Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

The most commendable object in Socialism is the uplifting of the down-trodden and poor, yet that great Commoner and Tribune of the People, William Jennings Bryan, tells us that under Individualism we have seen a constant increase in altruism. That the fact that the individual can select the object of his benevolence and devote his means to the causes that appeal to him has given an additional stimulus to his endeavors. And Mr. Bryan pointedly asks the question: “Would this stimulus be as great under Socialism?” Let it not be forgotten that by means of present tendencies and existing economic laws the poor are constantly growing richer, that is, better off, particularly as indicated by the savings bank deposits. The common people and the savings banks were never before so prosperous as they are now. Labor has made great strides, and the uplift in the lower walks of life in all Christendom during this generation and particularly during the past twenty years has been beyond precedent. Give us wise and just legislation, and complaints of the inequitable distribution of wealth will quickly disappear. Let us put down and keep down the revolutionary Socialists and Anarchists.

Of course, if the unrest of a people is prompted by a desire to promote the good of the greatest number of their fellow beings it will be productive of lasting benefit to all in the long run. But if any combination of capitalists, laborers, politicians, or religious bodies, has for its aim the particular good of only a certain class or party, such action as they take will be prompted by selfish desire, and will work for evil and injustice. The great mass of the people of this country, outside of the big cities, are not allied with either the members of labor unions or the very large capitalists, and the feeling of discontent is largely bred in cities, where it is magnified by the prominence given to it by agitators and the newspapers.

The wage earner in the cities is more or less disheartened by the high prices of food supplies, the higher rents and the higher rates of interest on mortgages, and he argues that his pay has not advanced in the same proportion as the price of home necessaries. Mechanics and other laboring men are receiving higher average wages than ever before, but the display of wealth in modern palaces for the rich, and the abundance of automobile and kindred luxuries among them, have kindled envy and whetted their desire for things beyond their means or hopes of attainment. While no law can change the nature of a man, and while we cannot expect an ambitious man with an elastic conscience to always become a benefactor, or a labor union leader, filled with hate, to become a saint, I hope that the agitation now existing may lead in time to a more general observance of the Golden Rule, to do unto others as we would they should do unto us.

I may say here that I believe nine-tenths of the dissatisfaction of the masses is based upon mistaken ideas. Few men are capable of judging impartially of the rights or the motives which actuate those upon whom Fortune has smiled: Success may be often a matter of luck and opportunity; but it cannot be denied that judgment, mental force and courage are the factors which are bound to insure success.

I now speak not only of success from a monetary standpoint—for many of our most useful, intelligent and influential citizens are comparatively poor—but of all success. Our larger cities are the hotbeds of unrest. The older generation, being anxious that their sons shall have more, and know more, than themselves, and enjoy the good things in life which they have desired but have not been able to obtain, now try to give their children a liberal education and fit them for what they consider more congenial or higher-class occupations than their own.

The outcome of this is that the younger men, when their education is completed, drift into the cities, where they think they have a better chance of getting on in life. It is the same with farmers, laborers and mechanics. Their children desire to rise above their early environments, and wish to occupy positions where they can use their brains rather than their hands. Hence the many deserted farms in New England and in the State of New York, for poor soil is not sufficient cause for their desertion. It can be made good by fertilizers, and where there’s a will there’s a way.

This discontent is producing a superfluity of clerks and other brain workers, who think work with the head more genteel than work with the hands, and a great shortage of farm workers that are needed to develop our agricultural resources. Even the children of the most ignorant foreigners are imbued with this ambition before they are able to speak our language. Too many despise honest labor and want to live by their wits. So we have a vast host of surplus politicians, office-seekers, promoters, brokers, lawyers, clerks, canvassers and drones.

In olden days the young were willing to follow in the footsteps of the old, and begin life where their fathers began. Now they expect to begin where their fathers leave off, and are dissatisfied and disappointed if they find that they have to start from the foot of the ladder.

What we most need in this country to promote and popularize farm and village life, and check the general tendency of both young men and young women to drift to the large cities, is a change in our educational system. We should establish trade schools everywhere to teach the trades and practical sciences, and so make country-bred people proficient in occupations that they could follow on the farm, and in village as well as town life. This knowledge would induce them to stay where they were born, instead of rushing off to make or mar their fortunes in the overcrowded cities where many come to grief. Thus the congestion of population in the cities would be relieved, and the country generally would be able to retain the men and women it needs for its industries that are now held in check by an insufficiency of labor. In this way we might gain millions of good mechanics and other useful workmen where they are most needed, and reduce the number of the inefficient and unemployed in the cities, to say nothing of the chronic idlers and the sporting, gambling and criminal classes. Men instructed for the professions would of course still study in the colleges, but the masses have no use to which they can put the higher education of even the high schools.

There are a lot of well-meaning theorists engaged in so-called Social reform who are largely responsible for many things that add to the unrest in the poorer sections of our cities. Far be it from me to criticize anyone who has the desire to better the condition of his less fortunate brothers, but the work of many of these reformers reminds me of the man who threw a panful of kerosene on a small fire with the idea of putting out the flames. To be a true Social reformer a man must be well informed on conditions which obtain on all sides of life. A rich man may have acquired wealth by miserly habits, but if he has not been dishonest he is entitled to his savings, and no law can compel him to divide with the poor man who has been profligate in the use of his earnings. The thousands of immigrants who arrive at our ports each week are, for the most part, poor and ignorant. The greater number of them remain in our cities and add to the congestion and widespread poverty of the cities. But these same immigrants are willing to work, and in a year or two, instead of being a charge upon the community, have savings bank accounts of their own. However, they are ripe for the reception of the gospel of unrest, as they have lived hitherto in places where the poor are always poor, with no lookout for improvement, and willingly listen to the agitator and prophet of discontent. Mr. Roosevelt has said and done things in the last four years which have shaken our land. Many investors have thought that he had gone too far in his insistence that the law should be rigidly enforced, as they, innocent holders of securities, had been made to suffer loss by the depression in prices. While it is hard that such losses should have been incurred, it is no fault of the President, and his action, in the long run, is to be of untold value to our national and individual prosperity. If his actions will insure the fulfillment of the law by the magnates in power in our railroads and corporations, the little man will be on a par with the big man, and all investments will be on a safer basis, and the dark secrets of the manipulator will give place to the open publication of rates and earnings so that a stockholder will know where he stands and what his company is doing.