The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1901-06-15
THE GAMBLING EVIL.
pr. Talmags Arraigns the Spirit of
| Wild Speculation.
Hs Gives some Account OF the FIRan-
eIaI RaIn Of Other Days-MOney
l. Golden Breasted
Bird.
EcepyriSht. 1901. by Louis Klopseb, n. VI
WASHINGTON. June o

Ssigns the spirit of Wild speculation
and gives some account of the hnan-
eial ruin of other days; Proverbs 2s-5:
"Riehes certainly make themselves
wings; they fly away as an eagle
coward heaven"
Money is a golden-breasted bird
with silver beak. IL alightS on the
pfhce desk or on the parlor center
liable. Men and women stand and
admire it, They do not notice that
81 has wings larger than a ravens,
larger than a iamingo's, larger than
an eagles. One wave of the hand
of misfortune and it spreads its
beautiful plumage and is gone-"as
IN eagle toward heaven" my text
says, though sometimes | think it
goes in the other direction.
What a v~erifcation we have had
of the flying capacity of riches in
Wall street. And Wall street is one
of the longest streets in the world
il does not begin at the foot of
Trinity church, New York. and end
at the East river, as many suppose.
IL reaches through all our Ameri-
can cides and across the sea. En-
eouraged BY the revival of trade and
by the fact that Wall street disas-
ters of other years were so far back
as to be forgotten, spectators run
up the stocks from point to point
until innocent people on the outside
suppose that the stocks would al
ways continue TO ascend. They
gather in from all parts of the coun-
try. Large sums of money are
taken into Wall street and small
sums of money. The crash comes,
thank God. in time to warn off a
great many who were on their way
thither. for the sadness Of the thing
IL that a great many of the young
men of our cities who saws n little
money for the purpose Of starting
themselves in business. and who
have $500 or $1,000 or $1,000 or $40.
600 20 into Wall street and lose all
And II there ever was a time for the
pulpit TO speak out in regard to Ger
tain kinds OF nefarious enterprises
is the time.
Stocks rose and fell, and now the,
begin to rise again, and they will
fall again until thousands of young
men win be ruined unless the print
Ing press and the pulpit give EN-
phatic utterance. My counsel is I,
countrymen. so far as they ma,
hear of this discourse, if they hav,
surplus to invest it in first mort
cages and in moneyed institution
which. though paying comparative
ly small interest, are sound and SAT
beyond dispute. and to stand clea
Of the Wall street vortex, where 81
many have been swamped and swal
lowed. What a compliment it is 4
the healthy condition of our countr
that these recent disasters have il
nowise depressed tradel. l than
God that Wall streets capacity 4
blast this country has gone forever
First of all, Wall street stands as
type in this country for tried integrit
and The most outrageous villain,
Farmers who have only a few hundre
dollars worth Of produce to put on tn
market have but little to test thei
character, but put a man into tn
seven times heated furnace of Wa
street excitement and be either come
out a Shadrach, with hair unsinged, O
he is burned into a black moral cindeI
No halfway work about it. II / want
ed To find integrity b~ombproof,
would go among the bankers and mel
chants of Wall street; yet becaus
there have been such villainies enacte
there at different times some me
have supposed that it is a great fnai
cial deb%auchery, and they hardly dar
20 neal the street or walk up or dow
st unless they have buttoned up the
last pocket and had their lives insure
or religiousiy crossed themselves. Y,
II YOU start at either end of the sire,
and read the business signs you wi
find the names of more men OF il
tegrity and Christian benevolence tina
YOU can find in the same space in an
street Of any Of our cities. When Il
Christian commission and the sanital
commission wanted money TO Sci
medicine and bandages to the woun
ed, when b~readstuffs were wanted 4
furnishing Ireland, when colleges We
10 be endowed and churches were to
supported and missionary societi
were TO be equipped for their work
sending the Gospel all around 4
world. the first street TO respond h
been Wall street, and the largest l
sponses in all the land have come fro
Wall street.
But while that street is a type
tried integrity on one hand it is also
type Of unbounded swindle on I
other. There are the spiders that WI
for innocent flies. There are the GRO,
dies that crawl up through the Sin
To cranch the calf. There are
a~nacondas, with lifted loop. ready
crush The unwary. There are inane