The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1905-01-28
Gambling Financiers.

| The country is treated to a contin-
uous vaudeville in finance these days.
| A man in Boston is charging the whole
herd of bulls in Wall street, and both
sides of the golden way is strewn with
| gored bullocks. Copper. Standard Oil.
| Steel and other stocks are flying in the
air like leaves In Valambrosa, and
pone knows just when the furry will
be over. A woman down in Cleveland
| has the staid bankers Of the east down
on their knees praying against the flod
that is coming down the very tall
mountains of financial stability in Dol
lardom. They have the cause of all
their woe in jail in Cleveland, and the
Wall street magnates are consulting
how they can get the trouble of their
BaltazZar feast behind the bars. Word
comes as we go to press that the bond
kings are ready to purchase peace; and
the dupes of our American Mrs. Hum
bert are going ''to pay up and shut up"
This is proof positive if proof were
needed, that our financial system and
our banking methods are rotten to the
core. Our stock and bond markets are
gambling hells. and our giant financiers
are all sharks with Unsuitable maws. in
whose eyes the misery of a whole peo
pie and the ruin of a nation are only
incidents of the play Our great banks
are little better than get-rich-quick
concerns, and their methods just as
despicabIe as those that have landed so
many lights of the tape and telephone
in the penitentiary. The three great
elements of speculative wealth in this
country are wind. water and prophecy.
Secret information is the current that
sets all the tickers g6shg. Gamblers
are. the most superstitious people alive.
They can be made to believe anything
and anybody. Mrs. Chadwick had her
secret. She was the natural daughter
of the steel king. Hence all those stocks
and bonds. Hence the tangled net of
financial transactions that always had
one mesh big enough TO hold another
skulpin. They pitied the poor child of
sin, and they plucked her while they
pitied. 1t will be found that the Off
GERS of the shaken banks were the chief
beneficiaries of all her fraudulent prac-
tices. They helped her to rob their
own banks. and they robbed her. If
they cashed a forged check of 5000. 90
they managed to get back into their
own pockets at least half the amount.
The lawyers got half of what was,
left, and the paltry amount remaining
to her barely sufficed to maintain the
ter until another raid was made on
the publics strong box The reason
why Mrs. Chadwick will not be prose
.cuted. and the reason why the bank
ers will assume all her liabilities is that
a trial would show<all her accompIices,
and demonstrate that she was the vic
tim of the men who drove her into a
felon's cell.
We are a people without a public
conscience. and individually we have
little regard for the abstract laws of
justice and morality. Pleasure runs
along the lines of least resistance; pas
sion challenges the rugged heights.
Men now live for money; that means
that money is more precious than life,
Everything is sacrificed to it. Weighed
against money soul and eternity do not
count the worth of a cancelled note
In the present frenzy to get rich at any
cost, it is not safe to trust your brother
The only man who can be trusted is the
man who is not ambitious of wealth.
Only the man who does not want to
get rich himself will be found willing
to allow you TO get rich. The need of
the world today is a race of financiers
who Will make vow of holy poverty
and keen it.