The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-12-16
AN OBJECT LESSON IN CRIME.

| who are disposed to adopt for their motto,
| "After me the deluge." The trouble with
| these enterprising persons is that the de-
| LUCE generally comes before they have
| done with life, and catches them without
any ark of safety upon which they can
ride the retributive storm and food of
| their own making.
Albertson in his cell will find out the
| difference between the monkey crowned
and the monkey without throne. when
the monkey reigns everybody dances be-
fore him :" that is about the average moral
sense of America: it is only when the
monkey is dethroned that people begin to
wonder that he was ever mistaken for
man and stigmatize him as wretched
ape When the monkey has become
wretched pauper king everybody remem-
bers that he was never anything but
silly monkey-monarch after all. who
thought fools red cap was crown and
mistook horse block for throne of ex-
haustless dignity and immortal honor.
That time of defeat, retreat, rout, ruin
and disgrace comes soon or late to every
charlatan who steals crown by craft or
impudent usurpation and finds out that to
keep a crown there must be be man under
the coronet and within the appropriated
robes of royal purple The charlatan's day
OF discrownment comes at last; his pin
wheel fireworks are all burnt out; his
rockets have all been set of; he finds his
Fourth of July quite over; there is moth
ing lett but the stick to the rockets: the
pins to the ire wheels; there are sucked
oranges and banana skins enough, but
no fruit; there is street strewn with nut
shells but no nuts; the lights are out; the
garlands dead; the guests are fed; the
play is over and the curtain rung down;
the fading "star' actor has no further use
for his paint, his tinsei and his pyrotech-
MICS, with the help of which he has strutted
his little hour; his brief candle of
notoriety, which he bought for headlight
of fame. is out and he is face to face with
the conundrum that we all have to answer
at last when we can no longer successfully
masquerade on the wages of sin, viz:
"Does it pay?"
In the long run right on the scaffold is not
ieered nor wrong applauded on the throne.
The rascals who have strutted at st. Cloud
quite frequently die biting their flesh in
helpless rage and grief at st. Helena.
Napoleon was only rascal gifted with
enormous genius for war and politics,
and his fate is the general fate
of all cheap and nasty charlatans,
high and low, who try to fool
both God and man. Sin IN the long run
is never successful. whether the sinner is
crowned or discrowned; falsehood in the
end loses its bald scalp to truth, and the
vulgar mob that cheered the charlatan
yesterday finds out at last that Though
hand join in hand the wicked shall not
prosper"
This is the lesson of all the exposure and
punishment of the opponents of the
philosophy of robber finance from obscure
and insignificant Edward Albertson up to
John Hoey and Field in New York.
When men holding high positions in bust
ness at the metropolis of the ma
ton do not hesitate to sell n.y.
pothecated securities, tamper with cable
messages, use trust funds for speculation,
sell vested property interests for the bene-
fit of directors of companies and at the ex-
pense of stockholders rights; when lead
ers in business and finance prove by their
action that they consider that stockho,d-
ers and investors and purchasers of shares
have no rights that Wall streets skin
| gamblers are bound TO respect, what Won
| der that the contagion of this moral ma
| laria should spread all over the country
| and poison the souls of every pigmy
| of low moral sense, like Albertson, to the
| end of trying to rob his trust.
| Successful theft by embezzlement, breach
| of trust or misappropriation of money has
| come to be excused rs legitimate opera
| ton in finance. II is q notorious fact that
| Jay Gould was compelled to make public
| restitution of several millions of dollars.
distracted from the treasury of the Erie
| company while he was in charge Of its af-
! fairs. Gould was forced to make this restitu-
/ ton or encounter prosecution before the
! federal courts. He had long deted the
| state courts, because he held Barnard, Car
| dozo and the other Tammany ring judges
| in his pocket. but with the fall of the
! Tweed Judiciary and the invocation of the
| assistance of the federal courts Gould was
compelled to dissorge a part of his spoil.
| This conformation of the successful crime
| of Gould, and his retirement in safety. al
| ter restitution" in full possession of
! twelve millions of dollars of spoil was
fraught with frightful conseq uences to
| the country. From that date began the
| multiplication OF criminal methods in
| finance and business; railroad wrecking:
stock watering; issue OF bonds under false
| pretenses, etc. Mr.. Cyrus ". Field has
! not kept his own skirts clean OF all per-
sonsl connection with the modern meth
DDS of acquiring property by the practice
| of robber finance; his son was educated by
| him in this noxious atmosphere, and now
| in his old age Cyrus ". Field sees this
| son arraigned before criminal court " hich
| seeks 10 ind out whether he is criminal
| lunatic or only q criminal shamming
| lunacy 10 stave Off immediate prosecution
| for crime. Verify our vices sometimes
! scourye US in shape of criminal children,
| whom We have educated 10 believe that
| IN the pursuit Of mon ey conscience is but
| 4 word that towards use 10 keep the dar-
| ing and the strong in awe" and TO accept
the philosophy Of Falstatf when he said,
| stealing is my vocation; surely it is no
! sin for a man 10 practice his vocation"
| The vocation OF Falstaff was 10 acquire
! property not by labor but by theft, and
/ the vocation OF Mr. Field was 10 acouire