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. The great crowd, which now
contained nearly all the members of the Exchange, listened with bulging
eyes and open mouths to the revelations of their fellow member. From time
to time, as Bob Brownley poured forth his shot and shell of deadly logic,
from the vast mob that now surrounded the Exchange rose a hoarse bellow of
impatience, for few in that dense throng outside could understand the
silence of the gigantic human crusher, which between the hours of ten and
three was never before known to miss a revolution except while its
victims' hearts and souls were being removed from its gears and meshes.

Bob Brownley paused and looked down into the faces of the breathless
gamblers with a contempt that was superb. He went on:

"Men of Wall Street, it is writ in the books of the ancients that every
evil contains within itself a cure or a destroyer. I do not pretend that
what I am revealing to you is to you a cure for this hideous evil, but I
do say that what I am giving you is a destroyer for it, and that while it
will be to the world a cure, it may leave you in a more fiery hell than
the one of which you now feel the flames. I do not care if it does. When I
am through, any member of the New York Stock Exchange who feels the iron
in his soul can get instant revenge and unlimited wealth. You who are
turning over in your minds the consideration that your great body c