Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1907-12-04
CHAPTER discontinued.

"This was easy, because Barr,
Conant, not knowing of my newly
invented trick, could buy only wha
he could pay for on the morrow
or, at least, what he believed hi:
clients could pay for; while 1, not in
tending to deliver what I sold-unless
by smashing the price to point where
/ coald compel those who had bought
to resell to me at millions less than
sold at--could sell unlimited amounts
literally unlimited amounts. When
Barry Conant had bought all that he
thought he could pay for, he was
obliged to beat a retreat in front OF
my offerings, and was able to smash
and smash, until. the price was so low
that he could not by the use of what
ne had bought, as collateral, borrow
sufficient to pay me for what I had
sold him. Then he was compelled to
turn about and sell what he had
bought from me, and when had re-
bought it for ten millions less than l
mad sold it for, the trick had been
turned. l had sold him 100000 shares
say at 220. He had sold them back
to me say at 120, and he stood where
ne mad stood at the beginning. He
mad none of the 100000 shares. Both
OF us stood, so far as stock was con-
cerned. where we had stood at the be-.
ginning, but as to profits and losses
there was this difference: l had ten
millions OF dollars profits, while Barry
Conant's clients, the System were
ten millions losers-and all by a trick.
The trick did not differ in principle
from the one in constant practice by
the SYSTEM When the SYSTEM
after manufacturing Sugar stock, sell
100000 shares to the people for $1O,-
OOOOOO, they so manipulate the market
by the use of the $1O,0OO,OOO that they
have taken from the people as to scare
them into selling the 100000 shares
back to them for $5,OO0,OO0. After
they have bought they again manipu-
late the market until the people buy
back for $1O.00O,00O what they sold for
$5,OOO,OO0. The System commits no
legal crime. l committed no legal
crime. I had not even infringed any
rule Of the exchange, any more than
had the System when they performed
their trick. Since my experimental
panic l have repeatedly put the trick
in operation, and each time l have
taken millions, until to-day l have in
my control, as absolutely as though l
had honestly earned them, as the Ia
borer earns his weeks wages, or the
farmer the price of his crops, over
S1,O0O,O00, 900, or sufficient to keep en-
shaved the rest of their lives million
people.
What do you intelligent men think
of this situation? You know. because
you know the Safeguarding game,
that the American people, with their
boosted brains and courage, come year
after year with their bags of gold, the
result of their prosperous labors, and
dump them, hundreds of millions, into
this gambling inferno of yours. You
know that they are fools, these silly
millions of people whom you term
lambs and suckers. You chuckle as.
year after year, having been sent away
Shorn, they return for new shearing.
You marvel that the merchants, manu-
facturers, miners, lawyers, farmers,
who have sufficient intelligence to
gather such surplus legitimately, would
bring it to our gambling hell, where
upon all sides is plain proof that we
who conduct the gambling, and who
produce nothing, are obliged to take
from those who do produce hundreds
Of millions each year for expenses,
and hundreds of millions each year for
profits-for you know that we have
nothing to give them in return for
what they bring to us. You know that
every dollar of the billions lost in Wall
street means higher prices for steel
rails, for lumber and cars, and that
this means higher passenger and
freight rates to the people. You know
that when the manufacturer brings his
wealth to Wall street and is robbed of
it, he will add something to the price
of boots and shoes, cotton and wooden
clothes, and other necessities that he
makes and that he sells to the people.
You know that when the copper, lead,
tin, and iron miners part with their
surplus to the SYSTEM it means
higher prices to the people for their
copper pots and cutters. for the water
that comes through lead pipes, for
their tin dippers and wash boilers, and
for their rents, and all those neces-
sites into which machinery, lumber,
and other raw and finished material
enters. You know that every hundred
millions dropped by real producers to
the brigands of our world means lower
wages or less of the necessities and
luxuries for all the people, and espe-
cially for the farmer. You know that
it is habit with us of Wall street to
gloat over the doctrine of the System
which the people parrot among them
selves, the doctrine that the people
at large are not affected by our gam
bling, because they, the people, having
no surplus to gamble with, never come
into wall street. And yet, knowing
all this, you never thought, with all
your wisdom and cynicism, that right
here in this institution, which you own
and control, was the open sesame for
leach or all of you, to those great
chests of gold that your clients, the
System have filled to bursting from
the stores of the people. What, I ask,
do you wise men think of the situation
Is you now see it,"
+ There was an oppressive stiffness
on the floor. The great crowd, which
now contained nearly all the members
sof the exchange, listened with bullying