The Boise citizen. (Boise, Idaho) 1906-1910, 1907-03-22
WILL STREET
DHY OVER
Stock Gamblers Gan
not 6r6dt6 PdniC
FURRY OF NO IMPORTANCE
People No Longer Concerned In
Actions of Street
FURRY OF NO IMPORTANCE

There was time when the Wall street
magnates could throw the United States
in panic, but thanks to the recent era
Of publicity that day seems to have
passed. The people have realized that
the Wall street gang are not engaged
in legitimate business and that their
troubles are of small concern to the na-
ton at large. Writing along these lines,
the Chicago Examiner says:
You have read of the great excite
ment that agitated many gentlemen in
Wall street because of rapid changes in
the prices of the stocks in which they
are accustomed to speculate.
The country is invited to contemplate
these changes and be therefrom instruct
ed in the terrible results that have fol-
lowed some attempts to restrain the
greed and lawlessness of the railroad
corporations.
Somehow the country seems not to be
properly impressed.
1t looks upon the changing prices and
the excitement Of the Wall street gen
tlemen as upon a curious and not very
interesting spectacle in which it has no
great concern.
There was time, no doubt, when this
was otherwise, and when the fact that
many Wall street gentlemen lost in their
speculations would cause much anxiety
and even trepidation That time seems
to have passed. No one outside of Wall
street and its immediate connections
shares the excitement of the gentlemen
there. The rest of the country goes
about its business, eats its meals in
peace, retires to its sleep, and blandly
allows the Wall street gentlemen to
amuse themselves as they see fit
Because we have learned that whether
the price of the railroad stocks is this
or that, the trains on the railroads run
as usual, the wheels turn, the crops
grow, the sun rises, the rains fall and
day succeeds night exactly as before.
We may have some feeling of regret
to learn that this gentleman or that has
lost at his speculating, but the business
of the country will survive, the farmers
will sow and the fields yield their har-
vest nevertheless. That the prosperity
of the country should ever have been
believed subject in any way to the profits
of the speculation game seems strange,
but we can be pretty sure it is a suppo-
sition that has fed from among US for
ever.
As to the lesson we are told we ought
to learn about the terrible consequences
of restraining the railroads from swind
ling and killing US, that may be safely
predicted to prove another failure. The
railroad companies have brought their
troubles, if they have any, upon them
selves. If they had obeyed the law,
avoided rebates, avoided the policy of
grabbing everything in sight, and used
for needed betterments the money that
has gone TO pay interest on watered
stock, it would not have been necessary
to impose upon them any additional re-
straints, as the States are doing.
The idea that corporations must be
allowed to break the laws in order that
aurries in Wall street may be averted,
is a good doctrine to preach in an imbe-
,ile asylum, but seems cut Of place else
where We suggest that it had better
be laid aside. This is a very patient peo-
pie 1t stands more than any other peo-
pie in the world. Doubtless it can be
depended upon 10 endure being robbed
and maltreated, but it has always been
somewhere sensitive about being taken
or collection of idiots.