Los Angeles herald., 1892-05-09
MONDAY, MAY ., 1899.
TWO CLASSES OF moDRRN GROWTH.

MONDAY, MAY 3, 1899.
TWO CLASSES OF MoDRRN GROWTH.
Wi,kie Collins in one of his novels
describes class, and invents very
happy name for it, in the "Moral Agri-
culturist." This individual fourishes
in the United States and, indeed, in all
countries, very luxuriantly. Unlike the
ordinary agriculturist, he does not labor
with his hands, and yet he frequently
reaps abundant crops. He is moral
sgriculturist who makes railway
which has only cost about SIC. 900 to
$4,000 mile appear to cost from $780,
900 to $50, 900, and who puts the differ
ence in his poe ket. One OF these gen.
tlemen can frequently come by more
money in day than hundred horny
handed sons OF toll can earn together in
. year by honest industry. He is an
nnmitigated in jury to every community,
which has to sweat for ages as result
of the moral agriculturist's labors.
Probably no better piece of moral
agriculture was ever done than in
watering the stock of the New York Gen.
trpl railway, which was diluted until from
$2S, 100000 it was made to amount to
$4,000. 900, and on which latter vast
figure di ividends of six and seven per
cent were paid with uniailing regularity.
Whenever the receipts OF that great rail-
way system became 60 large that the
dividends wo uld show an unusually
large percentage, which would attract
public attention, the watering process
the farmers of the state of New York
are made to pay these cunning brethren
of moral agriculture from twenty-five to
twenty-eight per cent on the real money
which was originally invested in that
enterprise. The Vanderbilts have been
singularly happy in escaping punish
ment for these peculiar financial opera
tions. Ii possible, the moral agricul-
ture department of the Erie railway was
of even more daring and ingenious or
der. The Messrs. Fiske and Gould, by
. union of audacity and cunning never
approached by any other financiers,
managed to do with road which they
did not even own what the Vanderbilts
had accomplished with a railway system
that was largely their own property.
Itwould be an interesting inquiry as to
where the daring OF the 'moral agri-
culturist" will stop. Sustained by kin
dred spirits on the bench and at the bar,
there seems to be no limits to their tri-
umphant advance. Whether it is in
wrecking q railway, daaiuiiiins. in rotten
banking concerns, OF nullifying the
spirit intended in the land laws of the
United States, the "moral Agricultural
comes to the front in splendid form.
Perhaps one of the most marked de.
velopments OF the genus is in the shape
of the promoter. This worthy can
scarcely be claimed as strictly modern
growth. He has respectable antiquity,
as George Law dates back couple of
centuries. But, in those days there
could ecarcely be said to be a class of
this genus. Occasional individuals OF
robust fiber and inventive mind would
flash across the financial horizon like a
meteor, and disappear as quickly as they
came. The modern promoter, however,
is like an army with banners. There
are cohorts and legions of him, and
gradations OF rank that are as varied as
those in an army. He looms up in the
colossal shapes OF Pereire or Sir Morton
Peto, or shrinks into the dimensions of
California mining sharp. But what
soever may be the scope of his opera
tions, fraud in the great majority of
cases lies behind him. The promoter
has got in his work we'll in California.
He has gone up and down the state,
seeking whom he might devour. He
crosses continents, and is one day in
Wall street, New York, and the next
the other continental money centers.
His especial victim has been the Eng
lishman with ducats. He is willing to
rob anyone, but there is plethoric ap-
pearance about the wallets OF John Bull
that ia especially attractive to him.
Bluff and even surly az John is repre-
gented to be, he seems to yield very
readily to the Establishments OF the pro.
moter.
There is possible explanation which
will account for the development of the
A'moral agriculturist." In the old days
there was a good deal of downright rob
bery, accompanied by violence, on high
way and byway. Then it WAS a case O
''they may take who have the powe
and they may keep who can" Now th'
spirit of the age is against brute force
and the end of robbery must be accom-
plished in subtler ways.
There is still another class of mora
agriculturists which plays for heav,
stakes sometimes. 1t is the black
mailer, and, unhappily for the newspa
per profession, he too often maintains
despised existence on the skirts of som
journal. His plan is to dig up the rec
ord of some individual, to write u
ais s'find,"' and then to bleed hi
victim, threatening publication un
less his silence is purchased