The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1908-01-17

gambling Institution to the tune OF
SOS, 100000 a year. Go North and
East and compare the cities and
towns with ours. You wonder why
they have nice streets, churches,
schoo1houses. parks and public
buildings. 1t is because the South
sends sends it's money to the infernal
gambling machine with no other
alternative but to lose. and there
is no other revenue with which to
improve these places.
Somebody may boot at this, but
you don't have to leave Union City
to get. the results of gambling in
futures. But for this practice Union
City would be to-day different
town altogether. There wasn't a
better town in the State and very
few as good when Union City had
furniture factories. Men we're edu-
Gated, trained and knew their BUSH
ness. Because the timber was eX-
hausted was not sufficient reason
TO bankrupt and destroy every par
ticle of that industry. Other cities
and towns manufacture furniture
probably in localities where there
is no timber. Gentlemen, you know
and l know that Union City was
seized with an epidemic of gam
bling in futures which paralyzed
its prosperity Morris this the first
or the last timeoit has occurred.
Not everybody gambied in futures,
but those who did not were COM
PEELED to lend all the cash they had
to their friends.
You can go before the Legisla.
ture and rant about the evils Of
race-track gambling and intemper-
ance all you want to-they are bad
enough-but the disastrous effects
of gambling IN futures is more APP
palling than all the other evils COM
bined. In wrecking business AID
lives and homes it has no parallel,
and why the press and the public
have never condemned it has always
been a mystery. Is it because Con.
gress and the people are stepped in
the practice?
The enormity of this institution
is hardly conceivable. 1t has bred
and fostered trusts. It has relent-
.essly made millionaires with the
earnings of honest toll. Men who
own the stocks have entered into col
usion with the brokers and togeth-
er they have plundered the people.
John D. Rockefeller nor Russell
Sage never made their millions
lway from Wall street. Without
he schemes and devices of the
stock exchange such fortunes could
lot possibly be amassed.
That is not all. The Government
oans from the United States Treas
Try money to New York banks with
which to speculate on the stock ex-
hange. IL other words the money
which belongs to you and | and all
he people is loaned to New York
'anks which make practice of
"a bling in futures, and then when
panic comes you are asked to
wallow such ''starch" and "dope"
S ga lack of confidence. (There
) nothing as suitable to brand this
nth as slang. When you deposit
our money in a local bank and
hat bank is required by law to
eep a deposit in New York bank,
1hich in turn uses it on the stock
in frenzied finance, other
rise gambling, are you sufficiently
by law, or is the specu-
ltor given all the advantage in the
ase? Is it any protection or conso-
alton to you to be told that it is
ack of confidence when the afore-
lentioned New York bank refuses
> honor your bankers draft and
our bank refuses on account of
MS to cash your check?
We have never censured our local
anks for the course they pursued
i the recent crisis, and wouldn't
lention this now if the trouble
ere not passed. They did right.
HE deposits here were sufficiently
ecure, but the idea was to keep
ur people and the banks both
ON being injured temporarily.
lot so, however, with many weaker
anks throughout the country. A
sal panic to them with their money /
/ New York banks would mean dis {
ster to bank and depositor. Pres
lent Roosevelt scented the trouble
nd did not conceal the facts on his