[42 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
for having fallen down a well while gazing at and theorizing 
apon the stars, proceeded to give a startling proof of his prac- 
ical ability by cornering the supply of olive presses and making 
‘he king and his subjects pay through the nose for them. Even 
the much regretted short sale is at least as old as Esau, who 
sold his inheritance (which of course he didn’t own) to his 
brother for a mess of pottage.?* 
Speculation and the Growth of America.—Qf all the 
peoples of history the American people can least afford to con- 
demn speculation in those broad sweeping strokes so beloved 
of the professional reformer. The discovery of America was 
made possible by a loan based on the collateral of Queen Isa- 
bella’s crown jewels, and at interest, beside which even call 
loan interest rates look coy and bashful. Financing an unknown 
foreigner to sail the unknown deep in three cockleshell boats 
in the hope of discovering a mythical Zipangu cannot by the 
wildest exercise of language be called a “conservative invest- 
ment.” Later, the two dominant colonies on our Atlantic sea- 
yoard, Massachusetts and Virginia, were established as the 
direct result of stock speculation in London in the shares of the 
Plymouth and London companies.” Neither was the 6% loan 
of the newly established United States of America, by which 
this country was originally financed, in the modern sense of the 
word “a conservative investment,” as the old brokers under the 
buttonwood tree could testify. Moreover, our government has 
‘ime after time speculated in real estate to an advantage to the 
sublic which is simply incalculable. 
When enterprise assumed corporate form in the last cen- 
tury, our vast present-day railroad system was built primarily 
by speculators. Railroad pioneers, like the late James J. Hill, 
boldly projected their lines through the pathless forests, across 
rivers and lakes, through mountains and over mountain ranges 
with unbuilt cities and non-existent traffic in their vision. In 
22 See Genesis, XXV, 29. 
23 Qee Chanter I. po. 10.