As Robert Brownley threw back his head and
shoulders and faced that crowd of men, some of whom he had hurt, many of
whom he had beggared, and all of whom he had tortured, he presented a
picture such as a royal lion recently from the jungles and just freed from
his cage might have made. Defiance, deference, contempt, and pity all
blended in his mien, but over all was an I-am-the-one-you-are-the-many
atmosphere of confidence that turned my spinal column into a mercury tube.
He began to speak:
"Men of Wall Street:
"You have just witnessed a record-breaking slaughter. I have asked
permission to talk to you for the purpose of showing you how any member of
a great Stock Exchange may at any time do what I have done to-day. Weigh
well what I am about to say to you. During the last quarter of a century
there has grown up in this free and fair land of ours a system by which
the few take from the many the results of their labours. The men who take
have no more license, from God or man, to take, than have those from whom
they filch. They are not endowed by God with superior wisdom, nor have
they performed for their fellow-men any labour or given to them anything
of value that entitles them to what they take.
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