THE ARENA.
EDITED BY JOHN CLARK RIDPATH, LL. D.
VOL. XVIII
JULY TO DECEMBER, 1897
PUBLISHED BY
THE ARENA COMPANY
BOSTON, MASS.
1897
COPYRIGHTED, 1897
BY
THE ARENA COMPANY.
SKINNER, BARTLETT & CO., 7 Federal Court, Boston.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
The Citadel of the Money Power:
I. Wall Street, Past, Present, and Future HENRY CLEWS 1
II. The True Inwardness of Wall Street JOHN CLARK RIDPATH 9
The Reform Club's Feast of Unreason Hon. CHARLES A. TOWNE 24
Does Credit Act on Prices? A. J. UTLEY 37
Points in the American and French Constitutions Compared,
NIELS GRÖN 49
Honest Money; or, A True Standard of Value: A Symposium.
I. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 57
II. M. W. HOWARD 58
III. WHARTON BARKER 59
IV. ARTHUR I. FONDA 60
V. Gen. A. J. WARNER 62
The New Civil Code of Japan TOKICHI MASAO, M. L., D. C. L. 64
John Ruskin: A Type of Twentieth-Century Manhood B. O. FLOWER 70
The Single Tax in Operation Hon. HUGH H. LUSK 79
Natural Selection, Social Selection, and Heredity,
Prof. JOHN R. COMMONS 90
Psychic or Supermundane Forces CORA L. V. RICHMOND 98
The American Institute of Civics HENRY RANDALL WAITE, Ph. D. 108
An Industrial Fable HAMILTON S. WICKS 116
Plaza of the Poets:
Reply to "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After," BARTON LOMAX PITTMAN 122
John Brown COATES KINNEY 125
Demos W. H. VENABLE, LL. D. 126
The Editor's Evening: Leaf from My Samoan Notebook (A. D.
2297); _Vita Longa_; Kaboto (a Sonnet) 128
A Stroke for the People: A Farmer's Letter to THE ARENA 134
Evolution: What It Is and What It Is Not Dr. DAVID STARR JORDAN 145
Has Wealth a Limitation? ROBERT N. REEVES 160
The Battle of the Money Metals:
I. Bimetallism Simplified GEORGE H. LEPPER 168
II. Bimetallism Extinguished JOHN CLARK RIDPATH 180
The Segregation and Permanent Isolation of Criminals,
NORMAN ROBINSON 192
How to Increase National Wealth by the Employment of Paralyzed
Industry B. O. FLOWER 200
Open Letter to Eastern Capitalists CHARLES C. MILLARD 211
The Telegraph Monopoly: Part XIII. Prof. FRANK PARSONS 218
The Provisional Government of the Cubans THOMAS W. STEEP 226
A Noted American Preacher DUNCAN MACDERMID 232
The Civic Outlook HENRY RANDALL WAITE, Ph. D. 245
"The Tempest" the Sequel to "Hamlet" EMILY DICKEY BEERY 254
The Creative Man STINSON JARVIS 262
Plaza of the Poets:
The New Woman MILES MENANDER DAWSON 275
Under the Stars COATES KINNEY 275
The Cry of the Valley CHARLES MELVIN WILKINSON 276
A Radical ROBERT F. GIBSON 277
The Editor's Evening: Our Totem; _Vive La France! Le Siècle_
(a Sonnet) 278
The Concentration of Wealth: Its Causes and Results: Part I,
HERMAN E. TAUBENECK 289
The Future of the Democratic Party: A Reply DAVID OVERMYER 302
The Multiple Standard for Money ELTWEED POMEROY 318
Anticipating the Unearned Increment I. W. HART 339
Studies in Ultimate Society:
I. A New Interpretation of Life LAURENCE GRONLUND 351
II. Individualism _vs._ Altruism K. T. TAKAHASHI 362
General Weyler's Campaign CRITTENDEN MARRIOTT 374
The Author of "The Messiah" B. O. FLOWER 386
Open Letter to President Andrews THE EDITOR 399
Plaza of the Poets:
The Onmarch FREEMAN E. MILLER 403
The Toil of Empire JOHN VANCE CHENEY 404
The Day Love Came THEODOSIA PICKERING 405
The Question JULIA NEELY-FINCH 405
Triolet CURTIS HIDDEN PAGE 406
The Cry of the Poor JOHN CLARK RIDPATH 407
The Editor's Evening: A Knotty Problem; A Case of Prevision;
Concerning Eternity; A. L. (a Sonnet) 419
The New Ostracism Hon. CHARLES A. TOWNE 433
The Concentration of Wealth: Its Causes and Results: Part II,
HERMAN E. TAUBENECK 452
The Rights of the Public over Quasi-Public Services,
Hon. WALTER CLARK 470
Prosperity: the Sham and the Reality JOHN CLARK RIDPATH 486
Jefferson and His Political Philosophy MARY PLATT PARMELEE 505
The Latest Social Vision B. O. FLOWER 517
The Dead Hand in the Church Rev. CLARENCE LATHBURY 535
Hypnotism in its Scientific and Forensic Aspects,
MARION L. DAWSON, B. L. 544
Suicide: Is It Worth While? CHARLES B. NEWCOMB 557
Plaza of the Poets:
Old Glory IRONQUILL 562
_Vita Sum_ JUNIUS L. HEMPSTEAD 563
Gold CLINTON SCOLLARD 564
Richard Realfe REUBIE CARPENTER 565
The Dreamer HELENA M. RICHARDSON 565
The Editor's Evening: The Greatest Lyric; "Thrift, Thrift, Horatio;"
The Pessimist; The Physician's Last Call (a Sonnet). 566
Freedom and Its Opportunities: Part I Hon. JOHN R. ROGERS 577
"The Case Against Bimetallism" Judge GEORGE H. SMITH 590
