Speculators and extortioners.
There are many people in the
United States, and we fear not a few in this country, to whom this war is a perfect godsend.
Whilst others are made miserable by it beyond what they had ever imagined of human misery, whilst the blood of brave and glorious men is poured out like water, and whilst bereaved hearts bleed more slowly to death at their solitary firesides; whilst over every human soul rests the shadow of a great public calamity, and men tread solemnly, as on the verge of the unknown world; whilst, darker and drearier than all this, thousands and tens of thousands are applied by the terrible apprehension that those who are dearer to them than life itself may be deprived of the means of subsistence and cast upon the cold totalities of the world; whilst the destinies of the most generous, pure, and gallant people under the can tremble in the balance, there are men, or beings in human form, who rejoice in their inmost souls in this war; who wish that it would last till he crack of doom, and who hover with the keen scent of vultures over the carrion of the battle field, eager to thrust their venomous beaks into the heart's blood of the heroes and demigods of the world.
These indescribable wretches, who never in times of peace were able to earn an honest subsistence, have grown rich amidst the rank luxuriance of decay and death, and have no other wishes than to strike the roots of their pestiferous fortunes deeper and deeper into the mould that covers dead men's graves.
They are eager beyond measure that the war should be indefinitely protracted without any decisive results.
Peace which would bring light to so many dim eyes, and bloom to so many faded checks, would chill them to the soul.--These are the man who in the
United States are most active in-keeping the war spirit alive, and, that we should say it, there are in the
South speculators and extortioners as greedy and as base as the most mercenary Yankee who is urging on the people of his country to new scenes of blood and desolation that he may line his dirty pockets with fresh heaps of gold.
It will never do to talk of
Jews and
Yankees whilst we have amongst us Christian Southron who surpass Shylock in their rapacity for lucre, and throw Yankeedom into the shade by their greediness for grand speculations.
Much of the outcry against the Jews is a more device to divert attention from the shark-like appetites of a good many people who call themselves Christians and patriots.
It is in bad taste, at the best, to say nothing of its injustice.
Some of the most liberal and generous men we have ever met were Jews.
It would be difficult to find anywhere two more princely-hearted gentlemen than the late
Judah Toure, of New Orleans, and
M. M. Noah, of New York.
We should like to find one of the revilers of their rase who would do what
M. M. Noah did when
Sheriff of New York during the prevalence of the yellow fever — release all the prisoners for debt that they might get out of the way of the pestilence, and thereby become responsible for all their liabilities; or what
Mr. Tourn did,--build a church out of his own private purse for a Christian minister.
Even if it ware true that the Jews have no strong cause of nationality except that which centres in
Jerusalem, and vainly looks forward to a Messiah who has long ago come, what cause of nationality have those so called Christians these natives of the
South who are at this moment willing and eager to sell the independence of their country for a vile mess of pottage?
They know that speculation and extortion are the only perils that intervene between this glorious land and its entire deliverance, and yet they persist in speculating and extorting, in hoarding up the staff of life, that they may make fact gains from the necessities of the people, careless whether the result be the ruin and destruction of the noblest cause for which Christians ever prayed and heroes fought and fall.
Of all the passions, this sordid last for gain is one of the violent and most grovelling.
In the Scriptures the love of money is described as the root of all evil, and extortioners are classed with where mongers, drunkards, murderers, and other reprobates, who are sure of eternal fire.
Let every high-minded man assist in bringing public opinion to bear upon these enemies of mankind, in making them feel through their seven-fold shield of brass that they are and selected, loathed and execrated by the universal heart of humanity.
