Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of AmalgamatedLawson, Thomas William
History
Frenzied Finance, Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated
Lawson, Thomas William
Amalgamated Copper Co.; Gas companies -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Insurance -- United States; Speculation; Standard Oil Company
Suppose our grocer waxing rich invests his funds in the Sugar trust. He
thinks he knows all there is to be known about sugar. The business of
the trust is to make the sweet commodity and sell it to the people. No
mystery or magic, surely, about this simple pursuit. Yet when our grocer
invests his savings, the sugar stock is many dollars more valuable than
when, scared into selling by fluctuations which he cannot see any reason
for, he tries to get back his investment. So many times have investors
been milked of their savings by this one trust during the past twenty
years that in the coffers of its creators and jugglers are hundreds of
millions of money that once belonged to the people for which they have
received absolutely nothing in return.
Both the tanner and the grocer must know, when they look up and down
Wall Street at the great office buildings which tower into the sky on
either side of the street, that these are huge hives of expensive bees
who, from New Year's to New Year's, do not produce a dollar. They should
realize that the hundreds of millions spent each year for the expense of
running the "System's" game, and the millions which the game-makers
flaunt in their faces, must have been derived from such as they--the men
who produce.
It is the phenomenon of the age that millions of people throughout this
great country of ours come of their own free will to the shearing pens
of the "System" each year, voluntarily chloroform themselves, so that
the "System" may go through their pockets, and then depart peacefully
home to dig and delve for more money that they may have the debasing
operation repeated on them twelve months later.
You may ask if I desire to convey the idea that the great financial
institutions and trusts of this country, which have their head centre in
Wall Street, are all concerned in a conspiracy to rob the people of
their savings. You think, doubtless, that so sweeping a statement goes
beyond the truth. I desire to go on record right here in declaring that
all financial institutions which in any way are engaged in taking from
the people the money that is their surplus earnings or their capital,
for the ostensible purpose of safeguarding it, or putting it in use for
them, or exchanging it for stocks, bonds, policies, or other paper
evidences of worth, are a part of the machinery for the plundering of
the people.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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