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The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: Essays and miscellany. 1890
The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft Essays and miscellany 1890 Author:Hubert Howe Bancroft Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XIV. MONEY AND MONOPOLY. Of man's injustice why should I complaint The gods and Jove himseif, behold in vain Triumphant treason, yet no thunder fli... more »es. —Collins' There is something in the handling of money for gain that tends to the demoralization of the finer faculties. It sears the more generous feelings, and makes the heart like the metal, cold and hard. There is a difference in manipulating one's own money or another's, the former tending to the higher selfishness. There is a difference in this respect even between the commercial banker and men of the savings bank, to the disadvantage of the former, in whose occupation there is less of the sentiment of benefit to others. There are few positions more unfavorable for mind and soul development than that of bank-teller, where the man becomes a counting-machine, the mind being forced to fix itself attentively on the work in order to avoid mistakes, while ground down by dead monotony. This, however, is totally different from the occupation of the manager, who is obliged constantly to arbitrate between the interests of the bank and the necessities of applicants for loans. The aristocracy of England, when ruling trade and money-making from their higher atmosphere, could hardly have selected less improving occupations to be followed with some degree of respectability by necessitous lordlings than those of banker and jeweller. Monopoly exercises a more vicious reflex influence upon the man than usury or any other form of exacting gain from one's fellows. The system of slavery is demoralizing to the master, because no man can practice injustice toward his fellow-man without being himself injured and debased thereby. So it is with the gambler, whether in the shares of the broker's board, or in the cornering of wh...« less