Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/549

Rh it will blow. He can bend before it and rise up when it is over. He can watch his chances, and he has the means to turn them to his advantage. He commands the situation, and can take care not to become its victim; and he covers his risks by making the poor man pay their cost; for the poor man, living from hand to mouth on his daily earnings, is the slave of his necessities. The vicissitudes of the great business world overtake him unawares, for he has not the opportunity to watch the workings of hidden forces; and even if he had that opportunity, what means would he have to avail himself of this knowledge? what means to provide for the changes of fortune? He cannot, amid the fluctuations of values, speculate on a rise or on a fall, for what he receives for his labor he has to use at once just as he receives it, for bread to feed his family, or for clothing to cover them, or if he saves any thing, his savings may depreciate in his own hand while that hand holds them, small as they are; and what means has he to make up for the loss? His savings are too small for speculative operation.

The great steamer of five thousand tons may defy the storm and break her course through the angriest sea with scarcely impeded strength, but the poor fisherman's boat is helpless against the gale, and without resistance dashed upon the rocks by overpowering waves. The poor man is the helpless victim, and nothing but the victim, of that tricky game which a fluctuating paper money enables the rich to play with the poor man's fortunes.

You speak of the distress of those who this day are without work and without bread. What has caused that distress? It was caused by a crisis, a collapse of speculation, grown up under the auspices of that same paper-money system which you now strive to confirm and strengthen in all its iniquitous influences, to bring on