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president destroying the private credit of the country and for dis. turbing confidence when he did nothing more than declare that all dis honest men should be punished, rich as well as poor. "The earning capacity of no establishment in the United States was atlected; the dividends of no corporation were reduced; there was no cessation of business in any line of activity througout the entire country and while the gamblers were forcing down stocks on Wall street, the prices of wheat and corn and other agricultural products were soaring to almost un precedented figures. The runs on the banks in New York were due directly to the lamentations of the gamblers who frightened honest depositors and sent them to draw out their deposits. After the collapse of the copper ring and the scandalous exposures as to the methods employed by Heinze, and his associate promoters, no one could be expected to trust them or to trust the banks which they had been manipulating. "The cataclysms will occur at intervals so long as people are permitted to buy and sell stocks, grain, cotton and other things on margins, but there does not seem to be any way of preventing them. The laws of France prohibit gambling in govern ment securities. Section 422 of the French penal code defines gambling as "Any agreement to sell or deliver government securities which the seller cannot prove to have been in his possession at the time of the agreement." "The penalty is imprisonment for not less than two months or more than two years, with a fine of not less than 1,000 francs nor more than 20,000 francs for each offense, and after the period of imprisonment the offender may be placed under surveillance for not less than five or more than ten years and be required to report all his financial transactions to the gov ernment. "Speculation in government securities and in food products is also prohib. ited in Germany, Switzerland and in several other European states and twelve or fifteen years ago an earnest attempt was made to secure a law by congress to prevent speculation in ag. ricultural products. "If Heinze and his crowd had not been permitted to buy and sell copper on margins the disaster that finally overcame them would not have occurred. If they had been compelied to pay the full value of every share of stock they bought, or if they had been compelled to exact the full purchase price of every share of stock they sold there could have been no such complications as those in which they be came entangled, and in which hundreds of thousands of innocent holders of stock in copper mines throughout the country have been involved. If it had not been for the collapse of the copper ring the Knickerbocker Trust company would not have been compell. ed to close its doors and the panic on the stock exchange would not have OC. curred, and yet the president of the