The Initiative and the Referendum ELIHU F. BARKER 613
The Telegraph Monopoly: Part XIV Prof. FRANK PARSONS 628
The Laborer's View of the Labor Question:
I. How the Laborer Feels HERBERT M. RAMP 644
II. Up or Down? W. EDWARDS 654
III. The Farm Hand: An Unknown Quantity WILLIAM EMORY KEARNS 661
Practical Measures for Promoting Manhood and Preventing Crime,
B. O. FLOWER 673
The Demand for Sensational Journals JOHN HENDERSON GARNSEY 681
Is History a Science? JOHN CLARK RIDPATH 687
Plaza of the Poets:
Our Brother Simon ANNIE L. MUZZEY 707
Thou Knowest Not HELENA M. RICHARDSON 708
Optim: A Reply GEORGE H. WESTLEY 709
The Murdered Trees BENJAMIN S. PARKER 709
The Hidden Flute MINNA IRVING 710
Retroensetta CURTIS HIDDEN PAGE 710
The Editor's Evening: Tantalus and His Opportunities; The Man
in Bronze; Franklin (a Sonnet) 711
Idylls and Ideals of Christmas:
I. What I Want for Christmas ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 721
II. Christmas, the Human Holiday Rev. MINOT J. SAVAGE, D.D. 722
III. Santa Claus: A Poem JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 726
IV. The Aryan at Christmas JOHN CLARK RIDPATH 727
A Séance With Eusapia Paladino: Psychic Forces CAMILLE FLAMMARION 730
The Influence of Hebrew Thought in the Development of the Social
Democratic Idea in New England CHARLES S. ALLEN 748
Priest and People E. T. HARGROVE 772
Immigration, Hard Times, and the Veto JOHN CHETWOOD, Jr. 788
The Founder of German Opera B. O. FLOWER 802
The Truly Artistic Woman STINSON JARVIS 813
Poor "Fairly Rich" People HENRY E. FOSTER 820
Shall the United States be Europeanized? JOHN CLARK RIDPATH 827
Hawaiian Annexation from a Japanese Point of View,
KEIJIRO NAKAMURA 834
A Political Deal: A Story ELIZA FRANCES ANDREWS 840
Plaza of the Poets:
Glad Tidings MARION MILLS MILLER 849
The Yule Log CLINTON SCOLLARD 852
How to Get an Article in a Magazine THE EDITOR 853
The Editor's Evening: Sir Thomas Kho on Education; Journey
and Sleep (a Sonnet) 855
BOOK REVIEWS.
The Emperor 137
President Jordan's Saga of the Seal 284
Some Prehistoric History 426
A Bard of the Ohio 572
Critic, Bard, and Moralist 717
Guthrie's "Modern Poet Prophets" 860
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Opposite Page
HON. CHARLES A. TOWNE 1
DR. DAVID STARR JORDAN 145
MULTIPLE-STANDARD TREASURY NOTE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY 289
DR. E. BENJAMIN ANDREWS 433
GOVERNOR JOHN R. ROGERS 577
CAMILLE FLAMMARION 721
PSYCHIC SÉANCE WITH EUSAPIA PALADINO 737
THE ARENA.
Vol. XVIII. JULY, 1897. No. 92.
THE CITADEL OF THE MONEY POWER.
I. WALL STREET, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
BY HENRY CLEWS.
I.
The twenty-seven respectable citizens of New York who, in 1792, met
under a buttonwood tree in front of the premises now known as Number
60 Wall Street, and formed an association for the purchase and sale of
public stocks at a fixed and unvarying commission, with a proviso of
mutual help and preference, committed themselves to an enterprise of
whose moment and influence in the future they could have formed no
adequate conception. At that date Wall Street was a banking district,
small indeed when compared with its present condition, but important
in its relations to the commerce of the nation. This transaction of
the twenty-seven--among whom we find the honored names of Barclay,
Bleecker, Winthrop, Lawrence, which in themselves and their
descendants were, and are, creditably identified with the growth of
the community--added the prestige and power of the stock exchange to
those of the banks, and fixed for an indefinitely long period the
destinies of the financial centre of the Union.
During the earlier part of this century the banking interests of Wall
Street quite overshadowed those of the stock market. The growth of
railway securities was not fairly under way until the opening of the
fifth decade. Elderly men can recall the date when the New York
Central existed only as a series of connecting links between Buffalo
and Albany, under half-a-dozen different names of incorporation; and
passenger cars were slowly and laboriously hoisted by chain power over
the "divide" between the latter city and Schenectady. Since there were
but few railways in the entire country, there were few opportunities
for speculative dealings in their shares. These shares, too, were as a
rule locally held, and were more frequently transferred by executors
under court orders than by brokers on the stock exchange.
