The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1897-03-19
The Fruits of Our Present Financial
System.

The following ominous language of a
New York staff correspondent of one OF
the leading papers which advocate and
defend the present criminal business
methods that are a moral cancer, gives a
glimpse of the business" practices that
have grown up among the banking class,
and is fast setting the pace in all lines of
business. Dishonesty by forms of law
was never so prevalent as at present, nor
found so many defenders. The New York
correspondent above referred to says:
"When the president of one of the
most powerful of the banks that are with
i'll stones strow of the Clearing House
speaks of certain transactions said to have
been doue by a national banker as
'swindling though not Illegal then the
impression is created that our bankers
may be thinking of other things than
currency revision as subjects of ilnme-
date and practical Importance.
Such is the description with which a
bank president here is reported to have
characterized certain financial perform
ances which have been brought to light
| ny lhS lSNSAl vi DdukS III
parts of the country. Rumors have been
plenty for some time of queer although
not prohibited transactions, although few
even of the members of the Clearing
House have known how much truth was
i'll these reports, or anything more than
the fact that there have been great sur
prise and intense chagrin at some of the
revelations.
ct is possible now to report What these
transactions were, or at least are said by
those who should know to have been, and
it is one of the remarkable stories of
banking experience in this city which
does not involve charges of legal fraud. I"
The practice referred to consists of
banks in the West making deposits with
New York or other large eastern banks
and securing loans from the bank. The
borrowed money is deposited with anoth-
er bank and All account opened which is
made the basis of further "accommoda-
tons with the second bank This con-
fidence game is repeated in confidential
way with possibly a half-dozen banks.
Before the loans are due the borrowing
bank finds itself so involved that its doors
are closed. And although the game is a
palpable swindle, everything has been
transacted so strictly legal in form that
the swindlers cannot be touched by the
criminal law.
Our entire business system is permeated
by this legalized rascality, so that the
INSCRIPTIONS and naturally dishonest
class can take advantage of it and ply
their business.
The high rollers" who are at the head
of this system of business, the railroad
wreckers, the promoters" of great enter
prises, the Pierrepont Morgans, the grand
speculative schemers in watered stocks,
in corners, i'll combinations, in trusts, the
stock gambling carried on through the
exchanges and bucket shops, down to the
most scurvy race track gambling All
are of the same satanic family. Listen
to any group of persons talking business
and how very shady their ideas of square
dealing and upright honesty are The
credit system, the confidence game sys-
tenn, the sharp practice system are fast
making race of business Ishmaelites of
the American people, where honesty and
square dealing have little chance.
The great business men who figure on
Wall street and the exchanges, fout the
little rogues and their small games, and
set themselves up as the models and
patrons Of high morality, unblemished
honor and integrity, their pluudering
adventures are OH so magnificent scale
as to make truth lie. Their trumphs
in exploiting society compare with the
transactions of their petty imitators as the
plumber of the nations of Europe by Bon
aparte, compared with the freebooting
of Bonaparte's ancestors on the island
of Corsica.
These nineteenth century barons rob
by law as their prototypes of the four
teenth century made the sword their law.
The feudal lord had his imitator in the
foot-pads whose home was the green
wood in place of the castle. The great
exploiters and plunderers of society of
the present time have as true type of
imitators in the scurvy rogues who pick
pockets, crack safes and hold up railroad
trains, as the foot pads were imitators of
their feudal masters. Civilization has
changed, but it Is doubtful if it has i'm
proved. 1t has acquired polish, dons
silken robe, uses diplomacy and chicane,
but can it be trusted any further than
when it was clothed in bear skim rude
of speech and whose law was He will
take who has the power and he may keep
who can. Is not this the practice of the
nineteenth century? Do not the Wall
street men and the Chambers of Com
merce, brotherhoods who must pay thous.
ands of dollars to become a member of
those select circles, assume to shape the
morals of trade and dictate the code of
honor in business? They denounce all
who differ from, and question their divine
right to the earth. as anarchists, as mob
organizers, as regulators, as dishonest.
They send their agents to demand of
Congress laws that legalize their crimes
against the people. They declare that
money and property are the first consid-
Grafton ofthe State, and justice, humanity
and the rights of the citizen are but Sec
ondary considerations. Our entire system