Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1873-03-13
Beecher and Honesty In Getting
Money.

Beecher in his lecture on"Human
ity and money" has this to say OF
the dishonesty Of procuring mon
ey:
One of the great mistakes of the
youth Of this day was the disposition
not only to be inordinately rich, but
also to grow rich suddenly. The
young men who thus seek to got
rich suddenly usually leave callings
for which they are adopted and fall
in the others they adopt.
A large PARTON of the failures are
attributed to this fact. Of those
who seek wealth no man has right
to money except he has earned it..
Every man ought to give an equiva
lent foreverp dollar he holds. 1t
may be product of the brain, an in
vestigation, or by the slow process
of laying up money, but it must be
an equivalent. He who by a mere
venture makes money has no more
right to it than if he made it dishon-
estly. The law. he believed, was uni
versal that money comes honestly
only to those who have earned it.
OF course, though this had no refer
ence to property that was inherited,
which he could not class in money
getting.
He next came to the subject on
which most of those who were pres
ent most wished to-hear him-the
subject of monopolies and official
corruption. He said that while he
believed the disposition to accumu
late wealth was blessing to com
munities 80 long as it was confined
to individuals, it was the reverse
when it was evinced in corruptions.
He believed that when corruptions
began to aggregate welth and then
use its power to aid them to make
still more there was danger. Stand.
ing in New York to-day, one might
see the Pennsylvania Railroad, with
its capital of hundreds of millions.
reaching out its arms over the con
tinent; just north of it lies the Erie,
with her hundred of millions more !;
and looking to the north of it was
the New York Central, with its 9th
er hundreds of millions. Now, let
some question come up which all
three of these corruptions have a
common interest; they will combine
this, however to one end, and who or
what can resist their influence 2
They then become the ruling power
of the Nation. In these corpora
tions we have "a disguised despot
among us.
Slavery may be dead. but we have a
still greater foe than that in NAM
mon, which still lives. Let these
corporations but unite once, and
there is not Legislature that can
not be bought. Courts can be con
trolled by them, and their edict will
send thousands upon thousands of
interested parties to vote upon any
subject they are interested in, and in
the way their interests lie. From
this he argued that our institutions
were in great danger than from any
other source. Intemperance and
immorally and inlidelity were great
foes to Christianity and to pure
government; the greater foe that all
was this increase of corporation
power.
In concluding he said he looked
with hopeful eyes, but felt sure that
withing the next ten years, if there
was not something done to check
this evil, there would be revolution
The question now was whether it
should he reformation or revolution.
He held that by wise use Of all our
faculties in the development of man
hood our continent would increase
in wealth beyound our widest imag-
inings. States will grow up with
public spirit; the government will
increase in power, and wealth, and
Influence, and the desire for gaining
money, which is so often given as
the curse of the time, will become a
blessing itstead.