Prior to 1840 and 1845, however, the members of the stock exchange
were not idle. Public stocks were largely dealt in. The United States
government frequently issued bonds, and the prices of these bonds
fluctuated sufficiently to afford tempting chances of profits. State
bonds also were sold in Wall Street in larger amounts than to-day.
About the year 1850 the sales of Missouri sixes and Ohio sixes
frequently amounted to millions of dollars daily. During that
uncertain epoch of finance when the United States Bank was both a
financial and a political power, the shares of that institution were a
favorite subject of speculative dealing. The shares of Delaware &
Hudson, and of the original Erie Railway, the latter laboriously
constructed over a rough, barren, and thinly settled portion of the
State, partly by State funds, had also become actively exchangeable in
the market.
During this period a relatively enormous quantity of banking capital
had located itself in and near Wall Street. The Bank of New York
existed before 1800, and later, although not long after, the Street
witnessed the erection of buildings of a now obsolete, and yet at that
time an attractive, style of architecture, devoted to the uses of the
Manhattan Banking Company, the Bank of America, the Merchants, the
Union, the Bank of Commerce, and others. Were it not that land in the
banking district is so valuable, and that the need of upstair offices
is so great, one might be tempted to regret the demolition of the
graceful money temples occupied by three of these corporations on the
north side of Wall Street. In each of them the entablature rested upon
two fluted stone pillars with Doric capitals, in addition to the
supports of the side walls. Between the steps and the doors of the
temple extended a marble-paved court which often served as a
convenient place of 'change for borrowers and lenders. Entering the
doors you found yourself in a large, airy, dome-lighted room, the
sides of which were occupied by the clerks of the institution, guarded
by high barricades from the intrusive eyes and feet of the general
public. At the rear were the offices of the president and cashier.
Throughout the entire building there reigned a solemn and
semi-religious silence. One may witness something like this to-day in
the Wall-Street end of the U. S. Treasury Building, and only there.
Up to the epoch of the rise of railway building and railway-share
speculation, the main aliment of Wall-Street banks was the profit
derived from the discount of commercial paper and from loans upon
government and State securities. But when railway shares and bonds,
based upon lines of road which were constructed through the rich
regions of the Union lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi
river, came upon the market in large amounts, affording ample security
for investment and loans, the great banks of Wall Street were quick to
appreciate the advantages of loans made upon such undoubted values,
which were at all times convertible into cash on the stock exchange.
In times of pressure, commercial paper is an inferior asset for a
bank, all of whose obligations are payable on demand. At such times
notes become practically unsalable, and are not always paid at
maturity. A failure of one firm brings down others, and renewals are
urgently required from banks just when they are least able to grant
them. Salable securities are on such occasions an ark of safety, and,
dating from the early fifties, this class of securities has always
been the basis of a large amount of the loans of the banks of Wall
Street and their near neighbors of the same class in lower Nassau
Street and also Broadway.
With the immense outgrowth of business consequent upon the discovery
of gold in California in 1849, and the construction of the great
railways of the Middle West, such as the Michigan Southern, the
Northern Indiana (now the Lake Shore), the Michigan Central, the
Galena & Chicago, the Rock Island, and others of like importance and
real value, the banks and banking houses of Wall Street, and the stock
exchange, grew into most important factors in developing the
prosperity of the country. Enterprises were originated by able men
acting under corporate powers, and when these were brought before the
committees of the stock exchange and duly approved and listed, capital
instantly flowed forth from its reservoirs in answer to the
securities thus offered. And it may safely be said that but for the
combined machinery of the New York banks and the stock exchange the
actual developments of twenty years would have dragged laboriously
through an entire century.
Amid so much progress and activity, speculation was not idle. Those
were the days of many of our greatest railway operators, daring, able,
enthusiastic men, who had the rare gift of imparting confidence to
their followers and the public, and realized the fable of King Midas,
whose touch transmuted all things into gold. Their careers were those
of conquest and accumulation, like that of Napoleon; and, like him,
they underwent, with few exceptions, their retreats from Russia and
their Waterloos. Of such were Jacob Little, Daniel Drew, Anthony
Morse, and others, to whom now the motto of Junius applies: _Stat
nominis umbra_. Merely the shadows of their names reach over to us
from the horizons where their suns set so long ago.
There was an epoch too in the Wall Street of the past when gigantic
and deeply considered combinations were set in motion, entitled
"corners." As to corners, a word of explanation may not be amiss.
There are always two factions in the stock market: the bulls, who want
stocks to rise in price in order that they may sell out; and the
bears, who want stocks to fall in price so that they can buy in.
Contrary to the superficial belief of the public, the bulls are
sellers and the bears are buyers. But in order to sell a commodity you
must buy or borrow it; and in order to buy at a future date you must
sell at a previous date; and thus the bull buys for the purpose of
selling at a profit, and the bear sells something which he doesn't own
for the purpose of buying it at a lower price. The bull therefore
hopes to push prices up so that he can sell his purchase at a profit,
and the bear hopes to drag prices down so that he can buy what he has
sold, also at a profit.
