If we now unite the annual interest charge on [SN: COMBINED INTEREST CHARGE.] the acres and lots mortgage debt, and the annual interest on farms and homes mortgage debt, we find that these charges amount to $539,352,898 in every year, which must be paid in any way. It is certainly not the yearly charge of the memorial past, but it was stated as existing in the year 1890, and would naturally continue as an annual interest charge up to the present day. The debtors must use an extraordinary effort in their toil, in order to get sufficient results from their applied energy for clearing up this annual interest charge, and keeping themselves alive.[104] And to speak about an unusual prosperity of the people under such conditions is as absurd as to say that the creditors are growing poor from receiving the annual interest charge consisting of $539,352,898 worth of wealth because they get it yearly without work. Yes, every one that speaks about prosperity in the United States knows what he means. For the statistical facts prove that there is an unusual prosperity for the very few that the tens of millions of individuals are bound to work for. But, is it prosperity for these millions of the propertyless * * * and debtors? No, there is positive enslavement for them and their children. And it is the innocent children or posterity that are to be specially pitied. These tens of millions of individuals become weaker and weaker consumers of their own products and products of the nation. So that, the few prosperous families are obliged to look after wider foreign markets to export to the produce that the millions here have no means, no purchasing power to acquire. It has long been the case in England, where millions of the people wear overcoats, for instance, from 5 to 10 years each, without being able to procure new ones; while the exports of all goods are ever going on to the different foreign markets. And the United States are growing similar to Great Britain in almost every respect. * * * “The percentages representing encumbrance for various rates of interest,” says the Extra Bulletin [SN: RATES OF INTEREST ARE HIGHER ON THE POOR.] No. 71, “show that the larger encumbrances bear the lower rates of interest, as a general fact.” And the differences in the rates of interest are from “less than 6 to greater than 12 per cent.” Hence, the poorer the mortgagors, the greater the weight of oppression they bear; and the greater oppression they bear, the quicker they lose their properties, and the greater becomes the number of tenants and of economic slaves which we have. The brute-minded creditors think that it is natural to skin the helpless, because they have no great security for the loans. What is the significance of mortgages for the nation? And what do other men acquainted with mortgages think of them?