Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1901-06-12
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and gone down for the simple reason
their integrity had not been thoroughly
established. Remember poor Ketcham
How soon the flying hoofs of his iron
grayS elaftered with him to his destrac
| ton. h"inember poor Gay. al 80 years of
age as -onishing the world with his for
tunes and his f0rgeries. Remember that
famous man whose steamboats, and
whose opera house onhI not atone for
his adriterous fides through Central Park
in the face of de~ent New York and
whose behavior on Wall street by its ex-
emple has blasted Gens of thousands of
young mer of this generation
| hold up the polluted memory to warn
/ young mtn whose moral principles are
not thoroughly settled to keep out of
| Wall street. Ii is no place for a man
who shivers under the blast Of tempta-
| ton let me say also to those who are
doing legitimate business on that or sim
liar streets of which hat is a type TO
stand firm in Christian principle. You
are in a great commercial battlefield. Be
courageous. There is such thing as
| hero Of the bank and hero of the Stock
! Exchange. You be that hero. Remem-
| Der. my friend, that all these scenes of
business will soon haze passed away. and
10y the law of Gods efernal right all the
affairs of your business life viii be adjud-
icated. Honesty pays best for both
worlds.
Just fable Speculation.
Again. | have TO remark that Wall
street is type throughout the country OF
legitimate speculation on the one hand
and of ruinous gambling on the other.
Almost every merchan is TO some extent
a Spectator. He depends not only upon
the difference between the wholesale
| price at which he gets the goods and the
retail at which he disposes of them, but
also dpon the fluctuation of the markets.
| If he markets greatly rise, he greatly
| gains. If the markets greatly sink, he
| greatly loses. 1t is as honest to deal IN
stocks as to deal IN iron or coal or hard
ware or dry goods. He who condemns ali
stock dealings as though they were in-
! iquitous simply shows his own Ignorance.
| Stop all legitimate speculation In this
country and you stop all banks, you stop
| all factories, you stop all storehouses,
| you stop all the great financial prosper
| tiles of this country. A stock dealer IS
only a commission merchant under an
| other name He gets his commission on
one style of goods You, the grocer, get
your commission on another style Of
| goods. The dollar that he makes is just
| as bright and fair and honest dollar as
the dollar earned by the day laborer. But
here we must draw the line between le-
Ultimate speculation and rui;Ious gam
| bling You, stock operator without any
property behind you. financially irrespon-
sill nf
for it, You sell 100 shares at $4,000 at
thirty days. + at the end of thirty days
you can get the scrip for $4,000, you
have made thousand If at the end of
| thirty days you have to pay Sl1 900, then
you have lost thousand. Now that it
trafficking in fiction: that is betting Oh
| chances; that involves the spirit of gam
bling as much as anything that ever goes
on in the lowest gambling he'll.
At certain times almost every prosper
! Gus merchant wakes up, and he says:
Now, | have been successful in my line
Of trade, and l have a tolerable income.
think | shall go down to Wall street
| and treble it in three weeks. There's my
! neighbor He was in the same line of
business. He has his 100000 or $780,
600 froIi the simple fact that he went
into Wall street. | think | shall go, too
Here they come, retired merchants who
| want to get little excitement in their
| lethargic veins. Here they come. the
t ustees of great property, to fool every
thing away Here they come, men cele-
brated for prudence, TO trihe with the
| livelihoods of widows and orphans. Do
you wonder that sometimes they become
insane? 1t is insanity. Do you know
there are hundreds of young men who
are perishing under the passion for stock
gambling? DO you know that in all
Christian lands this is one of the greatest
curses?
/ 1t is not peculiar to mereurial Ameri-
, cans Oh. no, Almost every nj. Zion has
INDUCED in it. The Hollanders, the most
phlegmatic@ people in the world. had their
gambling seizure in 1853. 1t was called
the tulip mania. 1t was speculation in
tulips Properties worth 100000 turned
into tulips. All the Holland nation either
buying or selling tulips. One tulip root
sold for $500, another for $1,000. Ex-
element rolling on and rolling on until
history tells us that one Amsterdam tulip
which was supposed 20 be the only one
of the kind in all the world actually
drought in the markets S1.S16000. That
is matter OF history. OF course, the
crash came, and all Holland went down
under ii.
Historical Gambling Schem-.
But France must have its gambling ex
pedition. aud that was in 1I16. John
Laws Mississippi scheme. it was called.
The French had heard that this Amer
/ can continent was built ont of solid gold,
and the project was to take it across the
ocean and drop it in France. Excitement
beyond anything that had yet been seen
in the world. Three hundred thousand
applicants for shares. Excitement so
great that sometimes the mounted mill
tary had tn dispense the crowds that had
com. TO buy the stock. Five hundred
tempor. ~ tents built to accommodate
the people until they could have opportn-
nifty of interviewing John Law A lady
of great fashion had her coachman upset
her near the place where John Law was
passing in order that she might have an
interview with that benevolent and SYM
pathetic gentleman. Stocks went up TO
2.050 per cent, until one day suspicion
got into the market, and down it ali went
John Laws Mississippi scheme-bury-
ing its protector and some OF the greatest
iinanciers in all France and was almost
as bad as French revolution.
Sedate England took its chance in
1920 That was the south sea bubble.
They proposed to transfer all the gold OF
Perm and Npxico and the islands of the