The Washington weekly post., 1900-12-11
DIR. Talmage Rebukes Crimes
of Dishonest Bankers.
TAX OFFICIALS SHARE THE GUILT
Directors Who Do Net Do Their Duty Mer-
ally Responsible to These Who suffer by
Defauitcrs' -tealing-nIen Who Live I'm
Luxury on Piunder and Do Not Safer for
Jt-warning AGAINST speenistiou on Ber-
rowed Funds-Need Religion In Business

in business life, prove faithlesS 10 trust
characterized the sermon Of DR.. Talma se
for yesterday. He finds little TO choose
from a moral standpoint between the em-
ploye who steals the funds OF trust ins.i-
tutions and the directors whose criminal
negligence makes such peculations pos
sible. In the enormods number OF such
cases which have recently been reported
he finds his lesson, and warns all against
borrowing 10 speculate. He particularly
declaims against those who use their
connection with church or state 10 en-
veigle the inexperienced into investing
their savings in wild schemes.
DR.. Talmage took for his text JOB,
viii:14: Whose trust shall be spider 5
web and said:
The two most skillful architects in all
the world are the bee and the spider. The
one puts up a sugar mandatory and
the other builds a slaughter-house for
flies. On bright summer morning when
the sun comes out and shines upon the
spiders web, bedecked with dew, the
gossamer structure seems bright enough
for a suspension bridge for aerial beings
TO cross on. But, alas for the poor fly,
which, In the latter part of that very day.
geoned and destroyed! The fly was in
formed that IL was a free bridge, and
would cost nothing. but at the 9th
er end Of the bridge the toll was
its own life. The next day there
comes a strong wind, and away
goes the web and the maraudins
spider and the victimized fly. So delicate
are the silken threads of the spiders weo
that many thousands of them are put to-
gether before they become visible to the
human eye, and il takes hundreds OF
them to make a thread as large as tins
human hair. Most cruel as well as mos;
ingenious is the spider. A prisoner In the
Bastille, France, had one so trained that
at the sound of the violin 1t every day
came for its meal of flies. The author
of my text, who was a leading scientist
of his day, had no doubt watched the
voracious process of this one insect with
another, and saw spider and fly swept
down with the same broom, or scattered
bv the same wind. Alas, that the world
has so many designing spiders and vic
tImiZed fiiesi
There has not been a time when the
utter and black responsibility of many
men having the financial interests oi
others in charge has been more evident
than in these last few years, and hardly
any day for the last two months could
you open your newspaper without beins
surprised at some new fraud on big
scale. Men on a salary of 5000 yecI
spending $4,000 or $4,000. Now it is g
broker, and now it is clerk, and now
IL is a trustee, and now il is an executor
and now it is the treasurer of a church
or an orphan asylum The bankruptcy
of banks and disappearance Of admins
traitors with the funds of large estates
and the disordered accounts of United
States officials, have sometimes made z
pestilence Of crime that solemniZes every
thoughtful man and woman, and lead:
every philanthropist and Christian to ask
What shall be done to stay the plague
There is ever and anon a monsoon oi
swindle abroad, a typhoon. a sirocco.
sometimes ask myself il il would not b.
better for men making wills to bequeatf
the property directly to the executor!
and officers of the court, and appoint th'
widows and orphans a committee to se'
that the former got all that did not be
long to them.
Plunder Pays for Luxury.
large number of men sailing yachts, anC
driving fast horses, and members of ex
pensive clubhouses, and controlling
country-seats, who are not worth dol
lar if they return to others their JUS
rights. Under some sudden reverse the!
fail, and, with afflicted air, seem TO retire
from the world, and seem almost read!
for monastic life, when in two or three
years they blossom out again, hayin;
compromised with their creditorS-that is
paid them nothing but regret; and th'
only difference between the second chap
ter of prosperity and the first is tina
their pictures are Murillos instead o
| Kensetts, and their horses go a mile il
twenty seconds less than their predeces
sors, and instead Of one country-seat
they have three. / have watched and hav
noticed that nine out of ten of those WHIT
fail in what is called high life, hav'
more means after than before the failure
and in many of the cases failure is only
a stratagem TO escape the payment .
| honest debts, and put the world off III
| track while they practice large swindle
| There is something woefully wrong il
the fact that these things are possible.
First of all, l charge the blame or
careless, indifferent bank directors anC
boards having in charge great financia
institutions. 1t ought not to be possible
for a president or cashier or prominen
officer Of a banking institution to swindlt
il year after year without detection.
viii undertake TO say that If these frauds
are carried on for two or three year,
without detection. either the directors ar,
partners in the infamy and pocket part o
| the theft, or they are guilty of culpabl'
neglect of duty, for which God will holt
them as responsible as he holds the &C
knowledged defrauders. What right hav'
prominent business men to allow thei
names to be published as directors in /;
| financial institution, so that unsophisti
Gated people are thereby induced TO de
posit their money in, or buy the scril
| thereof, when they. the published direc
tors, are doing nothing for the safety o
| the institution? X is case Of deception
| most reprehensible. Many people with
| surplus of money. not needed for immedi
ate use. although IL may be little furthe
| on Indispensable, are without friends com
| petent TO advise them, and they ar
| guided solely by the character Of the mel
| whose names are associated with the In
/ stitution-
| Bank OnaciaIs Morally Liable.
| "When the crash came, and with tn
overthrow Of the banks went the smal
earnings and limited fortunes of widow
and orphans. and the helplessly aged, tn
directors stood with idiotie stare, and q
the inquiry OF the frenzied depositors an
stockholders who had lost their all, an
TO the srraignment of an indignant pub
lie, had nothing TO say except We though
Il was all right. We did not know Their
was anything wrong going on II Wa
their duty 10 know. They stood In a posi-
| ton which deludsd the people with III
idea that they were carefully observani
Calling themselves directors. they did no
| direct They had opportunity of auditin
accounts and inspecting the books. ~
kfir,ls 10 do 30? Then they had no LIsines