Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-02-06

pride of some moneyed men to be di-
ectors in a great many institutions, and
all they know is whether or not they
get their dividends regularly, and their
names are used as decoy ducks to bring
others near enough to be made game
Of What first of all is needed is~that
500 bank directors and insurance COM
pany directors resign or attend to their
business as directors The business
world will be full of fraud just as long
as fraud is SO easy. When you arrest
the president and secretary of a bank
for an embezzlement carried on for
many years, be sure to have plenty of
sheriffs out the same day to arrest all
the directors. They are guilty either of
neglect or completely.
'EOh," some will say, "better preach
the gospel and let business matters
alone I reply, if your gospel does not
inspire common honesty in the dealings
of men, the sooner you close up your
gospel and pitch it into the depths Of
the Atlantic ocean the better. An or
thodox swindler is worse than hetero-
dox swindler. The recitation of all the
catechisms and creeds ever written and
partaking of all the communion cha1-
ices that ever glitttered in the churches
of Christendom will never save your
soul unless your business character cor
responds with your religious profession.
Some of the worst scoundrels in Ameri-
ca have been members Of churches, and
they got fat on sermons about heaven
when they most needed to have the
pulpits preach that which would either
bring them to repentance or thunder
them out of the holy communions where
their presence was a sacrilege and an
infamy.
The Abuse of Sacred Trust.
We must especially deplore the mis-
fortunes of banks in various parts of
this country in that they damage the
banking institution, which is the great
convenience of the centuries and indis-
pensable to commerce and the advance
of nations. With one hand it blesses the
lender, and with the other it blesses the
borrower On their shoulders are the
interests of private individuals and
great corporations. In them are the
great arteries through which run the
currents of the nation life. They have
been the resources Of the thousands of
fnanciers in days of business exigency.
They stand for accommodation, for ia
cility, for individual, state and national
relief At their head and in their man
agement there are as much interest and
moral worth as in any class Of men, per-
haps more. How nefariOus, them the
behavior Of those who bring disrepute
upon this venerable benignant and God
honored institution.
We also deplore abuse Of trust funds
because the abusers fly in the face of
divine goodness which seems determined
to bless this land. We are having a Sc
ries of unexampled national harvests.
The wheat gamblers get hold Of the
wheat, and the corn gamblers get hold
of the corn. The full tide of Gods
mercy toward this land is put back by
those great dikes of dishonest resist
ance. When God provides enough food
and clothing to feed and apparel this
whole nation like princes, the scramble
of dishonest men to get more than their
share, and get it at all hazards, keeps
everything shaking with uncertainty
and everybody asking ''What next?''
Every week makes new revelations.
How many more bank presidents and
bank cashiers have been specializing
with other peoples money, and how
many more bank directors are in imbe-
Gle silence, letting the perfidy go en-,
the great and patient God only knowsl
Ny opinion is that we have got near
the bottom. The wind has been pricked
from the great bubble OF American spec
ulation. The men who thought that the
Judgment day was at least 5000 years
off found it in 1898 or 1897 or 1896
And this nation has been taught that
men must keep their hands out Of other
peoples pockets. Great businesses built
on borrowed capital have been obliter-
ated, and men who had nothing have
lost all they had. [ believe we are start
ed on higher career of prosperity than
this land has ever seen, if, and if, and
if
Caution to Spectators.
If the first men, and especially Chris
tian men, will learn never to speculate
upon borrowed capital-if you have a
mind to take your own money and turn
it all into kites, to fly them over every
common in the United States, you do
society no wrong, except when you
tumble your helpless children into the
poorhouse for the public to take care Of
But you have no right to take the mon
ey of others and turn it into kites
There is one word that has deluded
more people into bankruptcy and state
prison and ruin than any other word in
commercial life, and that is the word
borrow. That one word is responsible
for all the defalcations and embezzle-
ments and financial considerations of
the last 20 years. When executors con-
clude to speculate with the funds of an
estate committed to their charge, they |
do not 1o11rlOir thnu " thnu 0aalr Io1.-