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Theft Galore

Theft Galore image
Parent Issue
Day
30
Month
October
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

THEFT GALORE

Is making millions at the expense of honor a profitable occupation, in the minds of financiers who are now being tried at the moral bar? To form a vast combination, knowing it to be so watered as to be unsafe, and to bargain for your own gains at the expense of those who trust you - what is the name for that? No number of technical schools founded by the executer of such a deal can clear his record, any more than mawkish moralizing and founding colleges can cleanse the life of a man who has conspired against the law, with the aid of bribery, to crush competitors. It is depressing to have a smirch on financiers who have heretofore seemed faithful to their trusts. If they were in such dire want of a few millions more, why did they not say so, and let us help them out, instead of giving another blow to our confidence in them and in human nature? With millionaires willing to be sharpers, in order to get more millions; with politicians stealing from the people, in city, state, and nation, and habitually using men, women and children as mere pawns in a private game to capture wealth; with yellow papers plunging their readers into dirt and danger for business and circulation - the love of money may fairly be called a sickness in our country. Unhappily we can not call these reeking instances exceptions. Other departments in the government are only less eaten with corruption than the post-office. Little cities have their rings, as well as big ones. The more that is learned about corporate methods the more universal seems the willingness to trick the public. Corruption, caused by the opportunity which all have, in this country, for worldly progress, and by the desire for fast advancement, is undeniable and vast. Leaders in business enterprise are among the least excusable when they juggle, for they are men who have had opportunity to acquire understanding which should forbid dishonest gain. "These men," said Judge Grosscup, "bring nothing to humanity but suffering, and leave nothing to mankind but disgrace." To send one of them to jail would do more good than the punishment of a dozen walking delegates or gambling kings.

-Collier's Weekly.