Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1888 — THE AGE OF SWINDLE. [ARTICLE]

THE AGE OF SWINDLE.

Will Ton Walk Into My Parlok, Sals the Spider to the Fly. ( And the Poor, Unsuspecting Fly Walks In—Clean. Clever, Nice-Cut Webs the I, (tile Itasca 1 () Weaves — Trusts, Syndicates and Bank 1)14. rectors Need Watching Badly. i Rev. Dr., Tslmage preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Subject, “The Age of Swindles.” Text, Job vii., 14: ‘‘Whose trust shall be a spider’s web.” He said: The two must skillful architects in the world are tbe bee and the spider. The one puts up a sugar manufactory and the other builds'A slaughter-honse ior flies. On a bright summer morning when the sun comes out anti shines upon ihe spider's web. bedecked with dew, the gossamer str-ucau redeems.bjijikt-.WIPPgb lor suspension brioge for supernatural beings to cross on. But, alas! for tbe poor fly which, in the latter part of that very day, ventures on it anti is caught and dugeoned and destroyed. The fly was in formed that it was a free •bridge and would <;ost nothing, but at the other end of the bridge the 'dll paid Was its own life. The next day there comes a strong wind and away goes the w;eb and the marauding spider and the victimized flv. So delicate are the silken threads ot the spider’s web that many thousands of them are put together before they become viaibie to the human eye, and it lakes four millions of them to make a thread aa large as the human hair. Most cruel, as well as ingenious, is the spider. A prisoner in the Baßtilo, France, had one so trained that at the sound of a violin it every day came for its meal of fliep. Job, the autnor of my text, and the leading scientist of his day, had no

doubt watched the voracious process of thisone insect with another, and saw spider and fly 6wept down with the same broom, or scattered by the same wind. Alas, that the world has many designing spiders ai.cTvlCtimized flies. ~ Tuere has not been a time when the utter and black irresponsibility of many men having the financial interests of o hers in charge has been more evident than in these last few years. The unroofing of banks, and the disappearance, administrators with the funds of large estates, and the disorder amid Postoffice accounts and deficits anyld United States officials, have made a pestilence of crime that solemn;z ts every thoughtful man and woman, and leads every philanthropist and Christian to ask: What shall be done to stay the • plague? There is a monsoon abroad, a typhoon, a siirocco. I sometimes ask myseli if it would not be better for men making wills to bequeath the property directly to the executors and officers of the Chart, and appoint the widows and orphans a committee to see t bat the former got all that did not belong to them. The simple fact is, that there are a large number of men Bailing yachts and driving fast horses and” members oT expensive club houses and controlling country seats, who are not worth a dollar if thev return to others their just rights. Under some sudden reverse they fail, and with sffl eted air seem to retire from the world, and seem almost ready for monastic life, when in two or three years they blossom out again, having compromised with, their creditors —that is, paid them nothing but regrets—and tbe only difference be Tween the second chapter of .prosperity and the first is that their pictures are Murillos instead of Kensette, and their horses go a mile in twenty seconds less than their predecessors, and instead of one country seat they have three. I Lave watched and have noticed that nine out of ten of those who fail in what is called high life Lave more means after than t>. n.re tb. failure, and in many of tbe eni-e- u-.iiu • is only astratege'm to est spe p, \ ment of honeßt «iebts and pm .lie wolf off the track while they practice a large swindle. TherC is something woefully wrong in the fact that these things are possible. Fast of all, I charge tbe blame on careless, indifferent Bank Directors and Boards having in charge great financial institutions. It ought not to be possij ble for a president or cashier or prominent officer of a banking institution tosys inule it year after‘year without detection. I will undertake to say that if these frauds are carried on for two or three years without detection either the Directors are partners in the infamy and pocketed part of the theft, or they aregnilty of a culpable neglect of duty, for which God will -hold them as re*

sponsible as He bolds the acknowledged defrauders. What rights have prominent business men to allow their names to be published as' directors in a financial inetituti n so that unsophisticated people are thereby induced to deposit their money" in or buy the scrip thereof, the published Directors, are doing nothing for the safety of the institution? It is a case of deception most reprehensible. Many people with a surplus of money mot needed for immediate use, althouvh it may be a little farther on indispensable,, are without friends competent to advise them, and they are guided soleiy by the character of the men whose names are associated with the institution. When the crash came, and with the overthrow of the banks went the, small earnings and limited fortunes of widows and orphan ta, and the helplessly aged, the Directors stood with idiotic stare, and to the inquiry of the frenzied depositors and stock holders who had lost their ail, and to the arraignment of an indiguant nnhlie had nothirff to aav oirpnl: i% Wu thought it was all right. We did not know there was any thing wrong going on.” It was their duty to know. They stood in a position which deluded the people with the idea that they were carefully observant. Calling themselves directors, they did not direct. They had opportunity of auditing accounts and inspecting the books. No4ime to domo? Then they had no business to accept the position. It seems to be the pride of some moneyed men to be Directors in a great many institutions, and all they know is whether or not they get their names are nsed as decoy ducks to bring others near enough to be made game of. Wha f first of ail is needod is that five thousand bank Directors and insurance company Directors resign or attend to their business as Directors. Toe business world will be full of (rand, * jnst as long as fraud is so easy. When you arrest the President and Secretary of a bank for an embf ezlement cairnd on lor many years, have plenty of Sheriffs out the same day to arrest all the Director.

