act that I must
indirectly suffer from the effects of your suicidal policy, it is
amusing to see you trying to squeeze the remaining value out of _your
own property_. For, I repeat, it is yours. Interest payments will cease
in the same ratio that they have ceased, and for the same reasons. And
the principal cause will be that the mortgagor has _discovered_ that he
has no equity in the property. If property is worth only "what it will
bring in money," there are few pieces of mortgaged property in the West
in which there still remains an equity. But many farmers are economizing
and wearing rags in order to make interest payments, which can only
result in putting the evil day a little further off.

The Westerner is a practical man. When he finds that the equity is all
squeezed out of his property, and that it is still being squeezed at the
same rate, he stops paying taxes and interest, uses the property free
while you are foreclosing, saves up a little money, buys a house for
about one-tenth of the money it cost to build it, moves it onto a
"clear" lot, and is then ready to help you squeeze your property by
voting for taxes for various purposes. Under like circumstances the
farmer raises one or two crops without rent, taxes, or interest, clothes
his family more comfortably, replaces worn-out machinery, rents a farm,
and is in better circumstances than he has been for years.

THE PROPOSED REMEDY.

It may be that there is no remedy, but that will not prevent us from
trying to find one. During the last ten years we have experimented. We
have tried Democratic rule and Republican rule; the "McKinley bill" and
the "Wilson bill"; "tariff for protection" and "tariff for revenue
only"; a Treasury "surplus" and a Treasury "deficit"; yet none of these
things have sensibly affected the squeezing process. We have lost our
faith in the tariff and in tariff-tinkering, as well as in the leaders
who recommend it. We have dismissed our old political leaders and chosen
new ones; and as your "gold-standard" squeezing policy is the only
rational cause "in sight" for the origin and continuance of our
condition--to use an expressive Western phrase--we are "going for it."

We are willing that you should own and control the property which was
ours, and in which your money was invested, but when you attempt to
force upon us your financial policy, your politics, and your religion,
we object. You may own and control the property, but not us; her