The Norfolk weekly news-journal. (Norfolk, Neb.) 1900-19??, 1909-02-05

ket roll OF nations 10 SEM up WneaJ
or cut down the price of corn.
The moral effect is marvellous. Men
of state repute, clerks of courts, heads
of firms, confidential cashiers, men
with trust funds, merchants, bankers,
lawyers and business houses in firms
and singly, once started in this gamb-
ling trade are lost to honor and lost
financially in ninety cases out of every
hundred. They buy and borrow and
overdraw and beg and fail to pay and
20 downward to the last round of the
ladder, and very rarely make by the
mcrest chances and regain their foot
hold In business They more often
become drunkards to the habit and
borrow of their friends and end in ut
ter ruin. Not five dollars in ten go to
| the credit of the real owner. Firms
! that pick up a cool million and de
camp into Canada are very slow to put
in all the dupes dollars sent them all
over the country. They VIGOROUSLY
place the lions share in a private
| bank account of their own, skip into
another country, some favorite resort
JOY a few seasons rest, then cross to
Europe or South America, possibly to
! Mexico, and live up their swindles in
| riotOus luxury.
The following from Frederick S.
DiXons article, poison in the Street"
| in the February number of Every
body's magazine, will give the reader
] a, To hn of
money that passes through the New
York Stock Exchange every day:
During the week ending Septem-
Der 26, 1908, there were sold on the
New York Stock Exchange a total of
100000 shares of stock The aver
age value of the stocks dealt in was
little over $102 share, making the
Stupendous sum of $56S, $4,000 of
stock supposed to have changed hands
in five days of five hours each, and
one day of two hours, total of twenty
seven hours, or an average of over
$2l 100000 an hour. During this
period 1,05S,100 shares of Union Pa
Cifc stock, were reported sold out of
total capitalization of 1,954469
tai. Over half the capital stock of
American smelters was sold in the
same week and of Readings 100000
shares no less than 1,132,900 shares
were sold, or within 267,100 shares of
the entire capitalization of the cor
poration. All the capital of all the
railroads in the United States, and of
all the great industrial corporations,
is sold on the floor of the New York
Stock Exchange twenty times over in
a single year.
"Nlr L. G. Powers, of the United
States census bureau, estimates the
wealth Of the country in 1904 at $1O7,-
600 100000 and this figure includes the
value of all the land, live stock and
farming implements, all railroads and
factories, everything in the United
States we call property. Enormous
as the figures are, an amount equal
to this total wealth of the country
change every twelve months! BY the
report OF the comptroller of the cur
rency on September %, 1908, there
were $3.50 national banks in the
United States, having total loans and
discounts of $4,750,612,7 31 Wall
Street would exhaust this enormous
sum in forty-seven days. The total
banking power of the United States
in 1908, as represented by capital, sur
plus, profits, deposits, and circulation !
was $17,642, 7O5,274. This exceeds |
the worlds banking power in 1890, |
and yet Wall Street would absorb it !
all in 173 days"
The whole scheme is a polite sys-
TEN of pilfering in which more banks .
have been wrecked, more widows and
orphans made doubly destitute, more
envious emulations and extravaganza .
in life, more high-handed rascality .
practiced than all of the combined .
robberies larcenies and burglaries of
the nation.
1t is doubtful if the money invested .
in drink or of the widows of drunkards .
begins to compare with those brought |
low by stock and grain gambling. The
delusion is so secret and seductive .
that few hear of it and less realize it. .
But in every village, every city, and |
even out in the country, from one to
hundreds are caught in the meshes of
this soul-eating canker and CoaXed TO |
invest trust money, savings bank .
money, money saved for mortgage |
payments, or saved to meet honest /,
debts or held to pay insurance, or
kept for rainy days or held in trust
for others, is thrown in the pool to
be squandered by the bankers who
handle it.
Instances can be given of a farmer
near St. Louis who lately lost $4,000
in wheat options; of another at Nash
Vile who lost $4,000 in a like manner; |
of a respected clerk of court in
Grand Rapids, formed this dangerous |
habit of investing in options till he
squandered his salary and savings !
borrowed all he could get trusted for,
and ran down to the verge of in |
sanity, lost his position and beggered |