The Semi-weekly leader. (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1905-1941, 1907-10-09
GAMBLING.

1t is said that the recent slump
In cotton lost two or three mil
lions Of dollars to those who are
speculating in cotton in this city.
This money, badly needed for
actual development in New Or
leans, went to New York. One
brokerage firm failed and a mum
ber of estimable gentlemen who
we're on the bull end Of cotton
we're badly crippled financially.
1t certainly seems pity at this
stage of the South's development
that either the capital of its peo-
pie or the energies of its men
should be absorbed by specula-
tion. In a thousand lines the
South is in need of capital. In
dustrially, it is just beginning to
develop. Yet, in buying and
selling, rebuying and reselling
stocks, grain, cotton not for spin
ners, factories and actual consum-
ers, but for mere speculation,
millions of dollars of money is
kept constantly tied up. As long
as gambling is confined to one
community, it is merely a case of
swapping dollars. The man who
buys loses to the man who sells.
Both live and eat and spend
money in the meantime. This
results in simply the waste of the
wealth of the community in the
machinery of the speculative busi-
ness. As long as it is confined to
professional traders, it is not
hurting anyone who does not
know what be is about. General
ly, they are wealthy people who
are specializing with their surplus
money.
But big loss is resulting from
the economic waste of the time
of these men. They could be
putting their money into cotton
farms, into cotton gins and into
factories. They could be running
these and adding thereby to the
real wealth of the. world.
The effect on those outside the
market is bad. The big mer-
chant, the little merchant, the
professional and business man
who attempts speculation soon
finds that he is absorbed not by
his business, not by the line he is
really acquainted with, but by the
market reports. He gets to
guessing and nine times out of ten
there is but one answer. In fact
he cannot win. No speculative
profits are as great as those OBJ
tanned by devoting the same
quantity of grey matter and entire
thought and energy to ones own
business.
It may be that Southern future
selling and buying is good
thing. The Southern people as
whole believe in the future of the
staple cotton. But it is a ques
tion so far as the general policy
goes. There is no question so far
as the individual goes.
1t is the same way with horse
racing. The man who bets on the
horse race is the sucker. He goes
to the races on a street car-the
bookie rides in an automobile.
In a way the speculative and
gambling games help to keep
money moving. But they create
nothingl they make no wealth.
And there is question of
whether they are permanently
beneficial to any community ex-
cept the great centers like New
York. Paris, London, and Berlin.
There they furnish part of the
population that ATTRACTS those
who love pleasure, luxury, gam
bling and excitement.
The rest of the world gets
bumped by them as a rule. And
how many men are ruined because
of the temptation they present,
and the imaginary chance they
give to get rich quick.
What our city needs, what the
South needs, what the country
needs is more workers, more men
devoting their brain and capital to
cnnStruetive work In buiIdino to