Year: 1872


merchants, mechanics, farmers. and lab
orers, in all the variety Of the humber
callings. Among these are three men
of great wealth which has been acquired
IN fortune ventures and sharp business
transactions-wealth so great that they
can command so much ready money
that, upon the way in which they handle
it, depends the prosperity OF the COM
nlunity. They can lock it all up, and
so take out of circulation the medium
by which exchanges are made and bust
ness facilitated between the other mem
bers of the community, or they can loan
it at their remunerative rates of interest
If they are good citizens and friendly
neighbors, the merchant can borrow
money of them so that he can supply his
customers with goods and wait for his
returns from the consumers. The man
ufacturer can borrow money of them by
which he can buy his raw material and
pay his hands, and so bridge over the
time that he must wait for returns from
his market. The employers, being
punctual1y paid for their laboer, can pay
the farmers for their produce, and in
this way and in a thousand other ways
the facilities of exchange are furnished,
o that the whole community goes along
prosperously.


The ability of these capitalists to Sc
cure good interest for all their loose
funds is undoubted. They could lend
all they have and more too, but they
are not content with this. So they put
their wicked heads together and agree
to withdraw from circulation all the
ready money in their hands and all they
can get, for the simple purpose Of pro-
ducing public distress, in order that out
of it they may increase their profits.
The merchant can get nothing with
which to pay his maturing liabilities.
The manufacturer can get nothing with
which to purchase raw material and re-
ward his lahorers. The farmers and Ia
borers, dependent upon the prosperity
of the larger industries, are deprived of
the means of living, for they have moth
ing with which to pay the merchant for
the necessaries of life Everybody in
the community Is in distress. The far
mer, whose farm is mortgaged to one Of
these capitalists, fails to pay his interest
or to make his stipulated payments on
the principal, and the mortgage Is fore
closed. The merchant, who has laid by
a few thousand dollars of valuable
stocks, is compelled to sell to them at a
ruinous discount from their real value,
in order to save himself from failure.


Here and there one who IS too weak to
bear the strain goes under, and looses
entirely that which should have been
the necleus of a fortune. Honest men
and women are distressed by the effort
to provide bread and clothing for their
innocent children. There are but three
houses in the whole community into
which the trouble does not enter. Ia
these there is laughing and fea7tfn8 and
congratuIation, for into these pours the
wealth wruns from the very hearts
blood VI the people. They eat and drink
that which other hands have earned.
They glory in the power of blasting all
the hopes and running the peace and
prosperity of all the homes around them.
They fatten on the public calamity
which they voluntarily and of deliberate
purpose produce.


Are these men public enemies, or are
they good citizens? Are they men who
should be greeted by the courtesies of the
community, or are they rascals whom no
Christian gentleman can recognize with
out personal degradation and disgrace? E?
Are they honorable business men, or
are they robbers so base that they should
hehooted out of the community? Is their
deed one whit winter or their motive one
whit better than that of the midnight
burglar or the sly pick-pocket? Not at
all. They could not frame and execute
an act in the whole range of possible i'm
morality more selfish, more cruel, more
base, more cowardly, more UnpatriOtic,
more un-Christian, more inhuman than
this. It is tyranny against the weak,
cruelty toward the innocent, oppression
of the helpless, robbery Of the defense
less, and all for the base purpose OF in
creasing wealth already too large.


We have supposed this simple case III
order to illustrate to the people the
measures that have been instituted and
executed IN Wall Street recently. There
probably never was n finer harvest in
America than that which has rewarded
the labors of the husbandman during
the past year All kinds of business
have been in fair state of prosperity.
Money has been sufficiently plenty.
Building has been going on everywhere.
The farmers have been paid, the labor
ers have been paid, manufacturers have
been prosperous, and merchants have
been doing well. The public debt has
been diminished every month by mil
lions. The public funds have been IN
demand at good prices, at home and
abroad. We have been at peace with
all the world, and we are likely to re-
main 50. There has not been a single
cloud upon the financial horizon. in
the midst of all this prosperity and
peace and popular comfort, a group Of
unprincipled men organized gigantic
scheme for withdrawing from circula-
ton, and locking up, an immense sum
of money, with which the country had
been doing its business. The conse-
quence was immediate stringency Of the
money market, and immediate distress.
Stocks were sacrificed. Feeble houses
,,,,,,,+ ~ the boa~d Fvay-- hank fbrou0b-