent difference coddles parasitism and penalizes production. This isn't the only sandbaggery of extortion perpetrated by the Federal Reserve oligarchy. But it's a pretty good example, isn't it? Now take a look at the twelve regional pawnbrokeries for the year 1921 in the order of their pillagements. Here they are: Location Paid in Capital Net Earnings Atlanta $4,189,500 131.18% Chicago 14,307,000 101.31% New York 27,114,000 96.23% Minneapolis 3,569,000 88.21% Richmond 5,428,500 80.94% Kansas City 4,570,500 66.86% San Francisco 7,374,500 66.72% St. Louis 4,603,000 64.13% Philadelphia 8,736,500 61.11% Cleveland 11,134,000 56.44% Boston 7,935,500 53.94% Dallas 4,203,000 38.40% ------------ ------ Total Capital $103,165,000 Average 79.56%