The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-10
American specuIatOrs.

American SpeculaaOrss
From the Pail Mall Gazette.
In spite of our national rivalry with our
twin section of the Anglo-Saxon race, we are
driven in candor to admit there are things in
which the Americans are our masters; things,
too, where We might put forward claims of
our own not lightly to be dismissed. We may
fairly boast ourselves a speculative people,
although our speculative bursts are followed
by their intervals of reaction. Three years
and half ago the patriotic Briton might
have pointed with honest pride to the evil
dences of this countrys enterprise. Its
credit stood pledged for capital many times in
excess of its possible resources; it had pushed
the business of bubble-blowing to an excess
but family foreshadowed in the widest days
of the South-Sea scheme; its directors, Sam
son-like, were pulling world-famed houses
about the ears of their shareholders, their
customers, and themselves. A good deal of
animation shows itself at times on the Place
de la Bourse and the Boulevards des Italiens
when the Emperor and the empire have been
given over. Even the phlegmatic and careful
Hollanders have given pledges enough to ca
pricious fortune to get up an excitement
when Amsterdam is caught in the back
rush of panic wave. Yet against
anything to be seen in the Old World scenes
to be witnessed in the purlieus of the Bank
of England may fairly claim to hold their own.
But there is a hardihood about American
spectators which, while it commands our in
voluntary admiration, ensures striking stage
effects and q play Of tragic passion beside
which our most praiseworthy attempts are
paltry. We do notspeak now of the grandeur
of American conceptions, of the colossal scale
and unfatering resolution with which they
are carried out, nor o. the patient yet bril-
liant strategy which seeks its strength in
federation; we allude to the chivalry with
which their fnanciers calmly elect to mea-
sure their strength against each other, fight
ing over the manged public carcass for a
monopoly of the public spoil. 1t is the diff
ference between highway robbery and petty
larceny, between FRA Diavolo" and ''Schin-
derhannes" and ''Fagin" and the ''Artful
Dodger." Our English public depredators
prefer the safer game They chloroform their
victims with mendacious prospectuses, fall
lacious speeches, and falsihed accounts.
They thrust themselves on the public notice
as little as they can help, except indeed when
advertising themselves indirectly in non-pro-
fessional parts as chairmen of religious meet
| ings and directors of charitable societies.
| They never care to attract the attention of
the police of the press, and although, of
course, they will drain each others pockets
| on occasion, never seize each other by the
throat with an order to stand and deliver.
True Jenny Twitchers, their hearts are
craven. If the very shareholders only show
bold front, their oppressors are cowed at
once, and ready to buy their safety by turn
! ing Queens evidence, even by sacrifice of
portion of their ill-gotten booty.
The late drama in Wall street, on the other
hand, suggests a number of ennobling
images-gorged vultures whetting their cruel
beaks for internecine battle; troops of rival
Indian braves on the war path levelling their
lances at each others breasts, their spoil to be
the prize of the winner; bandits in the Mexi-
can sierras quitting the cards and the
national moro for their knives. No man, per-
haps, has made greater name of late in the
country of remarkable men, than Mr.. James
Fisk, jun. Possibly the local press of New
York have by this time traced their hero's
antecedents back to his cradle; his nurse, if
he had one, or if she still survives, has doubt
less been freely interviewed" and her
memory lavishly refreshed by agents of the
"Sewer" and the ''Stabber" To us in the
old world Mr. Fisk seems to have grown into
q mammoth financier as Chicago grew into @
city. Whatever he may have been little
time back, now his name is a household word
in many q household - American, Eng.
lish, and German. The Turks say that
curses, like chickens, come home to roost;
and in that case Mr. Fisk must be the cause
of most of the holders of Erie stock having q
very pretty poultry yard full of execrations.
Mr.. Fisk's express career along the Erie line
is happy illustration of the value of being
born where all men are equal, and where the
humblest citizen has equal rights with the
richest. 1t would have been absolutely i'm
possible in an effete country like ours, where
old-fashioned judges stand upon the purity OF
their ermine, and give up accepting retainers
after they ascend the bench But with al
implied in his favor by his birthright in the
free soil of Columbia, Mr.. Fisk has good rea
son to be proud of the brilliant audacity thai
made him what he is. He burned his boats
and staked on an unfailing run of luck in his
favor. So long as he was in high feather hC
might soar what flights he pleased, but should
chance once strip him of his plumes, he mus
have foreseen his possible fate There are
lampposts in Broadway and when he lost thu
means that had propitiated the more regular
kind of judge, he might well be dragged be
fore the judgment seat of Lynch. We dwell
on this point because what attracts us to Mr.
Fisk, in spite of the less amenable weak
nesses, is the brilliant daring that scorned h
leave well alone. He had enriched himself
''beyond the dreams of avarice." He ha(
earned an unimpeachable title to the respec
! of Wall street, of all the men whose opinion
is the least worth having, and who form tn
backbone of public sentiment in the States
Like most great conquerors, he could lool
back complacently ON the sensation he hat
made in the world in his time. In the fai
way of trade he had brought ruin and MISERY
to as many hearths in the Union as Genera
Sherman on the grand march. He NIGH
surely have been contented to rest on hi
laurels; to withdraw into comparatively pri
vate life, carrying with him, perhaps, the un
fortunate Erie for q plaything, amusing him
hxr fi.s tha mil Iualrxr roho ahAl1 n,