know that we have nothing to give them in return for what they bring to us.  You know that every dollar of the billions lost in Wall Street means higher prices for steel rails, for lumber and cars, and that this means higher passenger and freight rates to the people.  You know that when the manufacturer brings his wealth to Wall Street and is robbed of it, he will add something to the price of boots and shoes, cotton and woollen clothes, and other necessities that he makes and that he sells to the people.  You know that when the copper, lead, tin, and iron miners part with their surplus to the ‘System,’ it means higher prices to the people for their copper pots and gutters, for the water that comes through lead pipes, for their tin dippers and wash boilers, and for their rents, and all those necessities into which machinery, lumber, and other raw and finished material enters.  You know that every hundred millions dropped by real producers to the brigands of our world means lower wages or less of the necessities and luxuries for all the people, and especially for the farmer.  You know that it is habit with us of Wall Street to gloat over the doctrine of the ‘System,’ which the people parrot among themselves, the doctrine that the people at large are not affected by our gambling, because they, the people, having no surplus to gamble with, never come into Wall Street.  And yet, knowing all this, you never thought, with all your wisdom and cynicism, that right here in this institution, which you own and control, was the open sesame, for each or all of you, to those great chests of gold that your clients, the ‘System,’ have filled to bursting from the stores of the people.  What, I ask, do you wise men think of the situation as you now see it?”

There was an oppressive stillness on the floor.  The great crowd, which now contained nearly all the members of the Exchange, listened with bulging eyes and open mouths to the revelations of their fellow member.  From time to time, as Bob Brownley poured forth his shot and shell of deadly logic, from the vast mob that now surrounded the Exchange rose a hoarse bellow of impatience, for few in that dense throng outside could understand the silence of the gigantic human crusher, which between the hours of ten and three was never before known to miss a revolution except while its victims’ hearts and souls were being removed from its gears and meshes.

Bob Brownley paused and looked down into the faces of the breathless gamblers with a contempt that was superb.  He went on: 

“Men of Wall Street, it is writ in the books of the ancients that every evil contains within itself a cure or a destroyer.  I do not pretend that what I am revealing to you is to you a cure for this hideous evil, but I do say that what I am giving you is a destroyer for it, and that while it will be to the world a cure, it may leave you in a more fiery hell than the one of which you now feel the flames.  I do not care if it does.  When I am through,