On the other hand, many young men have plunged into a life of crime
through over-spending their salaries, in the effort to convince every
one who looked at them that they were on the directorate of the
Standard Oil Company. Where the millionaire walks these silly young
jackasses take a cab, and pay half a day's salary in order to ride two
or three blocks.
"I have seen John J. Mitchell, the president of the Illinois Trust
and Savings Bank, and one of our foremost financiers, walk from the
Northwestern station to the bank building, while right behind him a
young donkey, who was working for $25 a week in that very bank, would
pay a cabby a dollar to drive him the seven short blocks from that
same station to the bank.
"It is just such young pinheads as that who afterwards turn out to be
our embezzlers, forgers and financial criminals."
The man who has made a name which is known in every corner of the
United States as an authority on all kinds of frauds, snorted his
indignation as he thought of the silly bank clerk. Then he continued:
"Does anybody ever see Arthur Meeker take a cab to ride a few blocks?
Not on your life. He walks. So does Cyrus McCormick, Harold McCormick,
R. Hall McCormick, Frank Lowden, and any number of the other men whose
names stand at the top of Chicago finance. I see Frank Lowden on the
Indiana avenue cars, the line I take myself, time after time. He is
one of the most democratic of men."