They are guilty eitner oi neglect or complicity. , .-“Oh” some one will say, “better prttach the Gospel and let buamess mat? tern alone.” I reply: If your Goepei does not inspire comfoon honesty in the dealings of men the sooner you dose up pour Gospel and pitch into tbe depths otthe Atlantic Ocean the better. An orthodox swindler is worse than atheterodox swindler. The recitation" of all the cathechisms and creeds ever written ’ arid drinking from all the communion chgrge that ever glittered in the churches of Christendom, will never save your soul unless yonr business character corresponds with yonr religious profession! Some of the worst scoundrels in America have been members of churches, and they got fat on sermons about heaven when they most needed to have the pul pits preach that which would either bring them to repentance or thunder tns in outof the holy communions where their presence was a sacrilege and an infamy. We also deolore abuse of trust funds, because they fly in the face of that Di'Vlrre gtoffnees which seems determined to bless this land. We are having the eighth year of unexampled National harvest, the wheat gamblers get hold of the wheat, and the; corn gamblers get hold of the corn. The full tide of God’s mercy toward this land ia put back by those great dikes ofdishonest resistance. When God provides enough food and clothing to feed and apparei this whole Nation like Princes, the scrabble of dishonest men to get more than their share, and get it at all hazards, keeps everything shaking with uncertaintv, and everybody asking: “What next?” Every week makes new revelations. How many more bank Presidents and hank cashiers have been speculating with other people’s money, and how many more bank Directors are in imbecile Bilence letting the perfidy go on. the great arid patient God only knows! My opinion is that we have got near the bottom. The wind has been pricked from the great bubble of. American speculation. The men who thought that the judgment day was at least five thousand years or more found it in 1888,1887,1886; and this notion has been taught that men must keep their hands out of other people’s pockets. Great businesses built on borrowed capital have been obliterated, and men who had nothing have lost all they had. I believe we are started on a higher career of prosperity than this land has ever seen, if, and if, and if. If the fitrtt men, and especially Christian men, will learn never to speculate upon borrowed capital. If you have a mind to take tour own uoney and turn it all into kites to fly them over every commons in the United States, you do society no wrong except when you tumble your helpless children into the poor house for the public to take care of. But you have no right to take the money of others and turn it into kites. There is one word that has deluded more people into bankruptcy and State prison than any other word in commercial life, and that is the word borrow; that one word is responsible for all the defalca’ionß and embezzlements and financial consternations of the last twenty years. When executors conclude to speculate with the funds of an estate committed to their charge, they do not purloin, they Bay they only borrow: when a banker makes an overdraft upon higjDstitutioD, he does not commit a toeft, he only boriows. When the officer of a company, by flaming advert sements in.same religious papers, and gilt certificates of stock, gets a multitude of country people to put their small earnings into an enterprise for carrying on some undeveloped nothing, he does not fraudulently take their money, he only borrows. When a young mau with easy access to his employer’s money drawer.or the confidential clerk by close propinquity to the account books, takes a few dollars for a Wall street excursion, be expects to put it back; he will put it all back; he will put it all back very soon. He only borrows. Why,when you are going to do wrong, pronounce so long a word as borrow, a word of six letters, when you can get a shorter word more descriptive of the reality, a word of only five letters, the w ord steal! 1 stand this morning before many who have trust funds. It is a compliment to you that you have been so intrusted,but I charge you, in the presence of God and the worWy-he careful; be careful of the property of others as you are careful of your own. Above alb keep your own private account at the bank separate from your account as trustee of an esia'e or trus’.e.e of an institution. To at is the point at which thousands of people make shipwreck. They get the property of others mixed up with their own prbp-

— r _ r • ~ r ertj; they put it into investment, and away it all gees, and they can not; return that which they borrowed. Then comes the explosion,and the money market is shaken, and the .press denounces, and the church thunders expulsion. You have no right to uee the property of others, except for their advantage; r.or without consent, unless they are minors. If, with their consent, you invest their property as well as you cap, and it is all lost, you are not to blame; you did the b4st you could, but do not come into the delusion which has ruined so many men, of thinking because a thing is in their possession therefore it is theirs. Yeti naver a solemn trust which God has given you. In this vast assemblage there may be some who have misappropriated trust funds. Pay them "back, ~ot, if yon have so hopelessly involved them that von can not pay them back, confess the whole thing to those whom you have wronged and you will sleep better nights, and yon will have a better chance for vour soul. What a sad thing it would be if after you are dead your administrator should find out from the account books, or frond the lack of vouchers, that you were not only bankrupt in estate, but that you lost your soul. If all the trust funds that have been misappropriated should suddenly fljHo their owners, apd all the proprrty that has been purloined should suddenly go back to its owners, it would crush into ruin every city in America. L=*t me sav in the mo3t empathatic manner to all yonng men, dishonesty willneverpay. An abbot wanted to buy a piece of ground and the owner would not sell it, but the owner finally consented to let it to him until he conld raise one crop, and the abbot sowed acorns, a crop of two hundred years! And I tell you, young man. that the dishonesties which yon plant in your heart and life will seem to be very insignificant, but they will grow up until they will overshadow

you with horrible darkness, overshadow all time and all eternity, it wilt not be a crop for two-hundred years, but a crop for everlasting ages. I have also a word of comfort for all who suffer from the malfeasances of otht rt, and every honest mau, woman and child does sufler from what sots on in financial scampdom. Society is so bound together that all the misfortunes which good people sufler in business matters come irdm tbe misdeeds of others. Bear up under distress, strong in God, he wiil see you through; though misfortunes should be centupled. y