| Show rrie arzie sonni yonn nothing not Noi hing strikes us so strongly in this gold crisis in new york as the enormous and unrestrained power of the new american plutocracy they seem to be rising to a position which in the extent of the influence it con confers fers is without a parallel in the tho history of ar or is paralleled only by that of the few roman families which uhl ted to hereditary station in the republic the command of masses of treasure and armies of debtors there are men as rich in england and men perhaps as unscrupulous in europe but for men as unrestrained in the use of their power as defiant of opinion of the law of their own reputation of all that limits the application of extraordinary means we must seek in the east easter or in the history of the old pagan ragan world aloman senator would destroy a province to recover his interest on a loan or rabe rahe a civil war to rid himself of his debts and aud the american ring leaders seem willing to force on a national bankruptcy or ruin rain an army of shareholders as mere incidental strokes in some grand operation or rather game for in many cases they seem actuated by the determination to win at least as much as by any thirst for profit what does mr vanderbilt with it is said sterling want with the few scores of thousands ho he makes when whon in some huge railway campaign he crushes a thousand families yel yec he crushes them in europe a first class millionaire of that sort would dread financial disturbance tur bance as he would dread an earthquake in america he makes one the game the excitement the notoriety seem to be the temptations of these men even more than the profit and the whole scene suggests that in america as in rome satiety comes quick gulck to the very rich that for the man of millions life has few interests that the hunger for excitement has r ached reached the height leight where nothing will gratify it but battle or orgy or huge mad gambling perhaps the most dangerous symptom which a community can exhibit the operation which has recently convulsed new york and shaken american credit through the world was not in itself a very extraordinary one american currency is paper butali but all ali duties must be paid in gold and a good many contracts must be fulfilled in one way or another by transfers of bullion A few rich men therefore thought that if they cow coo could get possession of all the available gold they could get their own price for it and the tha tharold gold in stock being everywhere a very limited quantity they fancied themselves rich enough to do it leta let a few men ruen suffield sufficiently confident confide bt in one another and sufficiently rich to bagio begio the game pledge their gold as they get it and there would be nothing very extraordinary or very farsee far see ing in such a plan the one referred to was indeed very imperfectly organized the ring having either forgotten or been deceived by the largest bullion holder in the country the treasurer of the united states the really extraordinary thing is that men of such wealth and such capacity should have been willing to run buchla bucila endanger the commercial safety of the ohe union in such a spirit of recklessness gamblers do very mad things sometimes but in europe vast wealth seems to sober men and the city could no more think of the or barn BarD barines Ba rings gg or any first class claas bankers playing rouge et noir nair after that fashion than of their trying to shut the bank of england for the sake of studying he jie marks of despair on a splendid scale the effort to do such a thing would cost any millionaire more cash in the coa consequent sequent depreciation of his credit than hewald hope to make by his operation era tion in america we fear hao bau fisk gould and the rest wod won the rame game and sud stood out victors amid the surrounding ruin rain their credit would have been increased Th they ekery very nearly did win by steady purchaser pur hajes chasen they forced gold up from to 0 o IGO that is they raised the price by some twenty nive five per cent and might as a they intended have sent it up to fifty but that the treasury after giving them time to exhaust themselves poured gold from its vaults into the markel market their remaining strength did abt suffice to buy that tho the bubble burst and they stood with hu huge re masses of contracts to receive goli gold at a price it 4 did not fetch though they won enormously at first I 1 still with their object they inest have held on to their contracts to a great extent and the ultimate differences feren ces must have been frightful during the fight resources had been ac i JY tug tue ring nu and their adv adversaries by bv enormous vales pales aies of which were wore flung hung away at aimor almost any price united states bonds for example be being 1 sold in large parcels two per cent b below enow market rate and one great lai lal railway 1 way falling thirty per cent in for ty t eight hours and fortunes changed hands in a few minutes the spasm was too short to create much ruin be yond speculating circles but had bad it lasted as but for mr boutwelle Bou twella action it might have lasted jasted weeks it is not too much to say that every dealer in the united states would have been more or less impoverished and trade contracted ninety per cent even as it was every man who had contracted to deliver goods out of bond on any of these three days was fined from twenty to thirty per e r cent on the amount of duty that el Is s probably his whole hoie hole profit mr flaks finger was in fact on the throat of every man in every part of the union the american press is already asking anxiously where the remedy for this state of affairs can be found and it ha has reason for its anxiety there is if i not the sligh bligh slightest security that the experiment may not be repeated by men much stronger than fisk and gould and government cannot be always descending in a shower of gold to the relief of mankind even evon if gold were not the subject men so rich and imbued with such a thirst for gaining might still work irretrievable mischief there is nothing whatever to prevent three throe or four speculators like ilke Vanderbilt Mr from mastering all the railways in the country or reducing the shares to nominal values or holding all the iron or even making an attack on nour hour or doing any other act which men possessed or of immense resource resources and standing in 83 sympathy M apart from the community fighting like the barons of old for their own hands without reference to the welfare of any not directly connected with themselves may be able to conceive congress has no power over them the state legislature can hardly touch them being precluded from annulling the obligation of any contract the judici judiciary aryis aryls is in their pay and even if they stepped beyond the law which they need noldo not do juries could not be found foundton to convict them they cannot be deprived of their wealth without a social convulsion they cannot be lynched for they could raise regiments of armed bravoes bra and apparently they cannot be induced to forego this use nse of wealth amidst sueh such colossal gambling every other excitement seems insipid and life without excitement is to them a dreary waste no aristocrat in modern days has had bad anything like the power of or the american plutocrat and no aristocrat in any days has been more completely beyond restraint cherem the remedy we hope must come but we confess we cannot see whence the law of quai equal t division at death clearly does not prevent agglomerations of property which are all the more dangerous because the property being personal can be so rapidly turned to use A blar hiar marquis quis of westminister West minister can do much but a threat from him to upset the city would only provoke a smile A mr vanderbilt in england if be he chose to work mere mischief might reduce us all to a state of barter and work more morer ulu than an invading army and if we may judge from all we hear of naw york would be just as likely to do it as not in order to feel his power to make 14 strokes and generally to enjoy the excitement ota ofa of a superb form of gambling fortunately in england a man of that kind would in no short time provoke the co and the community through pam parliament lament is absolute but in america we see nothing to prevent the development of the millionaire into a virtual monarch the state of whose digestion would be important to millions who could no more be controlled than a shah coald could be controlled and who if he could not send hib his ad ver baries rieb ries the bowstring could send them an equally fatal decree of confiscation we fall fill to tb see what a man with fifty millions could not do in new york or why a successful chief in the ring any man with a h million ahead for anduce annance nn ance and no ho scruples should not make fifty millions we expect yet to bee see mr urdu harts strange dream fulfilled and a vi single millionaire gain possession of a state make what laws lawa he pleases and live in a free republic as much a soverign as iche if he ceroan were an asiatic king vanderbilt chowe should say behaved well welt in this affair could bu buy ne w jersey lonan 8 spectator pec dator totor october who purposely cheats his friend would cheat his god |