Meanwhile, the bear has delivered the shares sold by him, and in order
to deliver them, has borrowed them, and given security in money at its
market price. Here he has placed himself in danger, because the owner
of the shares may at any time tender him this money and demand the
shares, which the bear may not be able to provide himself with, except
at the price which the owners choose to set upon them.
Thus a person might be under contract to deliver the shares of some
corporation which might be absolutely worthless, and yet these shares
_might_ be so held that the holders could exact one thousand dollars a
share. Given a railway with a share capital of ten millions, one
person or knot of persons might own every certificate of its stock,
and have it all loaned out to bears who had sold, borrowed, and
delivered it. It is obvious that this person or club of persons could
compel purchases of the shares which he or they alone possess, at
whatever price he or they think proper to demand; and since such
things can be done by skilful combinations under able generalship,
they have been done, and were a favorite scheme during the eventful
years between the sixties and the eighties. The corners in Harlem,
Hudson, Erie and Northwest, in which Vanderbilt, Drew, and Gould
achieved such success for themselves and their associates, have passed
into history as a conspicuous portion of the great events of Wall
Street. Their interest is chiefly historical, because of late years no
comprehensive corners have been organized. Share capitals are so large
that it is difficult for one man to control any one of them, and a
divided corner is apt to fail. But in their day and generation they
have offered brilliant illustrations of genius and strategic skill in
financial warfare.
The system of selling short, however, which gave birth to the idea of
creating corners, and which came into vogue in the fifties, has never
ceased to be a leading factor on the stock exchange. It was the result
of certain inflations of values which necessarily follow the
construction of great enterprises. However high a valuation may be set
upon any given commodity, there are always persons who expect a higher
price. Early historical examples of this fact are the South-Sea shares
and John Law's Mississippi shares, over which England and France
respectively went crazy in the last century. The loftier the figures
to which these shares mounted, the greater was the eagerness of the
public to buy them. But at that period the art and mystery of selling
short had not been brought into practice, and when the bubbles
collapsed there were universal losers and no direct winners.
During the latter half of this century there have been periods in the
history of Wall Street when the prices of railway and industrial
shares have been forced enormously above the standard of actual
values, and innumerable persons have parted with good money in
exchange for mere phantoms of imaginary values. At such times the
short sales of discernment, directing the X rays of clear-sighted
criticism into the swollen and opaque mass of financial carrion that
is exposed for sale in the market, are of the utmost benefit to the
public. The bear is then a benefactor to the community, and when he
pulls down and tears to pieces the rotten carcass of some gigantic
humbug, strewing the highway with its remains, we cannot praise his
work too highly.
II.
The present condition of Wall Street is one of lassitude and
expectancy. The great banks have an abundance, perhaps a
superabundance, of money, their own and their depositors, which they
are only too glad to lend on solid and readily salable collateral at
low rates of interest, approximating the prevalent rates in London and
Paris, where similar accumulations of idle capital exist. A large part
of this money is deposited with them by local banks in all parts of
the country, which recognize New York City as the financial centre of
the Union, and are content with interest of from one to two per cent
upon the funds which they are unwilling or unable to use safely at
home. The stock exchange is also in a condition of quietude. The
public are neither buying nor selling stocks in any large amount.
This state of things is the resultant of well-known facts. Numerous
over-capitalized and badly managed railways have gone into bankruptcy,
and either are in the hands of receivers or have emerged from such
guardianship, and are painfully toiling along on the road to
prosperity on the twin crutches of assessments upon stockholders and
the withholding of dividends from the same long-suffering and patient
class.
The transactions at the stock exchange at present average about two
hundred thousand shares a day, exclusive of bonds, government, State,
and railway; and a certain class of observers who like to subject
circumstances to a minute analysis inform the public that the daily
profits of the members of the exchange are about sufficient to pay
the expense of office rent and clerk hire. This conclusion takes it
for granted that these profits should be equally divided among the
membership. This is not a reasonable supposition. Many of the members
are such only in name, and rarely go on the floor. Others live during
most of the time on their accumulations, and come into the market to
buy or sell only when prices are abnormally low or high. The
comparatively small busy portion manage somehow to keep fairly active,
and are cheerfully looking forward to better times, through a vista
from which the cloud of a change of the monetary standard has already
passed away, and into which the genius of enterprise beckons them to
enter.
III.
While in many respects the future is a sealed book, yet there is such
a thing in the economy of nature as an absolutely accurate prevision
of events, such as eclipses of the sun and moon, and conjunctions of
the planets, and a relatively correct prevision of events depending
upon the growth of enlightened communities. Since the incorporation of
the Bank of New York, at the corner of Wall and Williams Streets, the
banking capital of New York has increased more than sixtyfold, of
which more than one-half is held and used in and around Wall Street,
and the aggregation of deposited and loanable capital has grown from a
few millions to over half a billion. If this has been the result
during one century, what will take place in the same direction during
the next century? The ratio of increase will not be kept up. A
thousand dollars may be doubled in a day, but no such ratio as a
hundred per cent a day can be predicated of a million. And yet it is
certain that, under proper management, the million will go on
increasing; and in the same manner will our half-billion increase by
its own earning power, and by contributions from all parts of the
Union. The development of the United States in the direction of
population, agriculture, manufactures, and mines is so enormous and so
steady that this nation will at some not distant period become the
most opulent of all the nations of the planet, unless unforeseen and
improbable political events happen by which our great commonwealth
shall be disrupted or its financial stability overturned. Under a
normal condition of things the capital of the citizens of the Union
will continually increase, and the banks of the city of New York will
be the depositary of larger and larger reserves of whatever capital is
temporarily idle in the places where it is created. In due time the
financial centre of the world will be shifted from London to our
imperial city.
