STOCK SPECULATION—DANGERS AND BENEFITS 147
pioneer. It is here, through the great banking institutions, the
investment houses, and the Stock Exchange, that the pioneering
capital of the nation sustains the present-day adventures of
discoverers and inventors. This adventurous spirit of the
modern capitalist, expressed in the acquisition of speculative
shares, is a most essential forerunner to progress. It is closely
akin, as Mr. Van Antwerp has pointed out,*® to that spirit of
“divine unrest” which every active and enterprising man possesses.
Remove speculation from society and you would emasculate
the creative instinct and the forward-looking energies of
the human race.
Modern Civilization Built upon Risks.—Tt is not until
speculation is crippled or temporarily withdrawn that we see it
in its true perspective as a necessary, energizing, and creative
economic force. If suddenly speculation could be abolished,
not merely new inventions and further progress would be
halted. Even established enterprises and existing organizations
could no longer be carried on without it. It is not until times
of economic stress and uncertainty come on, that men realize
upon what frail and tenuous foundations our boasted modern
civilization rests. Governments, as well as private corporations,
have their financial risks, which are borne largely by
investors and speculators who purchase their bond issues
through the stock exchanges. The modern world has permitted
the manufacture of credit instruments whereby its governments
capitalize their future taxing power, and its business corporations
capitalize their future earning power. It has built up a
vast city life upon the sensitive and delicate mechanism of
paper and metallic currency. It has become so accustomed to
presuppose the speculator in all these things and countless
others as well that it no longer appreciates the risk and burden
of the world’s business which he bears. And when the ignorant
and violent political theorist lays violent hands upon the specu-Tw
See Van Antwerp, p. 35
