ction
should become necessary, the people should willingly face the failure
and destruction of one-half the banking institutions of New York if by
doing so they could absolutely destroy the "System." But do not
misunderstand me--the simultaneous withdrawal of the people's savings
from the banks and trust companies throughout the United States would be
such a terrible temporary hardship that nothing could justify it but the
absolute necessity for uprooting and eradicating the "System"; I should
not hesitate, however, to face the full responsibility for such a move
if the "System" cannot be destroyed in any other way, even though I were
sure I should be lynched or torn limb from limb by those people who have
been crazed and deluded, not by my teachings, but by the damnable
doctrines and acts of the "System" and its votaries.

6. I am well aware that the result of the people's selling their stocks
and bonds in concert and the withdrawal of their savings would bring a
tremendous drop in the price of stocks and bonds. _This is what I am
working for_, but I am proceeding in such a way that I believe when the
crash comes the people will be free from their stocks and bonds. Your
proposition that the bears will be the only beneficiaries I regard as
rot; on the contrary, I know that the people will benefit a dollar where
the combined bears will benefit a cent. Pardon my giving you here an A B
C lesson in finance--I know a bear is no more dishonest than a bull.
When a man tries to put up the price of stocks and bonds, he is a bull.
When he tries to put them down, he is a bear. If a bull tries to put
prices to a point of fair worth, he is an honest bull. When he tries to
put them any higher than fair worth, he is a dishonest bull, for he does
so for the purpose of obtaining from the one to whom the stocks are sold
a greater gain than he is entitled to, and always by false pretences.
When a bear tries to put stocks from an artificially high price to their
fair worth, he is an honest bear. When he tries to put them any lower,
he is a dishonest bear, because he does so for the purpose of purchasing
from their owners stocks or bonds at less than their fair price, that he
may pocket the difference between the artificially low price he makes
and the higher price at which he has sold, and this profit is procured
by false pretence. You, and thousands like you, should get out of your
heads the false notion that a bear is necessarily less hon