The Labor enquirer., 1884-06-07
The Recent Panic.

| l happened to be by accident In new
York city on the day that the late finan-
cial crash broke forth in Wall street.
While sitting quietly in the Irish World
Office newsboy rushed in with an arm
full of extra papers. yelping wildly 5
Great panic in Wall street, All about
the great failures! etc. Immediately
three or four Office men rushed from
their chairs, snatched the papers and
were soon breathlessly reading the ex-
citing items. One of my literary brothers
exclaimed loosely to me :-"What in
the name of goodness have you brought
into New York with you that Wall street
should burst into volcano two hours
after your arrival? There must be dyna-
mite IN this!'
My friend and l were soon off for Wall
street to witness the astonishing and
exciting scene that was in store for us.
Standing at the intersection of Broad
way and Wall streets, and looking down
the latter, vast mob of bankers, bro
kers, sharpers, and curiosity-seekers
packed the thoroughfare as far as the
eye could reach. Men, and even women,
with their hands full of papers, jostled
and p1shed and yelled. At the door of
the Metropolitan bank were three or
four stalwart policemen with raised clubs
and eIpostulsting voices trying to keep
the crowd back. AS we elhowed our way
down the street the excitement seemed
to increase at every step. 1t was pande-
| monium itself. When about halfway
down the street my attention was ar
rested by the grand statue of Washing
ton on the steps of the sub-treasury
building, which I had never seen before.
That august figure in the midst of such
company brought me to halt. The
Father of his Country stood benignly
looking down upon the scene with out
stretched arm as if to bless as we'll as
warn the half-crazed children of Nam
mon below. There was something deep
ly touching and impressive in the figure
and its surrounds, which for time filled
me with emotions which l dare not ven
ture to express on paper.
As far back as my Sunday school days
learned to look with peculiar disgust
upon gambler. When one of this fra
ternity was pointed out to me on the
street, 1 SHE'D one side with sort ot
terror, regarding the man as an excep
tional pest and enemy of the human
race. But to-day the essential distinc
ton between gambler and hundreds O.
socially respectable business men on
every hand is almost obliterated. The
professional gambler sits in pride and
high social position upon the fashionable
hill-tops of our great cities in elegant
mansions. He struts down the main
aisle of our fashionable churches, and
takes the front pew. He is perhaps
mayor of your city. He goes to con
gress, and is favorite in the very choic
est social circles in short, is one of oul
very first citizens.
One of the most suggestive strokes o.
irony upon the utter rottenness and by
pocrisy of modern life is the fact thai
among the items of outrageous vandal
ism on the part of the president of the
failed Metropolitan bank was the snug
sum of 100000 which he had stoler
whereby to endow a Methodist theolog
zeal college. Whether thief or a saint
endows theological seminary does no
probably effect the merits of the theol
ogy per Sc, but suspicious human nature
is ultimately sure to discredit the sources
of such theological teaching in the be
lief that the theological teachers wert
more or less in conspiracy with the
banking thief
Perhaps the most serious and suggest,
i've thing which was developed in the
late Wall street crash was the open fac
that the treasury of the United State
and its officers are intimately identified
with Wall street. 1t is stated in the pa
pers ON good authority that for some
days before the crash came the treasury
) officials in Washington had been dill
gently cooperating with the stock-bro
kering thieves to avert the crisis. Ger
5 tain it is that on that day governmen
f officials turned S3O,OOO,0OO of credit int
the street, and that illegally, too, whil
congress Immediately dropped all othe
/ business to devise instant means to aver
, stock panic. The fact is that a larg
: percentage of the congressman were per
sonally interested in Wall street stock
gambling in some way or another, which
is even said to be the case with some o
5 the treasury officials themselves. Owe
and above all this the republican party
{ could not afford at this time to hazarC
its chances at the next presidential elec
ton by seeing general financial pani
r get beyond control, and so the most in
5 tense pressure was brought upon the gov
> ernment to intercede. 1t was this alon,
: which averted widespread financial dis
t aster. I
? To Irishmen and all true American
5 who dread the coming empire of Englisl
: capital in this country there is a most re
+ gretful fact connected with this business
3 In the two days of money famine OIL
Wall street when funds were loaned a