Such a destiny has been foretold for St. Petersburg, in view of the
construction of the Siberian Railway and its branches, which in time
will open up to industry an immense tract of productive soil in the
most fertile parts of Asia, abounding in wheat and corn land, and full
of superior water power. But in this superb rivalry between the United
States and the colossus of Europe and Asia, the former nation has an
immense start as to time, and a still greater advantage in the
character of its population. And in addition to these we have the
undoubted and constantly increasing supremacy of the English language.
Just as during the Middle Ages Latin was the vernacular of the learned
classes, and as to-day French is the language of diplomacy in Europe,
so is English the common tongue in all the commercial localities of
the globe. With English a man can commit himself to foreign travel
anywhere, while outside of Russia there are few towns on the various
continents in which Russian is not an unknown speech. These
controlling conditions cannot be readily or easily changed, especially
since no paramount reasons exist why they should be changed.
It is then a reasonable forecast of the future, that in due time the
weighty import of the names of Lombard[1] and Threadneedle Streets
will be transferred to the name of Wall Street, and the facts implied
by such a transfer are of a dignity and power which it is impossible
to estimate. The road leading to this great destiny can only be
blocked by injurious legislation, and the good sense of our citizens
may be confidently relied upon to prevent the creation of such a
barricade against national prosperity.
[1] It will be recollected that Macaulay has pictured a New
Zealander of some future day as sitting upon a broken arch
of London Bridge, contemplating the ruins of St. Paul's
cathedral; and readers of the classics may recall the
forecast of Seneca in the time of Nero, as to the discovery
of a Western continent by which Rome should be dwarfed: "In
later ages the time shall come when the ocean shall loosen
the chains which bind us, a mighty continent shall be
disclosed, and a deity shall unveil a new world beyond
Britannia."
II. THE TRUE INWARDNESS OF WALL STREET.
BY JOHN CLARK RIDPATH.
The organized powers of society are always anxious to conciliate
public favor. They know that they exist by sufferance--by sufferance
of a mightier than themselves. In proportion as they know themselves
to be aggressors and spoliators their anxiety increases. Every abusive
power in the world is thus driven to adopt schemes and devices--some
dangerous and some merely ludicrous--to keep a footing at that silent
bar of opinion before which all wrong must, sooner or later, quail and
slink away.
The great concern called Wall Street is such an organized power in
society. It exists as a fact in our American system, and would fain
conciliate the favor of the public. Wall Street has become one of the
most conspicuous features in our national life. Knowing that it is
challenged by public opinion--knowing indeed that it is already under
the ban and condemnation of the American people--it now seeks, after
the manner of its kind, to save itself alive. It would go further than
mere salvation; it would make mankind believe that it is a reputable
part of the universal swim. Aye more; it seeks to ingratiate itself,
sometimes by force and sometimes by gentle craft and stratagem, into
the good graces of that civilization which it has so mortally
offended.
To this end Wall Street strives to justify itself in periodical and
general literature. No other power in human society to so great a
degree and in so subtle a manner exploits its own virtues. Taking
advantage of the well-known carelessness of American readers, and
knowing full well how easily they are duped--how easily they are
cozened out of their senses and led into false beliefs with mere
plausibilities and sophisms--this imperial and far-reaching Wall
Street, this elephantine fox of the world, takes possession of
American journalism--owns it, controls it. It seizes and subsidizes
the metropolitan press. It purchases newspapers and magazines by the
score. It establishes bureaus; it buys every purchasable pen, from the
pen of the gray philosopher to the pen of the snake editor. It
overawes every timid brain, from the brain of the senator to the
brain of the tramp. What it cannot purchase it terrorizes; and the
small residue which it cannot terrorize it seeks to cajole: all this
to the end that its dominion may be universal and everlasting.
In this work of gaining possession of public opinion and perverting
that opinion to its own uses Wall Street employs all methods and uses
all expedients. Wall Street deliberately marks its game; and we have
to confess that the game generally falls at the first fire. We have
heard, however, of a single case of a brave man, now dead, who, when
offered ten thousand dollars for his voice against his conviction and
his opinion against his soul, in the matter of electing President of
the United States the man who was the candidate of Wall Street, told
the subtle committee to make an immediate and expeditious visit to the
bottom of the old theology.
This train of thought rises vividly to mind when I consider the
article of Mr. Henry Clews on "Wall Street, Past, Present, and
Future." This article came unsought and unexpected to the editorial
desk of THE ARENA. I confess that I doubted its genuineness. For why
should Mr. Clews address the public through the columns of THE ARENA?
