Chapter 2

To a mind so
tainted, will flock stories of consummate craft, of effective knavery, of
fraud covered by its brilliant success. At times, the mind shrinks from
its own thoughts, and trembles to look down the giddy cliff on whose edge
they poise, or over which they fling themselves like sporting sea-birds.
But these imaginations will not be driven from the heart where they have
once nested. They haunt a man's business, visit him in dreams, and
vampire-like, fan the slumbers of the victim whom they will destroy. In
some feverish hour, vibrating between conscience and avarice, the man
staggers to a compromise. To satisfy his conscience he refuses to _steal_;
and to gratify his avarice, he _borrows_ the funds;--not openly--not of
owners--not of men: but of the till--the safe--the vault!

He resolves to restore the money before discovery can ensue, and pocket
the profits. Meanwhile, false entries are made, perjured oaths are sworn,
forged papers are filed. His expenses grow profuse, and men wonder from
what fountain so copious a stream can flow.

Let us stop here to survey his condition. He flourishes, is called
prosperous, thinks himself safe. Is he safe, or honest? He has stolen, and
embarked the amount upon a sea over which wander perpetual storms; where
wreck is the common fate, and escape the accident; and now all his chance
for the semblance of honesty, is staked upon the return of his
embezzlements from among the sands, the rocks and currents, the winds and
waves, and darkness, of tumultuous speculation. At length dawns the day of
discovery. His guilty dreams have long foretokened it. As he confronts the
disgrace almost face to face, how changed is the hideous aspect of his
deed, from that fair face of promise with which it tempted him!
Conscience, and honor, and plain honesty, which left him when they could
not restrain, now come back to sharpen his anguish. Overawed by the
prospect of open shame, of his wife's disgrace, and his children's
beggary, he cows down, and slinks out of life a frantic suicide.

Some there be, however, less supple to shame. They meet their fate with
cool impudence; defy their employers; brave the court, and too often with
success. The delusion of the public mind, or the confusion of affairs is
such, that, while petty culprits are tumbled into prison, a cool,
calculating and immense scoundrel is pitied, dandled and nursed by a
sympathizing community. In the broad road slanting to the rogue's retreat,
are seen the officer of the bank, the agent of the state, the officer of
the church, in indiscriminate haste, outrunning a lazy justice, and
bearing off the gains of astounding frauds. Avarice and pleasure seem to
have dissolved the conscience. _It is a day of trouble and of perplexity
from the Lord._ We tremble to think that our children must leave the
covert of the family, and go out upon that dark and yeasty sea, from whose
wrath so many wrecks are cast up at our feet. Of one thing I am certain;
if the church of Christ is silent to such deeds, and makes her altar a
refuge to such dishonesty, the day is coming when she shall have no altar,
the light shall go out from her candlestick, her walls shall be desolate,
and the fox look out at her windows.

11. EXECUTIVE CLEMENCY, by its frequency, has been a temptation to
Dishonesty. Who will fear to be a culprit when a legal sentence is the
argument of pity, and the prelude of pardon? What can the community expect
but growing dishonesty, when juries connive at acquittals, and judges
condemn only to petition a pardon; when honest men and officers fly before
a mob; when jails are besieged and threatened, if felons are not
relinquished; when the Executive, consulting the spirit of the community,
receives the demands of the mob, and humbly complies, throwing down the
fences of the law, that base rioters may walk unimpeded, to their work of
vengeance, or unjust mercy? A sickly sentimentality too often enervates
the administration of justice; and the pardoning power becomes the
master-key to let out unwashed, unrepentant criminals. They have fleeced
us, robbed us, and are ulcerous sores to the body politic; yet our heart
turns to water over their merited punishment. A fine young fellow, by
accident, writes another's name for his own; by a mistake equally
unfortunate, he presents it at the bank; innocently draws out the large
amount; generously spends a part, and absent-mindedly hides the rest.
Hard-hearted wretches there are, who would punish him for this! Young men,
admiring the neatness of the affair, pity his misfortune, and curse a
stupid jury that knew no better than to send to a penitentiary, him, whose
skill deserved a cashiership. He goes to his cell, the pity of a whole
metropolis. Bulletins from Sing-Sing inform us daily what Edwards[1] is
doing, as if he were Napoleon at St. Helena. At length pardoned, he will
go forth again to a renowned liberty!

