Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1884-08-01
WALL STREETS SPECTATORS.
Lost Nau-Faiiing Brain Power-
Wall Street Rumors.

i~iath's" Letter.
No passion i'll the United States takes
possf s,ion of n man so thoroughly as
to get rich in Wall street. Litcrlture,
art, the gospel. politics, are nothing t.
it. | hava often noted that hen n man
Is stealing from the government, for in
stance, he looks down on all artistic
rnIcavors, and regards any other
sort of career than getting money
us bcn,ath mans respect. / re ol-
lie t Il friend who at one time had
mutual feeling with me in literature
and such things. He was fine speaker
and popular in his manners. All at
once he was let into a job of colossal
proportions, and began to grasp money
quickly, and when next ! spoke to him
on the subjects which had once inter
e-tel u', lie said: "Pshaw, The only
thin. III life fit to live for is power. to
be III the center of these big events
which loop politics on to finance, and
get rich In the course of time there
WAS an exposure, and he lost his situa-
tion, and has since, to all intents and
purposes, dropped out of the world
and is now pred citing the success of the
opposite party from that which he has
always acted with, because he knows
that on one side OF the political world
his career s done.
The common catastrophe into which
the spectators have been plunged
shows that there is no royal road to
failure; that if you bet against thing
or for thing, you have only to do 1t
L., D., L.
and by the engines which attend all
spectators. When they prosper they
take things for matter of course
They are like a man in splendid health
who considers that he has so many
years to live, and that his business will
grow i'll the ratio of hrs influence and
facilities, but there is one thing he doe,
not discount, and that is himself The
brain is often unhealthy when it is still
acting. Frequent cases come up here
of men we'll acquainted with real estate,
who have been trailing in it twenty
years, and suddenly it is found that
they have made the most absurd mis-
takes, bought more property than nee
essary, and paid foolish prices. Per-
haps it is never understood, even after
they find that they were partially in
sane at the time.
The mental faculties, sorely tried
hard pre- ssed, finally flow onward with
out any of the retarding qualities, such
as prudence AMI caution and fear, ami
if You could only see it, the mans brain
is flowing off instead of setting hard
and sound within his skull. There is
not the least comparison between his
mental health and that of man who
goes to his manual labor in the morn
ing, and expends a certain amount of
muscular force and then eats and re
turns to work, and when he goes to
sleep at night has nothing on his mind
This man, say, is far healthier object
than the speculator, the inventor. the
promoter or the author. The specu-
lator in particular is wasting his powers
while he thinks he is molding them
His knowledge is always imperfect, and
he finally gets to despise knowledge al
together. believing that the market is a
matter of manipulation.
The rnmors you hear in Wall street
are two-thirds baseless, because the
people there do not live upon facts, but
upon intentions. Like oil other per-
sons who are fooling with lottery tex.
cts, they have their dreams and super
stitions. Some night over his brandy
and soda at Delmonico's the young
speculator will persuade himself in the
midst of foolish argument that every
thing is going up. He turns
around in his cups and gives
an ORDER TO a broker Then no
is committed to a certain pro-
ceeding and musters every reckless
energy he has to sustain that mistaken
view. He uses all the banks he can
reach, scatters his orders among the
brokers, influences the publications il
he can, and perhaps gets through with
his purse ragged, or expires, the won
der of half an hour, for nothing is SO
soon forgotten as a broker or dead
speculator.