What has THE ARENA done to merit such distinction? Satisfying myself
that the contribution was genuine, that it was not--and is not--a
hallucination, I at once divined that it must be a sort of challenge
to this magazine. I do the author of "Wall Street, Past, Present, and
Future," the honor to believe that he does not suppose THE ARENA to be
sufficiently verdant to publish his adroit and well-covered apology
for the great institution which he represents,--without knowing the
sense and significance of it. If indeed the distinguished gentleman
imagined that we could do such a thing here, then in good sooth he
must be undeceived. Or if he supposed that a paper of the kind
submitted would be _rejected_ at this office because of our well-known
antagonism to the fact which Mr. Clews defends, let him in that
instance also be undeceived.
At the office of THE ARENA we take all challenges. Nor should our
friends suppose or fear that the welcome admission of Mr. Clews's
article to the pages of THE ARENA implies timidity or some possible
weakness in the presence of that gigantic institution known by the
name of Wall Street. The fact is, that the nightmare which that power
has been able to spread, bat-like, over the souls of men for a quarter
of a century has about been dissipated; it is already the beginning of
the end. It is the dawn; the day is not very far in the future when
the American people, roused at last to the exertion of their majesty,
will shake themselves from the dread of this incubus and spring up
like a giant refreshed from slumber.
Mr. Clews's article on "Wall Street, Past, Present, and Future," is a
most gentle and dove-like performance. It is not a paper intended to
produce alarm, but to allay it. It is one of the finest examples of a
literary opiate that I have ever seen. The bottom theme of the paper
is that Wall Street is a natural growth, and is therefore inevitable.
Wall Street has come by a gentle evolution. Good men and true have
conspired with nature to bring it forth. Under natural and necessary
conditions Wall Street has appeared in our American system, and under
these conditions it flourishes. Whatever great fact in society has
thus appeared has been born of necessity and out of the nature of
things. If Wall Street have been born out of necessity and the nature
of things, then it has come of righteousness, and is the child of
truth. If of righteousness and truth, then Wall Street is good as well
as glorious. That which is good and glorious ought to be admired and
honored. Whatever is admired and honored, whatever is good and
glorious, should have influence and power in society and state. Such a
golden product of evolution is Wall Street; therefore the sceptre
which Wall Street stretches forth over the prostrate Western world
should be obeyed and upheld by the voice and hand of the American
people.
Not only so, but the sceptre should be extended. The empire of Wall
Street should become universal. It should be enlarged and confirmed
until all outlying kingdoms and all islands of the sea shall pass
under the beneficent sway of this monarchy of the world! Then with Mr.
Clews we may well consider his "reasonable forecast of the future."
With him we shall be able to see "that in due time the weighty import
of the names of Lombard and Threadneedle Streets will be transferred
to the name of Wall Street." With Mr. Clews we shall be able to see
that "the facts implied by such a transfer are of a dignity and power
which it is impossible to estimate." Then, finally, with Mr. Clews we
shall agree that "the road leading to this great destiny _can only be
blocked by legislation_." Mr. Clews says "injurious" legislation.
Certainly; that is true--most true. The consummation hoped for by Mr.
Clews can verily be blocked by legislation! But when it comes to the
definition of "injurious" how fearfully do we part company! The writer
of "Wall Street, Past, Present, and Future" flatters himself, in fine,
with the belief that "the good sense of our citizens may be
confidently relied upon to prevent the creation of such a barricade
against national prosperity." Oh, it is "national prosperity" then
that we have in view! That is good. If there be anything under heaven
which Wall Street adores and dotes on more than any other thing in the
world it is national prosperity! When it comes to national prosperity
Wall Street is always full-handed. With the mere mention of national
prosperity Wall Street raises a shout of sympathetic enthusiasm which
reverberates from Passamaquoddy to San Diego, and from the Florida
everglades to the snow-capped shoulders of Shasta!
Let me, however, explain to Mr. Clews one thing, and that is that the
blessed condition of universal society in which Wall Street, having
absorbed Lombard and Threadneedle, shall be supreme over the nations
will occur only when our free American institutions shall be crushed
into fragments and when civil liberty shall lie bleeding among the
ruins. It will occur _then_, and not before. It will occur when the
residue of the old American spirit has been stamped out, and when a
miserable, slavish subserviency shall have been substituted for the
revolutionary freedom which our fathers won and made sacred with their
blood on every patriot battlefield from Lexington to Appomattox.
Temperately and patiently I will follow Mr. Clews's paper through. The
writer of the article is a gentlemanly and able representative of that
colossal power which he has helped to build up and fortify. From being
a child of that power he has now become, in a most theosophical
manner, one of the fathers of it! As such he has made himself the
apologist of a gigantic and rampant beast on whose horns of hazard
the values produced by the labor of seventy millions of Americans are
tossed about as if the wreckage were so much waste excelsior thrown on
the horns of a bull! Mr. Clews tells us that in 1792 twenty-seven
gentlemen met under a buttonwood tree and formed the association known
as Wall Street. The purpose of the association was "the purchase and
sale of public stocks at a fixed and unvarying commission, with a
proviso of mutual help and preference." The result was the addition of
"the prestige and power of the stock exchange to the prestige and
power of the banks." That indeed is a combination worthy to be
considered! A consolidation of interests was effected between the
exchange and the banks to purchase and sell stocks "with a proviso of
mutual help."
