feed upon
them, is rank hypocracy. Nor can those who have grown fat by the
practice of usury, condone the crime by tossing back to them a portion
of the unjust gain.

"Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict his
soul?... Is not this the fast that I have chosen?... To undo the heavy
burdens and to let the oppressed go free?... Is it not to deal thy
bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to
thy house?"

CHAPTER XXIX.

USURY CENTRALIZES WEALTH.

The dictum of Bacon that "Usury gathers the wealth of the realm into
few hands" is readily proven and fully verified in the experience of
these times. The tendency to centralization under a system of usury or
interest-taking is so strong, and the modern result so apparent that
the statement only is necessary.

Usury not only enslaves the borrower and oppresses the poor who are
innocent of all debt, but it also affects the rich by gathering the
wealth of the wealthy into fewer and fewer hands. There is a
centralizing draft that threatens and then finally absorbs the smaller
fortunes into one colossal financial power. It is as futile to resist
this as to resist fate. Wealth cannot be so fortified and guarded as
to successfully resist the attack of superior wealth when the practice
of usury is permitted. The smaller and weaker fortune, using the same
weapon as the larger and stronger, must inevitably be defeated and
overcome, and ultimately absorbed.

Rates of interest do not affect the ultimate result. Under a high rate
the gathering is rapid, under a low rate the accretions are slower,
but the gathering into few hands is none the less sure. Rates of
interest only place the convergent center at a nearer or more remote
period.

If any interest is right, compound interest is right. When simple
interest is due and paid, it may be loaned to another party, and thus
the usurer secures interest upon his interest, though not from the
same debtor. When the interest is to be paid annually, it is to be
assumed, if not paid, that the debtor takes it as a loan in addition
to the face of the note of his obligation. This saves the care of
receiving and re-loaning to another. The custom of usurers, however,
is to renew the note, adding the interest to the face, if unpaid. The
mass of bank paper is renewed each ninety days: Compounded four times
a year, whether to the same or to another debtor, the result in
accretion is the sam