entitled to his commissions as any hard-working
mechanic is entitled to his day's wages. Any man has as much right
to make money by the going up of stocks as by the going up of sugar,
rice, or tea. The inevitable board-book that the operator carries in
his hand may be as pure as the clothing merchant's ledger. It is
the work of the brokers to facilitate business; to make transfer of
investment; to watch and report the tides of business; to assist the
merchant in lawful enterprises.

Because there are men in this department of business, sharp,
deceitful, and totally iniquitous, you have no right to denounce the
entire class. Importers, shoe-dealers, lumbermen, do not want to be
held responsible for the moral deficits of their comrades in business.
Neither have you a right to excoriate those who are conscientiously
operating through the channels spoken of. If they take a risk, so do
all business men. The merchant who buys silk at five dollars per yard
takes his chances; he expects it to go up to six dollars; it may fall
to four dollars. If a man, by straightforward operations in stocks,
meets with disaster and fails, he deserves sympathy just as much as he
who sold spices or calicoes, and through some miscalculation is struck
down bankrupt.

We have no right to impose restrictions upon this class of men that
we impose upon no other. What right have you to denounce the operation
"buyer--ten days" or "buyer--twenty days," when you take a house,
"buyer--three hundred and sixty-five days?" Perhaps the entire payment
is to be made at the end of a year, when you do not know but that, by
that time, you will be penniless. Give all men their due, if you would
hold beneficent influence over them. Do not be too rough in pulling
out the weeds, lest you uproot also the marigolds and verbenas. In
the Board of Brokers there are some of the most conscientious,
upright Christian men of our cities--men who would scorn a lie, or a
subterfuge. Indeed, there are men in these boards who might, in some
respects, teach a lesson of morality to other commercial circles.

I will not deny that there are special temptations connected with this
business even when carried on legitimately. So there are dangers to
the engineer on a railroad. He does not know what night he may dash
into the coal-train. But engines must be run, and stocks must be sold.
A nervous, excitable man ought to be very slow to undertake either the
engine or the Stock Exchange.