Los Angeles herald., 1890-12-09
THE TOOL OF WALL STREET.

Mr.. Window is a very small man in
very large place. He does not fill the
place, and this mental exiguity of the
man is the only recommendation about
him. 1t is q negative affair at best, but
it is just this quality OF Window that
made him secretary OF the treasury.
Window was elected senator from
Minnesota about 1877 by certain large
corporate interests of the state, because
he had been found a handy sort
of man to have in an emergen-
cy, and one always easily ap-
preached, especially SO by men who
had long bank accounts. But in the
senate Window was found to be fail
ure, in spite of these convent
.ent traits of character. 1t takes
force and positiveness of char
acter, with an ability to champion
cause by logical argument in that body.
Here Window failed. The "me too
Platt" development of the New York
colleague of Conkling was really SEN
sitive assertion of individual opinion as
compared with anything Window could
be got to acquit himself of. So dismal
failure was he that at the expiration OF
his term of office his masters threw him
over and took up substitute supposed
to have more weight, in the person of
Dwight M. Sabin, millionaire in his
own right. Window was deeply cha
grined at his own rejection by his party
in Minnesota, and incontinently shook
the dust OF the state off his
feet, and with it the dust of politics
for the time being, and hied him away to
Wall street to put money in his purse.
Ii millionaires were the only kind OF
timber to make Republican senators OF,
then Window would like to be mil
lionaire He prospered in Wall street,
both from a financial and political point
of view. He made money, and when
his party returned to power in 1888,
with pronounced corporation lawyer
at the head of the government, Wall
street saw its opportunity and made the
most of it by putting Window in charge
of the treasury.
Such is the man; now look at his
policy. Wall street was not disap-
pointed in the man. The great func-
ton of government under such a system
as ours is simply to take care OF the
rights of the people, and see that one
citizen deals fairly, according to the pro-
visions of just laws, with another
With business the government has moth
ing to do, or as little as possible. But
under Window and his kind the treas
ury is simply a great banking system,
subservient to the interests OF money,
wherever found in large aggregations.
Wall street and the Wall street man at
the head of the treasury play financial
battle-dore and shuttle-cock to the top
OF their bent. Hardly week goes by
that there is not a conference between the
| brokers of Gotham and the ex-broker in
Washington. The little mans dignity
is carefully regarded by new amount
of taffy when the Seligmans or others
speak of these interviews; but in a day
or two come back the echoes OF all their
opinions from the desk in the treas
urer's office. The rext day or so, the
brokers' views are put in practice by the
treasury department.
The simple fact is the government,
under men like Windom-and all Re-
publican treasurers are more or less like
him, none of them having quite been
his equal-in its relations to the busi-
ness of the country, reminds one
of nothing so much as early day
in California, and the manipulation OF
the mining stock market by the cele-
brated magnates of Pine street. One
| twist on the screws was taken after an
other, now the motion being ascending
and anon descending, but in all develop
ments the people were robbed right and
left, while the manipulators got rich.
| So it is in Wall street. Squeeze after
squeeze is engineered in the money and
stock market, and periodically comes in
Mr.. Window with his outpouring OF
money just at the right moment to
send the depressed market on boom.
In few weeks the stocks SO
recently held in the hands of few
sharpers of the Jay Gould stripe, bought
up at ruinous prices, are distributed.
The people have them again, and the
playful bulls stop tossing things on Their
horns, become playful bears and trample
things beneath their feet once more.
While this is going on Mr.. Window is
lying low. His turn comes again later.
There is one way out of all this. That
way will come. The people will learn
to let railroad watered stocks go to the
demnition bow-wows as they learned to
let mining stocks 60 in California. In
due time, too, the government win learn
to keep it's hands off OF these panics, and
let the bulls and bears regulate theil
own affairs. That will be when the
people learn to discard such statesmen
as Harrison and Window. They will
learn the lesson. At the same time they
will learn to stop gathering in all the
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