RICH BY FALSEHOOD.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4556, 11 August 1883, Page 1

RICH BY FALSEHOOD.

"Whatever prejudice may be popularly felt in America against rery rich men relates not 8« much to the fact of being rich, but as tojthe probable means by which it is acquired. A man who. succeeds by being able to look farther ahead thin other people, and to, calculate cause and effect in trade as real statesmen do in polities, is a natural financier, and is respected. Such a man may work no harder to gain a fortune than thousands who^are trying about him, and yet fail, nor does be necessarily compromise his chances for eternal happiness by success. He simply follows a natural bent, and, if successi does not deprave his manhood; he is all right. But there are rich financiers of quite another telass, and unfortunately so ■ many of them as to almost give character to the whole fraternity of rich men. They are those who, with a good deal of financiering talent, have also very unscrupulous moral natures at the outset. We do not refer to those who openly and without disguise break the laws of the land, but, instead, to the class next below them, who nominally respect the civil law, but break any moral law at any moment when the act- promises profit. The first considerable success of a : now famous millionaire is said to have been in his management of a certain railroad as its superintendent, fie secretly depressedthe stock, partly by neglect of the road-' bed and rolling stock, and partly by falsehoods about its condition, anaY when it had dropped enough to meet his then resources, with a few hundred thousand which he had scraped together, bought a majority of the stock. Then he worked it up and sold out.

'That one step outlines, not only his policy, but that of a great mass of men who are getting rich through stock speculations. Their one great business qualification is falsehood. They practice this . so much that they eventually look upon it aa a legitimate business weapon. How much harm may be done to others is not a matter: of the slightest moment. Howmach it may do to either the material or moral interests of the country at large is also a matter not to be considered. Their business is to get rich if they can, and others " must look out for themselves,"