If there be one way quicker than another, by which the Executive shall
assist crime, and our laws foster it, it is that course which assures
every dishonest man, that it is easy to defraud, easy to avoid arrest,
easy to escape punishment, and easiest of all to obtain a pardon.

12. COMMERCIAL SPECULATIONS are prolific of Dishonesty. Speculation is the
risking of capital in enterprises greater than we can control, or in
enterprises whose elements are not at all calculable. All calculations of
the future are uncertain; but those which are based upon long experience
approximate certainty, while those which are drawn by sagacity from
probable events, are notoriously unsafe. Unless, however, some venture, we
shall forever tread an old and dull path; therefore enterprise is allowed
to pioneer new ways. The safe enterpriser explores cautiously, ventures at
first a little, and increases the venture with the ratio of experience. A
speculator looks out upon the new region, as upon a far-away landscape,
whose features are softened to beauty by distance; upon a _hope_, he
stakes that, which, if it wins, will make him; and if it loses, will ruin
him. When the alternatives are victory, or utter destruction, a battle
may, sometimes, still be necessary. But commerce has no such alternatives;
only speculation proceeds upon them.

If the capital is borrowed, it is as dishonest, upon such ventures, to
risk, as to lose it. Should a man borrow a noble steed and ride among
incitements which he knew would rouse up his fiery spirit to an
uncontrollable height, and borne away with wild speed, be plunged over a
precipice, his destruction might excite our pity, but could not alter our
opinion of his dishonesty. He borrowed property, and endangered it where
he knew that it would be uncontrollable.

If the capital be one's own, it can scarcely be risked and lost, without
the ruin of other men. No man could blow up his store in a compact street,
and destroy only his own. Men of business are, like threads of a fabric,
woven together, and subject, to a great extent, to a common fate of
prosperity or adversity. I have no right to cut off my hand; I defraud
myself, my family, the community, and God; for all these have an interest
in that hand. Neither has a man the right to throw away his property. He
defrauds himself, his family, the community in which he dwells; for all
these have an interest in that property. If waste is dishonesty, then
every risk, in proportion as it approaches it, is dishonest. To venture,
without that foresight which experience gives, is wrong; and if we cannot
foresee, then we must not venture.

Scheming speculation demoralizes honesty, and almost necessitates
dishonesty. He who puts his own interests to rash ventures, will scarcely
do better for others. The Speculator regards the weightiest affair as only
a splendid game. Indeed, a Speculator on the exchange, and a Gambler at
his table, follow one vocation, only with different instruments. One
employs cards or dice, the other property. The one can no more foresee the
result of his schemes, than the other what spots will come up on his
dice; the calculations of both are only the chances of luck. Both burn
with unhealthy excitement; both are avaricious of gains, but careless of
what they win; both depend more upon fortune than skill; they have a
common distaste for labor; with each, right and wrong are only the
accidents of a game; neither would scruple in any hour to set his whole
being on the edge of ruin, and going over, to pull down, if possible, a
hundred others.

The wreck of such men leaves them with a drunkard's appetite, and a
fiend's desperation. The revulsion from extravagant hopes, to a certainty
of midnight darkness; the sensations of poverty, to him who was in fancy
just stepping upon a princely estate; the humiliation of gleaning for
cents, where he has been profuse of dollars; the chagrin of seeing old
competitors now above him, grinning down upon his poverty a malignant
triumph; the pity of pitiful men, and the neglect of such as should have
been his friends,--and who were, while the sunshine lay upon his
path,--all these things, like so many strong winds, sweep across the soul
so that it cannot rest in the cheerless tranquility of honesty, but _casts
up mire and dirt_. How stately the balloon rises and sails over
continents, as over petty landscapes! The slightest slit in its frail
covering sends it tumbling down, swaying widely, whirling and pitching
hither and thither, until it plunges into some dark glen, out of the path
of honest men, and too shattered to tempt even a robber. So have we seen a
thousand men pitched down; so now, in a thousand places may their wrecks
be seen. But still other balloons are framing, and the air is full of
victim-venturers.

