Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1901-06-10

~ crossed themselves. Yet If you start
ct either end of the street and read the
business signs you will find the names
of more men of integrity and Christian
beDevolence than you can find in the
same space in any street Of any of our
cities When the Christian commits
sion and the sanitary commission want
ed money to send medicine and band
ages to the wounded, when bread
stuffs were wanted for furnishing Ire
land, when colleges were to be endOW-
ed and churches were to be supported
and missionary societies were to be
equipped 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.
Integrity and ViIIainy.
But, while that street is a type of
tried integrity on one hand, it is also
a type of unbounded swindle on the
other. There are the spiders that wait
for innocent flies; there are the crOcO-
dies that crawl up through the slime
to cranch the calf; there are the ana
condas, with lifted loop, ready to crush
the unWary; there are financial wreck
erS who stand on the beach praying
for a Caribbean WhirlWind to sweep
over our commercial interests. Let me
say it is no place for man to go into
business unless his moral principle is
thoroughly settled. That is no place
for a man to go into business who does
not know when he is overpaid So by
IaI hot 4o1-
back or not; that is no place for man
to go who has large funds in trust and
who is all the time tempted to Specu-
late with them; that is no place for
man to go who does not quite know
whether the laws of the state forbid
usury or patrOnize it. oh, how many
men have risked themselves in the vOr-
tex and gone down for the simple rea-
son their integrity had not been thor
oughly established. Remember poor
Ketcham-how soon the flying hOOfs
of his iron grays cIattered with him
to his destruction; remember poor Gay,
at 80 years of age astonishing the
world with his fortunes and his for
geries; remember that famous man
whose steamboats, and whose opera
houses could not atone for his adulter-
Gus rides through Central park in the
face of decent New York and whose be
havior on Wall street by its example
has blasted tens of thousands of young
men Of this generation.
| hold up the polluted memory to
warn young men whose moral prin-
ciples are not thoroughly settled to
keep out of Wall street. 1t is no place
for a man who shivers under the blast
of temptation. Let me say also to
those who are doing legitimate bust
ness on that or similar streets of which
that is q type to stand firm in Chris
tian principle. You are in a great COM
mercial battlefield. Be courageous,
There is such a thing as hero of the
bank and hero of the Stock EX-
change. You be that hero. | have not
so much admiration for the French en-
press who stood in her balcony in Paris
and addressed an excited mob and
queIled it rs l have admiration for that
venerable banker on Wall street who
in 1864 stood on the steps of his money
ed institution and quoted the fears of
depositors and babe 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 worlds.
Speculation and Gambling
Again, I have to remark that Wall
street is 4 type throughout the country
of legitimate speculation on the one
hand and of ruinOus gambling on the
other. Almost every merchant is to
some extent speculatOr He depends
not only upon the difference between
the wholesale price at which he gets
the goods and the retail at which he
diSp0ses of them, but also upon the
fuctuatiOn of the markets. If the mar
kets 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 hardware
or dry goods. He who condemns all
stock dealings as though they were
iniquitous simply shows his own igno
rance. 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 properties of this country
A stock dealer is only a commission
merchant 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
dollar that he makes is just as bright
and fair and honest a dollar as the dol
lar earned by the day laborer.
But here we must draw the line be-
tween legitimate speculation and ruin
Gus gambling. You, a stock operator