72 OPIi<IONS OF MARKET WRECKING. 



iu it; the latter does as much, and besides injures the farmer morally and materially 

 although he be a thousand miles away; materially, for it makes him pay heavy losses on 

 a game in which he does not participate; morally, for it tends to undermine his patriotic 

 regard for a government that permits such injury to be inflicted u\>iiu him, and drives 

 him to adopt questionable methods of self protection. 



"Organized society has neithersoul or future; it must take its punishment asitgoes 

 along. The sin of omission which permits a gigantic scheme of gambling under pretense 

 of commerce, involving in its evil effects the innocent with the guilty, will not escape 

 retribution. 



"Congress recently adopted measures designed to prevent, to the extent of con- 

 gressional authority, the business of the Louisiana lottery and the moral sense of the 

 entire community sustained it in the act. 



"Lotteries are wrong and demoralizing, and yrt they injure only those who volun- 

 tarily become their victims. Board of Trade gambling, on the contrary, while equally 

 wrong and demoralizing to the participants does immense injury to vast numbers of peo- 

 ple who have nothing whatever to do with it. As long as this form of ganililincr — which 

 is as bad morally as the worst — is permitted we can Imrdly escape the convicliiju of hav- 

 ing strained at the lottery gnat and swallowed the Board of Trade camel. Can the nation 

 aflTord further responsibility for a monster gambling scheme which inflicts great loss 

 upon so large a number of its most ind,ustrious and worthy citizens, even when they take 

 no voluntary part in the game? Is it not the duty of the nation to protect its citizens 

 from injuries against which no prudence or foresight on their part can shield them? Can 

 it hope for the patriotic affection of those whom it does not protect ? Is it not high time 

 that the moral sense of the country was aroused on this subject? This nation can not 

 afford to ignore the existence of a moral cancer so gigantic, knowing it to be a moral can- 

 cer. That it does know the immorality of gambling is proven by the manner in which 

 it treats oiher forms of the evil that are far less harmful. 



"Nor should the high social position, wealth or church connection of its votaries 

 deter us from laying bare this iniquity, or the cry of paiu that comes from the brown 

 stone fronts stay the hand that holds the knife that is to rid the nation of this festering 

 ulcer." 



-■<••►- 



THE VALUE OF A TR.\DE JOURNAL'S DATA. 



L mg before the writer began the systematic investigation of the world's food sup- 

 ply he had become convinced that much of the so-called data, as to production and con- 

 sumption, floating through the columns of the daily papers was either manufactured for 

 a purpose or was of a fugitive character; originating ii" one knew where; without parent- 

 age; utterly valueless and misleading; but while somewhat distrustful of some of the 

 tabular statements of the special trade journals — distrustful because of a lack of even ap- 

 parent accord emanatingfrom the same and variant sources — yet it was supposed thatthe 

 conductors of reputable journals at least would exercise due care and diligence in procuring 

 and tabulating reliable data, and in every case where official data was obtainable such 

 alone would be used and every precaution taken to verify even official statements of which 

 quantities and values formed a constituent part. 



When a journal sets itself up as an instructor of the public and a purveyor of in- 

 formation, simple justice and honesty render it obligatory upon its conductors that they 

 exercise the utmost care to not only secure all and the latest available data and informa- 

 tion, but that it shall be of the highest possible character, and a journal failing to do this 

 writes itself down a pretender and charlatan, securing attention and the money of its 

 patrons by false and fraudulent ])retenses. Such a journal is clearly entitled to neither 

 confidence nor consideration at the hands of the people it has deceived and defrauded. 



Busy men are unable to make original investigations, and rely upon specialists to 

 do it and make publication in tiade journals, and readily pay for such services— and the 

 writer, like other busy men had, from its reinilatiou, been led to accept the statements of 



