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Show MORTGAGES AND PROSPERITY. The census returns show that the i mortgage indebtedness of Cook county, j Ills., is $191,573,000, of which $177,453,-000 $177,453,-000 is upon property in the city of Chicago. Chi-cago. A comparison of these figures with some others suggests some interesting inter-esting thoughts. The indebtedness of Chicago is $24,373,170 greater than the entire farm mortgage of Kansas, $42,-703.304 $42,-703.304 greater than the farm mortgages of Iowa, and $112,008,830 greater than the entire mortgage indebtedness of the two states of Alabama and Tennessee. Ten-nessee. The calamity organs are in the habit of asserting that mortgages are an evidence evi-dence of distress. There is no doubt that in those cases in which debt has been incurred by failure of crops, or in which mortgages have been given to secure money which has been squandered squan-dered or floated into losing enterprises, such debts are evidence of distress. But it has often been claimed that in a general way mortgages are an evidence of enterprise and prosperity. It is probable prob-able that the farming states of Kansas and Iowa, after the pinch occasioned by bad crops, will be far better olT by reason of the improvements which the farmers made with the money derived from their mortgages. It is not piob- able that any considerable proportion of those farmers squandered their money. The mortgages heve been heavily burdensome, and in many cases they have brought ruin, but- with the turn in the tide it will be shown that the states have profited on the whole. Chicago is regarded as the most pro-I pro-I gressive city on the continent. It moves along under high pressure, and the tension is shown by the figures of its mortgage indebtedness. Without the mortgages the city would not occupy oc-cupy the position that it does today, for the people would not have had the means to do the work that has been performed. Chicago Chi-cago enterprise has found expression in the fearlessness with which men have borrowed money to go into larger enterprises, en-terprises, and if the city had been mortgaged less it would not have been the city that it is. Then we may compare Kansas and Iowa and Chicago with the states of Tennessee and Alabama. These last named states have been improving during dur-ing recent years; but where is the Kansan or the Iowan who would change conditions for his state with those of either of its southern neighbors? The people of the prairie states may complain com-plain at times of their mortgages but they would not change with their less mortgaged neighbors for any consider-tion consider-tion under heaven. We cannot estimate esti-mate what the measure of the development develop-ment of Tennessee and Alabama would have been if during the last twenty-live 3'ear3 the spirit had prevailed there which has ruled in Kansas, in Iowa and in Chicago. That spirit would have mortgaged those states, but it would have made great commonwealths com-monwealths of them, and their western west-ern neighbors would have been left away in the rear. The spirit that has made Chicago the wonder of the worltl would have made those southern states as prosperous as any in the Union. When we condemn the mortgage we at the same time condemn the enterprise that has made Chicago the pride of the country, rewwin ne wining 10 aumit that the mortgage is a good thing, but all will agree that that community is to be admired which is inspired by the spirit of resistless energy under which mortgages spring up. |