The organization thus created has existed for one hundred and five
years. It has made a history. It has become ever greater and more
firmly fixed in and _on_ American society. It has made itself to be
the foundation of all things financial and political in the United
States. The story of the process by which this prodigious result has
been reached is narrated by Mr. Clews in the manner of one who gives
an account of the formation of a temperance society or a Sunday
school! In the whole article there does not appear a symptom of a
suspicion that the thing of which he gives the history is the most
dangerous and abusive fact that ever threatened the integrity of a
nation. The argument is that if twenty-seven gentlemen thus met and
created Wall Street, then the result, being a natural product, is good
and wholesome. But the inquiry at once arises whether it is valid
logic to suppose that what men do is right, simply because they do it.
The affirmative of such a proposition would make Aristotle stagger. It
amounts to this, that whatever is is right; therefore, let it alone.
By this argument of Mr. Clews all the tyrannies of the past, all the
horrors that have afflicted the human race, all the sufferings which
men have endured from sword and pestilence, from servitude, from the
butchery of war and the cruelty of the Inquisition, have been right
merely because they have been natural. Under this rule every monster
that has tormented society from the first day until now can find full
justification for itself on the simple ground that it exists! Under
such an argument a howitzer is as good as a plough, a sword is as good
as a sickle, a pillory is as good as a baby-wagon. By such reasoning a
shark is as useful as a horse. By this logic a boa-constrictor is as
good as a reindeer, a tiger is as useful and salutary in his office as
an ox or a St. Bernard, and a cancer is as beautiful as a blush. That
is, everything is good, not because it is useful and just, but because
it is.
Or again, Mr. Clews's argument is this: that the men who created Wall
Street were gentlemen; therefore their work was salutary. Just as
though respectable people could not engage in a nefarious business.
Just as though gentlemen could not, and would not, make a conspiracy
to enslave the human race. The "gentleman" is a very uncertain factor
in civilization; his devotion to right and truth requires always to be
tested with a chemical and to be taken with the usual combination of
chlorine and sodium.
Mr. Clews explains that the stocks underlying our old railroad
properties in the United States were aforetime "held locally," and
that they were transferred "more frequently by executors than by
brokers on the stock exchange"--as though that were an evil. Then
"there were but few opportunities for dealing in shares"--as though
_that_ were an evil! It thus became necessary for Wall Street to get
the old stocks belonging to the people out of the people's hands and
into the hands of the Street--as though _that_ were a good. Our public
improvements were in the first place made by the people, but the
people were not fit to own them. Our railways were constructed with
capital subscribed by the people, generally by those through whose
country the given improvement was extended. The people themselves then
owned their own, and controlled it. Until Wall Street reached out and
clutched such properties--first putting down the prices of the shares
to nothing and then pulling the given stocks to par--the people were
able to protect themselves; but never afterwards.
The same was true of all other securities, whether public or private.
Nearly all bonded debts were at first local; but the holding of
securities _locally_ has always been a thing abhorrent to Wall Street.
The idea of the Street is that all stocks and all securities belong,
not to the public, but to itself. Of course the _money capital_ of the
country belongs to the Street. And if, with the consent of public
authority, the _stocks_ of the country also can be held by the Street,
then a humble peasantry, paying perennial rents and compound interest,
can be created and kept under forever throughout the domains of the
great Republic. It may ultimately require arsenals to do it, but these
we can supply.
The next stage in the game was the creation by Wall Street of
fictitious enterprises for the distinct purpose of getting possession
of the stocks on which such enterprises were based, and of speculating
in the shares of such properties. When the _existing_ stocks of
railways were not sufficient--when the bonds of States and of the
general government were insufficient in quantity to fill the maw of
the benevolent being called Wall Street--then an _artificial_ supply
must be created; that is, some scheme of debts must be invented by
which the people might be made to pay tribute to the good Wall Street,
and pay it still more abundantly.
Thus were invented new banks and new banking systems. Thus came the
bull and the bear and the bucket-shop. Thus were projected a thousand
railways and canals. Many of these were laid into impossible
regions--all "for the benefit of the people!" Other enterprises which
were not sufficiently stocked began to be stocked more heavily--this
also for the benefit of the people. The plan of watering was invented;
the method of "promoting" enterprises was perfected,--until, as early
as the time of the Civil War, Wall Street had acquired the greatest
skill in _making_ debts, or, in the language of James Fisk, Jr., in
"rescuing the property of other people from themselves."
These beautiful processes are glossed over by Mr. Clews with a
pleasant account of how, with the growth of business and the discovery
of gold and the oncoming of the age of construction, great enterprises
were "promoted" by Wall Street, and how "capital instantly flowed
forth from its reservoirs in answer to the securities" that flowed
thereto. The author of "Wall Street, Past, Present, and Future,"
affirms "that but for the combined machinery of the New York banks and
the stock exchange the actual developments of twenty years would have
dragged laboriously through an entire century." Permit us to say that
it would have been better that such "actual developments" should have
dragged through _two_ centuries than that the United States of America
should have been stocked and mortgaged and bonded and enslaved, under
the tyrannous lash of debt, by such a master as Wall Street.
