Excerpt from Speech of Hon. John Sherman, of Ohio, on the Financial and Other Issues of the Times: Delivered at Portland, Maine, July 23, 1879 Again, the rate of interest was higher in 187 3 than before or since. Before the panic the body of the Government debt bore interest at 6 per cent. In gold; corporations in fair credit paid 8 to 10 per cent. And individuals - especially in the West - mortgaged their farms at from 10 to 12 per cent. The current rate of interest may be said to have been 10 per cent. The utmost recklessness in contracting debts was then universal, not only by individuals, but by cities, counties, towns, and all kinds of private corporations. It was an era of wild and reckless waste and improvidence. In those speculative times the tonnage of American vessels in foreign trade dwindled from in 1860, to tons in 1873. Wherever we were brought in competition with countries doing business upon a specie basis, we were driven from competition, either on the ocean or in workshops. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.