If our young men are introduced to life with distaste for safe ways,
because the sure profits are slow; if the opinion becomes prevalent that
all business is great, only as it tends to the uncertain, the extravagant,
and the romantic; then we may stay our hand at once, nor waste labor in
absurd expostulations of honesty. I had as lief preach humanity to a
battle of eagles, as to urge honesty and integrity upon those who have
_determined_ to be rich, and to gain it by gambling stakes, and madmen's
ventures.

All the bankruptcies of commerce are harmless compared with a bankruptcy
of public morals. Should the Atlantic ocean break over our shores, and
roll sheer across to the Pacific, sweeping every vestige of cultivation,
and burying our wealth, it would be a mercy, compared to that ocean-deluge
of dishonesty and crime, which, sweeping over the whole land, has spared
our wealth and taken our virtue. What are cornfields and vineyards, what
are stores and manufactures, and what are gold and silver, and all the
precious commodities of the earth, among beasts?--and what are men, bereft
of conscience and honor, but beasts?

We will forget those things which are behind, and hope a more cheerful
future. We turn to you, YOUNG MEN!--All good men, all patriots, turn to
watch your advance upon the stage, and to implore you to be worthy of
yourselves, and of your revered ancestry. Oh! ye favored of Heaven! with a
free land, a noble inheritance of wise laws, and a prodigality of wealth
in prospect,--advance to your possessions!--May you settle down, as did
Israel of old, a people of God in a promised and protected land;--true to
yourselves, true to your country, and true to your God.

Footnote:

[1] Monroe Edwards, a notorious forger.--ED.

ALTEMUS'
BELLES-LETTRES SERIES.

_A collection of Essays and Addresses by eminent English and American
Authors, beautifully printed and daintily bound in leatherette, with
original designs in silver._

_PRICE, 25 CENTS PER VOLUME._

INDEPENDENCE DAY, by Rev. Edward E. Hale.

THE SCHOLAR IN POLITICS, by Hon. Richard Olney.

THE YOUNG MAN IN BUSINESS, by Edward W. Bok.

THE YOUNG MAN AND THE CHURCH, by Edward W. Bok.

THE SPOILS SYSTEM, by Hon. Carl Schurz.

CONVERSATION, by Thomas De Quincey.

SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, by Matthew Arnold.

WORK, by John Ruskin.

NATURE AND ART, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

THE USE AND MISUSE OF BOOKS, by Frederic Harrison.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE: ITS ORIGIN, MEANING AND APPLICATION, by Prof. John
Bach McMaster (University of Pennsylvania).

THE DESTINY OF MAN, by Sir John Lubbock.

LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

RIP VAN WINKLE, by Washington Irving.

ART, POETRY AND MUSIC, by Sir John Lubbock.

THE CHOICE OF BOOKS, by Sir John Lubbock.

MANNERS, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

CHARACTER, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, by Washington Irving.

THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE, by Sir John Lubbock.

SELF RELIANCE, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS, by Sir John Lubbock.

SPIRITUAL LAWS, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

OLD CHRISTMAS, by Washington Irving.

HEALTH, WEALTH AND THE BLESSING OF FRIENDS, by Sir John Lubbock.

INTELLECT, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

WHY AMERICANS DISLIKE ENGLAND, by Prof. Geo. B. Adams (Yale).

THE HIGHER EDUCATION AS A TRAINING FOR BUSINESS, by Prof. Harry Pratt
Judson (University of Chicago).

MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION.

LADDIE.

J. COLE, by Emma Gellibrand.

HENRY ALTEMUS,
_507, 509, 511, 513 Cherry Street, Philadelphia._