Mr. Clews next comes to the subject of corners. On this topic we doubt
not that he speaks as one having authority. He tells us quite
complacently that there was "an epoch in the Wall Street of the past
when the gigantic and deeply considered combinations were set in
motion entitled 'corners.'" Then he goes on to explain what corners
are. He does so without the slightest expression of criticism or
aversion. He tells us of the bulls and the bears by whose agency a
corner is conducted as though they were the friendly competitors in
some great philanthropy! Instead of describing corners as so many
carefully contrived schemes to rob the people of the proceeds of their
labor by putting the prices of their commodities and securities down
until such commodities and securities are taken from their hands, and
then putting the prices _up_ in order that the robbers may reap the
harvest, he speaks of corners as offering "brilliant illustrations of
genius and strategic skill in financial warfare!"
The fact is that the men who are reared in Wall Street, who from their
youth are familiarized with its processes, and who are well set in the
plastic age to consider human life as an auspicious opportunity for
getting possession of something that does not belong to them, are
fatally blunted in their sensibilities; the ethical quality in them is
battered out--or at least battered; they come to regard the human race
as an enormous ranch of sheep to be shorn at the pleasure of the
shearers; they even grow to consider each other as so much mutton to
be butchered and roasted by whoever is able to do it.
I notice with surprise that Mr. Clews in his sketch of Wall Street
dwells not at all upon the benevolent agency of that power during the
Civil War. This is an oversight which I beg leave to supply. There has
never perhaps been an instance in human history in which a great power
has so ardently devoted itself "to the preservation of free
institutions" as did Wall Street in that epoch of mortal agony. Then
it was that Wall Street engaged in the patriotic work, first of
destroying the national credit, then of buying it up at half price,
then of converting it into a bonded debt to be perpetuated for a full
generation, and finally of compelling the people to pay it in a dollar
worth four times as much as the dollar with which it was purchased. It
was a beautiful scheme of devotion and self-sacrifice the like of
which history has never before recorded. It was a speculation which
involved the life of the American Republic. The Union was on trial.
All nerves were strained, and all hearts were torn. The nation was
bleeding at every pore. Every freight-train that came from the front
brought back its loaded boxes of dead. Fathers and mothers gathered at
the station, and each received his own. The rough coffin containing
the body of the patriot boy who had given his life for the flag was
taken by the silent father and mother to its resting-place under the
apple trees. All true men had tearful faces, and a stern resolve in
the heart. And while _this_ was the condition of the nation and the
people, the high-toned Wall Street was speculating on the life of the
Republic. It bought and sold blood. It was a bull on disaster and a
bear on victory. It established bureaus through which to falsify
intelligence and to bring the nation to the verge of ruin. It had no
compunction. It regarded the gore of battlefields as the rich rain and
mould out of which its own harvest was to grow. The more blood the
merrier. The more tears the richer the yield. The more war the more
debt. The more depression of the national credit the more cheaply we
shall be able to gather it up! The more grape-vine despatches the more
distraction and the better opportunity for us. The more death the more
millions. The more horror and devastation the heavier will be our
coffers. The more the people groan the more we will shout. The more
they die the more we will live. The more the flag is torn the more our
damask curtains will flutter. The more liberty perishes and withers
from the earth the more we shall plant ourselves and flourish and rule
and reign over a nation that we have destroyed and a people whom we
have enslaved. If Mr. Clews wishes any further outline of the history
of Wall Street during our Civil War we shall be glad to contribute
such a sketch as a reminiscence of a great fact which appears to be
dim in his memory.
There is another almost fatal omission in Mr. Clews's article. He says
but little about the principal work in which Wall Street, historically
considered, has been engaged during the last thirty years. I do not
like the way in which this great section of the "Past" of Wall Street
is glossed over. During the period referred to, that institution has
had one bottom purpose and one reason of action from which it has
never deviated. This purpose, this reason of action, has been the
perpetuation of the national debt and the increase of its value by
bulling the unit of money in which the debt is payable. Wall Street
knows that the bonded debt of the United States is the basis, or
central fact, in the whole system of bonds and stocks. Wall Street
knows that the dollar is the central fact in the bond. It knows that
if the bond can be made everlasting and the dollar can be increased in
value until a single unit of it shall be equivalent to an acre of
farming land, then the Street can own the United States in fee simple,
and can presently annex the rest of the world.
I acknowledge a certain admiration when I consider this stupendous
scheme. It is more than Napoleonic; it is continental, interplanetary,
sidereal! I cannot recall another conspiracy in the history of mankind
quite equal in colossal and criminal splendor to the profound and
universal plot of Wall Street to make perpetual the national debt, to
keep that debt the bottom fact in the banking system of the United
States, and to bull the unit of money and account until it shall be
worth four times as much, or perhaps ten times as much, as it was when
the bulk of the debt was contracted.
The history of this scheme in its true inwardness is the history of
Wall Street for the past thirty years. The details of the history
relate to such small circumstances as the transfer of the government
of the great Republic from the hands and control of the people to the
hands and control of the Street. Of course no such scheme as that
referred to could be carried into successful operation _unless_ the
national government could be delivered over to the keeping of the
Street and be locked up, as it were, in the same vault where the
national debt is deposited.