The daily silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1903-1907, 1903-10-26
WELCOME THE INVESTIGATIONS

The Investigations of the shipping
trust and the steel trust, while humil-
iating for an American to read, are.
nevertheless, profitable reading. So
called great financial magnates are
shown as mere proeurers; willing for
a price to lend their names to enter
prises, to see them watered thirteen
times above the actual and nominal
capital put in, then to endorse the
scheme in interviews. and through
owl-like forecasts of the certain pros
poets of unbounded prosperity for the
concern, though it is but wallowing
or stormy seas. water-logged through
every rotten timber. Then, when the
suckers begin TO bite, for their part
they draw down six times as much as
the whole capital paid in, and, of
course, leave but a hideous derelict
afloat on the dead sea of bankruptcy.
1t is profitable reading, because it
makes clear how much of character
there is left among the gilded thieves,
how much a forecast from one of
them on the prospects Of business is
worth; what their endorsement of an
enterprise is worth; what kinds Of
idols the great hosts of people has
been falling down to worship.
When a poor wretch without line
age or name, as destitute of learn
ing as of character. a wait on a surg
ing sea of humanity, to avoid earn
ing honest bread, starts a thimble ring
or a sure-thing game Of any kind, he
at once becomes the scorn of decent
men and the legitimate prey of the
police. The filthiest cell in the Jail
is good enough for him and The chain
gang and rock-pile are his certain
goal. But he is a petty thief at best.
He never gets himself interviewed;
he is never called upon to prove that
all rules of the past have been swept
away by a wave OF prosperity so very
great that it is easy to show that one
and two no longer make three, but
rather forty-three, and that an enter
prise is entirely legitimate which
holds out a promise of an annual in
terest of $50 per cent more thar the
entire capital invested. Some of these
men are close personal friends of Gro
Yer Cleveland. They were his close
friends when he and his treasury sec
rotary negotiated their last sale OF
United States bonds. Mr.. Cleveland
endorsed their methods, while at the
same time preaching sound money
and holding as undesirable" certain
states whose people were crying out
against the sin and shame and robbery
of destroying half the legitimate mon
ey OF the country and world ar a time
when the debts of the country exceed
ed in amount all the money in the
world.
1t is not strange that we read how
these men distrust Theodore Roose-
welt, and how the organ of the great
thief Of them all thinks the only safe
thing to be done next year is to nom
mate Grover Cleveland, and to try to
elect him.
The Investigations carry some use
full lessons with them. One is that
under the rapture Of the steal and the
strain of working his end of it, the
nerves of one of the very strongest
gave way. until finally his ehiefest
anxiety is hat now. long before his
time, in the years which should bring
him most influence, most power AMI
happiness, he feels his arms growing
weak, his brain unsteady under their
unnatural burdens and realizes that
the horizon of his life is narrowing
and d%arkening under the clouds which
can never be lifted on this side of
the MISUNDERSTANDING Weekly.