CHAPTER XVII 



SPECULATION 



THERE are in the higher courts in the United States to-day one 

 thousand judges, more or less, whose duty it is to interpret the 

 Federal and State laws. That such a large body of specially trained 

 men is necessary to construe the meaning of carefully-framed 

 statutes illustrates very strikingly the looseness of meaning which 

 is likely to attach to even deliberately chosen words. Little won- 

 der is it, therefore, that many words current in the daily speech 

 of the people have such a looseness and vagueness of meaning that 

 they mean different things to different people, and to the same 

 people at different times. The word speculation is a word which 

 stands out conspicuously in this class 'of populaf but indefinite 

 terms. This means that there is confused thinking on this import- 

 ant topic, where clear thinking is needed. There is vagueness 

 where there should be sharp distinctions. Before discussing what 

 speculation is, what its services are and its evils, it will be the 

 wisest course for us to differentiate sharply a few terms which 

 are frequently confused with speculation. 



Some Misused Terms. (1) Hoarding. In times of stress, 

 particularly in war times or in times of great scarcity of any focd 

 commodity, the word " hoarding" is freely used in a depreciative 

 sense. It is true that in ordinary times, when the thrifty house- 

 wife stocks up her cellars in the autumn with an ample hoard of 

 apples, potatoes, cabbages, turnips, pickles, preserves, jellies, 

 jams, butters, canned fruits and vegetables, and so on, she is 

 considered as doing a highly praiseworthy thing. When a dealer, 

 however, buys from the farmer in the autumn apples and potatoes 

 and stores these in a suitable warehouse, for use later on, this 

 dealer is likely to be denounced as a speculator and guilty of 

 " hoarding." If apples and potatoes are harvested only in the 

 warmer months of the year, which is nature's provision, and if 

 these same products are to be eaten in part in the cold months of 

 the year, which is man's custom, manifestly these products must 

 be "hoarded" by somebody, who is performing thereby a public 

 service. In the ancient sense of the word, hoarding implied 

 secrecy, but as the term is now applied to the dealers in agricul- 

 tural products it has no such connotation. Potatoes stored in a 

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