The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-01-06
NEW York. Jan. q. 1874

seized upon the gamblers in shares, we get an
idea of what would have happened last fall, if
the vaults of the Treasury had been let loose,
and their contents loaned as counters to these
knights of the green CLOTH The wholesome dis
ciplne of the panic taught the stern lesson
with such fidelity, that many Uf the wild cat
schemes which We're deluding innocent people
into waste of their substance, came to their
natural end. 1t will be some time before we
read those gIaring prospectuses again in the re-
gious weekies of 1.-THE Great Mundane Rail
Road and Transportation Company, capital one
Bilon-A few Bonds, bearing ten per cent
interest payable in gold. for sale at ia rare
opportunity. Ioweyou, Neverpay & Co Fuan-
cial agents n b. A special discount to cler-
gymen and Sunday Schools" We work up to
those magnificent conceptions of expansive
genius by degrees. The first start has been
taken. The leading highways which have been
captured by smart" adventurers and squeezed
out of so many millions by the watering process
and whose fictitious valuation was exposed so
glaringly last autumn, the moment they lost
the adventurous support of continuous paper
poney imitation, are being sold and resold day
by day at steadily advancing prices, just as they
were during the summer before their thought
less buyers had any premonition of the i'm
pending reckoning day. No one buys N. Y.
Central at par and upwards, or Lake Shore at
30 because be believes these bubbled stocks are
'ntrinsicaly worth such p.ices, but because he
expects TO entice some still more credulous dupe
into relieving him of his dangerous certificates
at even higher rates. Each of these hopeful
disciples of this doctrine of chances, understands
perfectly well that the last man will get caught,
but not one of them ever has an apprehension
that he may be that identical person. He rea-
sons that there will be plenty of time for him
to"geti realize the profit and unload be-
fore the tide turns. His conscience is never dis
turbed about the morality of the transaction.
really believe there isn'ta broker in Wall
street, who would not laugh outright at
the suggestion that it was officially wrong to
buy stock at more than its worth, taking the
hazard of making a resale at farther advance.
The very essence of gambling is to succeed in
cheating some one, and the whole system of
buying and selling stocks on margin or other
wise than for legitimate investment is species
of gaming which, while it has been legalized
and invested with quasi responsibility, is
not olie-whit more defensible on principle than
the business pursued by the keepers of faro
banks whom every once in while the police
in a crampy spasm of virtue spull'' while they
are pursuing their wretched vocation. In fact,
don't think the proprietor of the gaming
house so dangerous an enemy to mankind, for
he doesn't operate on margins and thus seduce
the objects of his prey iuto the contraction of
liabilities which not merely strip them of all
they possess but plunge them into irritrievable
debt
There was time-it lasted for three months
of the past autumn-when under the salutary
influences of the great contraction which prom
Used an equalization of values, and restoration
of the dignity of labor,>there was faint ground
for hope that all this miserably demoralizing
business of dicing, with millions for stakes.
had received decisive check. The President
manfully refused to come to the rescue of the
frightened hosts. who had got caught with
shares which they had paid too dearly for in
the expectation of saddling them off on more
reckless tempters of fate than themselves.
The Secretary of the Treasury adhered with
infexibe tenacity to his declared purpose to
collect and disburse the revenues of the nation,
and not to NEEDLE directly or indirectly with
the private or business affairs of any body,
and these positions met with the approval ard
applause of the mass of the people. The
panic spent its force. 1t wrought some hard
ships to individuals. 1t punished imprudence
with remorseless impartialty. But after all
the harvest of whirlwnd was remarkably light
considering the quantity of wind that had been
sown for ten preceding years. When the chaff
hal all been eliminated by such a thorough
tbrashing it seemed of small account compared
with the grand residuum of wheat which re-
manned OF course everybody was glad when
the storm was over, and sympathized with the
poor fellows who got pelted by being thought
lessly out in it, without consulting 'Probabil-
tiles" But the general feeling was that it
was needed, that it must have come sooner or
later-that this was as good time as ever we
could have for meeting it, and that we should
gain from it those useful lessons of wisdom
which would enable us to conduct affairs for
the future so judciously as to prevent recur-
renee of such financial hurricanes.
OF the several thousand theories more or less
and of several hundred panaceas, more instead
of less, to which the monetary disturbance has
given birth, how few survive. We were told in
the beginning that all the trouble grew out of
an actual scarcity of currency and that we
simply required further issue to set everything
straight. Yet the penance of ninety days has
demonstrated that we had a redundancy CT cur
rency all the WHILE only that its possessors lad
suddenly made up their minds that the balloon
Of speculation had become inflated to the burs-
ting point, and that they would lay aside their
money till the collapse took place. The explain
alton is very simple 1t does not require any
very profound meditation to anticipate or to
comprehend it. 1t was not more promises to
pay, but more confidence in the ability to do
SO, which was destined to work out a solution
of the difficulties.
The remedies proposed were mostly as W ide
of the mark as the theories invented. Entirely
dissimiar in many respects they bore marked
resemblance to each other in this, that they all
contemplated some devious, tortuous method of
extrication which could be accomplished with
out the practice of self-denial or the nominal
reduction Of exaggerated values. They were
lacking in the essential elements of genuine re
form ia this, that they not only ignored ndem-
nifty for the past, but security for the future.
Convertible bonds, redemption of one piece of
paper with a.Iother,-neither having any value
outside of our own country-unrecognized
among the currences of the world-unlimited
issues of irredeemable notes--these were the
Illuminating plans whereby the richest
and greatest nation of the world was to
find its way out of a temporary strait
into which it had been brought by un-
wisely retaining the legal tender act among
its statutes, an hour longer than the necessity
for 1T existed And yet every one sees and &C.
knowledges that sooner or later we must come
to specie payments. 1t seems childish in the
extreme to shrink shivering on the brink,
when the life saving plunge must be made
The question whether we shall substitute prin-
cple for empiricism now or by and by,
whether We shall Set out on the right path ut
once, or wait till there has been another great
initiation, scores of moonshine projects, and a
panic infinitely more widespread in its ramii-
catious than the last. as the sequel, must be an
swer5d. On the wisdom or the folly of that an
swer the welfare of the people is largely de
pendent.
If we continue the greenback basis, the few