The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1899-02-08

themselves directors, they did not di
rect. They had opportunity of audit
ing accounts and inspecting the books
No time to do so? Then they had ne
business to accept the position. II
seems to be the pride of some moneyed
men to be directors in great many in.
stitutions, and all they know is wheth.
er or not they get their dividends regu
larly, and their names are used as decoy
ducks to bring others near enough tc
be made game of. What first of all is
needed is that 500 bank directors and
insurance company directors resign OF
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 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
"Oh," some will say, "better preach
the Gospel and let business matters
alcne." Ireply, 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 a hetero-
doX swindler. The recitation of all the
catechisms and creeds ever written
and partaking of all the communion
chalices that ever glittered in the
| churches of Christendom will never
save your soul unless your business
character corresponds with your re-
hgious profession. Some of the worst
scoundrels in America have been mem
bers 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 re-
pentance or thunder them out of the
holy communions where their presence
was sacrilege and an infamy.
| 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
est convenience of the centuries and in
dispensable to commerce and the ad-
vance of nations. In one hand it blesses
the lender, and with the other it blesses
the borrower. On their shoulders are
the interests of private individuals and
finrc Tn, fbaYo ho
great arteries through which run the
currents of the nations life. They
have been the resources of the thou
sands of fnanciers in days of business
exigency. They stand for accommoda-
tion, for facility, for individual, state
and national relief. At their head and
in their management there are as
much interest and moral worth as in
any class of men, perhaps more. How
nefarious, then, the behavior of those
who bring disrepute upon this venera-
BILE, benignant and God honored insti-
tution
We also deplore abuse of trust funds,
because the abusers fly in the face of
divine goodness, which seems deter
mined to bless this land. We are hav-
ing series of unexampled national har-
vests. 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 dishon-
orable resistance. 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 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
speculating with other peoples money
and how many more bank directors
are in imbecile silence, letting the
perfdy go on, the great and patient
God only knows. My opinion is that
we have got near the bottom. The
wind has been pricked from the great
bubble of American speculation. The
men who thought that the Judgment
day was at least 5000 years off found
it in 1898 or 1897 or 1885, and this ma
ton has been taught that men must
keep their hands out of other peoples
pockets. Great businesses built on bor-
rowed capital have been obliterated,
and men who had nothing have lost
all they had. believe we are started
on higher career of prosperity than
this land has ever seen--if and if and if.
If the first men, and especially Chris
tan 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 so
ciety no wrong, except when you tum-
BILE your helpless children into thepoor-
house 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 the defalcations and embezzlements
and financial consternations of the last
20 years. When executors conclude TO
speculate with the funds of an estate
committed to their charge, they do not
purloin; they say they only borrow.
When banker makes an overdraft
upon his institution, he does not com
nit a theft; he only borrows. When the