The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-16

It shall so if the horses are strong | enough to draw the blow.
 | First of all, Wall Stret stands as . ] type in this country for tried integri-
 ty and the most outrageous viilainy.
 Farmers who have only a few hun /, dred dollars worth of produce to put on the market have but little to test
 their character. but put a man into the seven times heated furnace of Wall
 Street excitement and he either comes | out a Shadrach, with hair unsinged, or
 he is burned into black moral cinder. | No half way work about 1t. If want | ed to find integrity bomb-proof, I | would go among the bankers and mer- 1 chants of Wall Street. yet because there have been such villainies enacted
 there at different times some men have | supposed that it is a great financial de-
 bauchery, and they they hardly dare go near the street or walk up or down
 1t unless they have buttoned up their l last pocket and had their lives insured or religiously crossed themselves. Yet If you start at either end of the street and read the business signs you will find the names of more men of in- tegrity and Christian benevolence than you can find in the same space
 in any street of any of our cities. When the Christian commission and
 the sanitary commission wanted money
 to send medicine and bandages to the
 wounded, when breadstuffs were
 wanted for furnishing Ireland, when
 colleges were to be-, endowed and
 churches were to be supported and
 missionary societies were to be equip-
 ped for their work of sending the
 gospel all around the world, the first
 street to respond has been Wall Street
 and the largest responses in all the
 land have come from Wall Street.
 But while that street is a type of tried integrity on one hand 1t is also type of unoounded swindle on the ether. There are spiders that wait for innocent flies. There are the crocodiles that crawl up through the slime to cranch the calf. There gre the anacon.
 das. with lifted loop. ready to crush
 the unwary. There are financial
 wreckers. who stand on the beach
 praying for a Carribean whirlwind to
 sweep over our commercial interests
 Let me say it is no place for a man
 to go into business unless his moral
 principle is thoroughly settled. That IS no place for man to go Into busi-
 ness who does not know when he is
 overpai6 $5 by mistake whether he had
 better take 1t back again or not. That
 j~ no place for a man to go who has
 large funds in trust and who is all
 the time tempted to speculate with
 them. That is no place for a man to
 Ko who does not quite know whether
 the laws of the State forbid usury or
 ratronize 1t. Oh, how many men have
 risked themselves in the vortex and
 gone down for the siGlple reason their
 integrity had not been thoroughly es-
 tablished. Remember poor Ketcham.
 How soon the flying hoofs of his iron
 grays clattered with him to his destruc-
 ton! Remember poor Gay, at 30 years of age astonishing the world with his
 fortunes and his forgerles. Remember that famous man whose stcamboats and whose opera houses could not atone for his adultsrous rides through Central Park in the face of decent New
 York, and vnose behavior on Wall street by its example mas blasted tens of thousands of young men of this generation.
 hold up the polluted memory to warn young men whose moral princi- ples are not thoroughly settled to keep out of Wall street. It is no place for a man who shivers under the blast of temptation. Let me say also to those who are doing legitimate business on that or similar streets Of which that is a type to stand firm in Christian principle. You are a great commercial battlefield. Be courageous. There Is such thing as a hero of the bank and a hero of the Stock Exchange. You be that hero. I have not as much admira- tion for the French Empress who stood in her balcony in Paris. and addressed an excited mob and quelled it as l have admiration for that venerable banker on Wall street who in 1884 stood (V hA Rk .AA taf a.-k tion and quiet the fears of depositors and bade peace to the angry wave of commercial excitement. God did not allow the lions to hurt Daniel, and he will not allow the bears to hurt you Remember, my friend, that all these scenes of business will soon have passed away. and by the law of Gods eternal right all the affairs of your business life will be adjudicated. Honesty pays best for both wcrlds.
 Unsuitable Speculation.
 Again. I have to remark that Wall street is type throughout the coun- try of legitimate speculation on the one hand and of ruinous gambling on the other. Almost every merchant is to some extent a speculator. He de- l bends not only upon tn edifference be- l tween the wholesale price at which he | gets the goods and the retail at which | he disposes of them, but also upon the | of the markets. If the mar | kets greatly rise, he greatly gains. If | the markets greatly sink he greatly | loses. It is as honest to deal in stocks | as to deal in iron or coal or hardware | or dry goods. He who condemns all | stock dealings as though they were in. l lquitous simply shows his own ignor- ance. Stop all legitimate speculation In this country and you stop all banks, you stop all factories. you stop. lall you stop all the great financial prosperities of this country. A stock dealer is only a commission under another name. He gets his commission on one style of goods. You, the grocer, get your com mission on another style of goods. The 1 dollar that he makes is just as bright and fair and honest a dollar as the dollar earned by the day laborer. But 1ere we must draw the line between legitimate speculation and rainous gambling. You, stock operator with 'ut any property behind you, finan- .ially irresponsible, sell $100 of noth- ng and get paid for 1t. You sell 100 ,hares at $10.0O0 at 30 days If at the md of 30 days you can get the scrip or $9,00O. you have made a thousand. f at the end of 30 days you have to pay $11.O00, then you have lost a thou and. Now that is trafficking in fic- ion; that is betting on chances; that involves the spirit of gambling as much as anything that ever goes on in he lowest gambling hell.
 At certain times almost every pros erous merchant wakes up, and he
 I H..N N..