Two years ago
I went to see Professor Moley,
former head
of President Roosevelt’s Brain Trust,
and said to him:
“I came here to find out
if I could make an impression
on the depression
by starting a rumpus
on the campus.
But I found out
that agitation is not rampant
on the campus.
Only business is rampant on the campus,
although business is the bunk.
“May be,” said I
“history cannot be made
on the campus.”
And turning toward his secretary,
Professor Moley said:
“That’s right,
we don’t make history
on the campus,
we only teach it.”
And because history is taught
but not made
on the campus of our universities.
the Catholic Worker
is trying to make history
on Union Square,
where people have nothing to lose.
A battle royal is raging
between East and West,
between stock speculators
and land speculators,
between money lenders
and money borrowers.
To go back to the gold standard,
as the so-called “sound
money” people propose,
is to favor the money lenders
at the expense of the money borrowers.
To increase the amount of currency,
as the mild inflationists propose,
is to favor the money borrowers
at the expense of the money lenders.
To devise schemes
so as to bring about a rise in prices
is to favor both money lenders
and money borrowers
at the expense of the consuming public.
We made the mistake
of running business on credit
and credit has run into debts
and debts are leading us
toward bankruptcy.
The Jews had a way
of wiping off the slate.
Every fifty years,
the year of the Jewish Jubilee,
all debts were liquidated.
But nobody,
not even the Jews.
proposes this old-time solution.
John Maynard Keynes,
the well-known English economist, says
that we ought to ask ourselves
if the medieval economists
were not sound
in condemning money-lending
at interest.
In his book
on Religion and the Rise of Capitalism,
R. H. Tawney,
another English economist,
points out
that at the base of our acquisitive society
we find legalized usury,
or lending money at interest.
Because the State has legalized
money-lending at interest,
in spite of the teachings
of the Prophets of Israel
and the Fathers of the Church,
home owners have mortgaged their homes,
farm owners have mortgaged their farms,
institutions have mortgaged
their buildings,
governments have mortgaged
their budgets.
So we are where we are
because the State has legalized
money-lending at interest
in spite of the teachings
of the Prophets of Israel
and the Fathers of the Church.
To go back to the teachings
of the Prophets of Israel
and the Fathers of the Church,
as I propose in my Easy Essays
in the current number of The
Catholic Worker,
would not do any injustice
to the money lenders
or the money borrowers
or the consuming public.
Money lenders would get their
money back,
money borrowers would find
their burdens lightened,
and the consuming public
would not have to pay the bill.
We would go back to the point
from which we should never have gone.
We would go back to the time
when no one was called a gentleman
who indulged in money-lending at interest.
We would go back to the time
when people could not see anything gentle
in trying to live on the sweat
of somebody else’s brow
by lending money at interest.
Many people say
that we cannot go back,
but I say
neither can we go ahead,
for we are parked in a blind alley.
And when people are parked
in a blind alley
the only thing to do is to go back.
For when people lend money at interest
that money is invested.
Money invested
increases production.
Increased production
brings a surplus in production.
A surplus in production
brings unemployment.
Unemployment
brings a slump in business.
A slump in business
brings more unemployment.
More unemployment
brings more depression,
A depression
brings more depression,
More depression
brings red agitation.
Red agitation
brings red revolution.