You know that when the copper, lead, tin, and iron miners part
with their surplus to the 'System,' it means higher prices to the people
for their copper pots and gutters, for the water that comes through lead
pipes, for their tin dippers and wash boilers, and for their rents, and
all those necessities into which machinery, lumber, and other raw and
finished material enters. You know that every hundred millions dropped by
real producers to the brigands of our world means lower wages or less of
the necessities and luxuries for all the people, and especially for the
farmer. You know that it is habit with us of Wall Street to gloat over the
doctrine of the 'System,' which the people parrot among themselves, the
doctrine that the people at large are not affected by our gambling,
because they, the people, having no surplus to gamble with, never come
into Wall Street. And yet, knowing all this, you never thought, with all
your wisdom and cynicism, that right here in this institution, which you
own and control, was the open sesame, for each or all of you, to those
great chests of gold that your clients, the 'System,' have filled to
bursting from the stores of the people. What, I ask, do you wise men think
of the situation as you now see it?"
There was an oppressive stillness on the floor.
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