The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-06-11

flies. There are the crocodiles that crawl
up through the slime to cranch the calf.
There are the anaeondas, with lifted loop.
ready to crush the unwary. There are
financial wreckers. who stand on the
beach praying for 4 Caribbean whirlwind
% sweep over our commercial interests.
Let me say it Is no place for a man tol
20 into business unless his moral princi-l
pie is thoroughly settled. That is mol
place for a man to go into business who
does not know when he is overpaid IS by
mistake whether he had better take it
back again Or not. That is no place for
a man to go who has large funds In trust
and who is all the time tempted to spec-j
ulate with them. That is no place for a
man to go who does not quite know
whether the laws of the state forbid
usury or patronize it. Oh, how many
men nave risked themselves in the vortex
and gone down for the simple reasonl
their integrity had not been thoroughly
established. Remember poor Ketcham.
How soon the flying hoofs Of his ironl
grays clattered with him to his destruc-I
ton! Remember poor Gay, at 30 years of
age astonishing the world with his for-l
tunes and his forgeries. Remember that
famous man whose steamboats, and
whose opera houses could not atone forl
his adulterous rides through Central park
in the face of decent New York and
whose behavior on Wall street by its ex-I
ample has blasted tens Of thousands Of
young men Of this generation.
/ hold up the polluted memory to warm
young men whose moral principles are
not thoroughly settled to keep out of
Wall street. 1t is no place for a man
r. zI.-z~- ,,-Ior &ba h1oef n( Hannfo- Il
ton. Let me say also to those who are
doing legitimate business on that or SIM
liar streets of which that is a type tol
stand firm in Christian principle. You
are in a great commercial battlefield. Bel
courageous. There is such a thing as al
hero of the bank and a hero Of the Stock
Exchange. You be that hero. 1 have
not so much admiration for the French
empress who stood. in her balcony in
Paris and addressed an excited mob and
quelled it as 1 have admiration for that
venerable banker ON Wall street who I'M
1864 stood on the steps of his moneyed
institution and Quieted the fears Of de-
positors 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 have1
passed away, and by the law Of Gods
eternal right all the affairs Of your bust
ness life will be adjudicated. Honesty
pays best for both worlds.
JustfaabIe Speculation.
Again, / nave to remark that Wall
street is a type throughout the country of
legitimate speculation on the n hand
and of ruinous gambling on the other.
Almost every merchant is to some extent
q speculator. 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 upon the ~fuctuation Of the markets.
If the 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. all
stock dealings as though they were in
iquitous simply shows his own ignorance.
Stop all legitimate speculation in this
country n 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 q 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 a dollar as
the dollar earned by the day laborer. But
here we must draw the line between le-
gitimate speculation and ruinous gambling.
You, a stock operator without any prop
erty behind you, financially irresponsible,
sell 800 of nothing and get paid for it.
You sell 100 shares at $4,000 at 80 days.
II at the end of 80 days you can get the
scrip for $4,000, you have made a thou
sand. If at the end Of 80 days you
have to pay $1,000, then you have lost a
thousand. Now that is traficking in fc-
ton; that is betting on chances; that in
wolves the spirit Of gambling as much as
anything that ever goes on in the lowest
gambling hell.
At certain times almost every prosper
Gus merchant wakes up, and he says:
"Now, 1 have been successful in my line
Of trade, and ! have a tolerable income.
I think I 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 $3OO,OOO or $780,
600 from the simple fact that he went
into Wall street. 1 think I shall go too"
l here tney come. retlreQ merchants VINO
want to get q little excitement in their
lethargic veins. Here they come, the
trustees of great property, to fool every
thing away. Here they come, men cele-
brated for prudence, to trife with the
livelihoods of widows and orphans. Dc
you wonder that sometimes they become
insane? It is insanity. Do you know
there are hundreds of young men wht
are perishing under the passion for stocI
gambling? Do you know that in al
Christian lands this is one Of the greatest
curses?
It is not peculiar to mercurial Ameri
cans. Or. no! Almost every nation has
INDUCED I it. The Hollanders, the mos,
phlegmatIc people in the world, had their
gambling seizure in 1858. 1t was called
the tulip mania. 1t was a speculation in
tulips. Properties worth 100000 turned
into tulips. All the Holland nation eli
Their buying or selling tulips. One tuliI
root sold for $500. another for $1,000
Excitement rolling on and rolling on un
til history tells us that one Amsterdam