to make people rich or poor." His idea was that
individual prosperity came from each man's ability as a financier.
"Why," said he, "don't you know that if the property was all equally
divided among the people, the same people who now have it would get it
again in a very short time?" I asked him if he was willing to change
certain laws about the banking business, then divide the property and
money of the United States equally among the people? He said "he did
not want to have any such thing done." When I asked him to specifically
name his objections to such a transaction, he replied "that it would
not be fair to take what he made and give it to some one who had not
made it." Then when I reminded him that he had said he would have it
all back in a short time, he said that "if the law was changed about
banking he would not have the same chance to get it back that he now
had to keep it." I told him that I agreed with him on his last
statement, but if I should agree with him in his first statement I
could not see how the changed law and division of property would affect
his ability, and if it did affect it, then I said the banking law must
be a part of his ability. Then he replied that "banking laws were
something that our congressmen would attend to." At this part of the
conversation the train stopped and the banker bade me good-by and with
a pleasant smile greeted a crowd that was waiting at the depot to
escort him to the opera house, where he was to make a speech in favor
of a law allowing the banks to issue all the money and retire the
government from the banking business. The fellow was a candidate for
congress.

As the train left the station I took from my valise a little book of
statistics and found that 79 per cent of our Congressmen and 63 per
cent of our Senators were either bankers or bank directors, then I
thought his last remark was true, that our Congressmen would attend to
the banking laws all right, especially from a banker's point of view. I
then thought of a path up the mountain side that was so crooked a
traveler going up would meet himself coming back.

Thanks for your attention.

SPEECH DELIVERED AT JACKSONVILLE, ILLINOIS, DECEMBER 15, 1897, BY C. A.
BOGARDUS.

OUR FINANCIAL SYSTEM.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:--I am going to request my hearers
this evening to be not possessed of party prejudice. If there is any
one feature of the human mind that works more disaster to civilization
and h