The herald., 1897-07-11
WELL FLAYED

Henry Clews. he Of the weekly circular,
recently took into his schemey head
to play the wolf In sleeps clothing for
the benefit of Wall street. So he sent,
unsolicited, to the editor of the Arena
magazine an article. drug distilled and
sugar-ooated. entitled Wall Street,
Past, Present and Future" and sat him
down to await the consequences.
He had not to wait long. The article
appears In the July number of the Arena,
accompanied by an article from the
pen Of John Clark Ridpath, its editor,
that for faying qualities seldom if ever
has been excelled in the history of mag
azine literature.
Mr. Clews' article was a commonplace
history of the street-nothing assertive
nor aggressive about it, just calculated
to instill the belief that Wall street is a
purely beneficent institution, but, at the
very last, occurs this paragraph:
1t is then a reasonable forecast Of the
future that in due time the weighty i'm
port of the names of Lombard street
and Threadneedle street will be trans
ferred to the name of Wall street, and
the facts implied by such transfer are
Of a dignity and power which it is i'm
possible to estimate. The road leading
to this great destiny can be blocked
only by injurious legislation. and the
good sense of our citizens may conf
IDENTIFY be relied upon to prevent the
1f La
national prosperity.
National prosperity indeed This is
the first intimation that the national
prosperity is dependent upon the stock
bing plots of Wall street.
But Mr.. Ridpath is entirely equal to
the occasion. He shows that until Wall
street reached out and clutched the rail-
road properties of the country-frst
putting down the prices of the shares to
nothing and then pulling the given
stocks to par-the people were able to
protect themselves, but never afterward
He shows how the next stage in the
game was the creation of fictitious enter
prises for the distinct purpose of getting
poss ession of the stocks on which such
enterprises were based. and of speculat-
ing in the shares. Then came the water
ing process, until, as Jim Fisk expressed
it. Wall street had acquired the greatest
skill in "rescuing the property Of other
people from themselves"
Mr.. Ridpath mentions with surprise
and pain that Mr.. Clews takes no note
Of the benevolent agency of Wall street
during the civil war; how it engaged in
the patriotic work first of destroying the
national credit. then of buying it up at
half price, then of converting it into a
bonded debt to be perpetuated for full
generation and finally of compelling the
people to pay it in a dollar worth four
times as much as the dollar with which
it was purchased. at was a beautiful
scheme of devotion and self-sacrifice
the like of which history has never be-
fore recorded
Another yawning chasm in Mr.. Clews'
affecting narrative is the history of
1884, when Wall street, having a pro-
digious accumulation of funds on hand,
concluded that a sale of government
bonds was necessary for the national
honor" So the bucket chain was put
into use; the treasury was drained by
Wall street of its gold, and then Wall
street sold the gold back to the govern
ment for consideration. for profit of
SO. 600 600
There is more. but read the article for
yourself. Unless Mr.. Clews is very
thtck-6hinned he rs more than sorry he