State Agricultural Society. HI 



In the first place, we have a vast aggregation of wealtli in a few 

 iiands, the ijroduct of mere accident, or the engrossment or absorp- 

 tion of the wealth of others, without the creation of any new value. 



There is anotlier class, where, by the aid of ]jreviously acquired 

 cai)ital, great abilities have created vast values not previously exist- 



The third is that large producing class, which with only that abil- 

 ity and skill which every man of average sense may easily acquire, 

 includes within it all mechanical, agricultural and laboring men. 



1 know that an attempt to even briefly state the rights, duties and 

 merits of these several classes of men is a distasteful task. I fear 

 that a large number of the citizens of California are in no mental 

 condition to look at such an attempt with favor, but I strongly hope 

 that tins audience will at least excuse one made with i)ure intentions, 

 and which shall be made in temperate language. As to these first 

 two clas.ses, wealth acquired by any process but that of labor, it be- 

 comes a source of disorder by the hatred and evil passions it excites. 

 When the turning of a stone, the fracture of a rock, like the touch of 

 the lamp of Aladdin, is seen to pour riches untold into the hands 

 alike of the ignorant and the learned, the lazy as well as the indus- 

 trious, it is difiicult for really sound and sensible, and impossible for 

 men of lower natures, to resist the temptation to abandon industry 

 and economy, for the wildest venture, if there is, in their heated 

 imagination, only a possibility of success at the end. 



The existence of tlicse great fortunes in this State peculiarly, and 

 in the nation materially, excites with the ignorant and vile hatred 

 without stint, and with many men of good intentions, a vague feeling 

 of unrest and disgust, as though they had been wronged, without 

 exactly understanding how, and were threatened with danger, the 

 nature of which they cannot comprehend. This feeling of course is 

 unauthorized and wrong. These acquisitions are lawful, and at least 

 innocent. 



But what shall we say of those which are the result of mere appro- 

 priation by one man of the fruit of another man's labor, without 

 returning him any equivalent, and this under the color of a lawful 

 contract; and what shall we say of the sound sense of a State which, 

 notwithstanding it is (luite apparent that the dangerous and desper- 

 ate classes are constantly recruited by the process, still sulier it to 

 flourish? The legalized gambling indulged in this State adds not 

 one dollar to the wealth of the community; it withdraws from hon- 

 orable and productive employment a vast aggregate of capacity, and 

 utterly debauches the moral sense of a whole State. I have no words 

 of blame for those who choose to invest their money in the turn of 

 a card, or what at best is the same thing, a turn in the stock market. 

 T leave them to state the moral character of the act, but I ask them 

 would it not be on the whole better — would it not in any event be 

 more satisfactory — to invest such ventures by starting some honest 

 man in business for which he was fitted, or yourself inaugurate some 

 industry, which, by giving employment to only a dozen girls, shall 

 tend at least to save them from a shadow that follows them like a 

 doom. 1 have said that this class of fortunes excites hatred; those 

 won by stock gambling not only seem to excite admiration, but they 

 seem to exalt their possessors to the rank of gods among men. I 

 have been told that the Stock Exchange resembles, in some respects, 

 the dance of the Eastern Fakirs, and individual performances, that 



