Note 142 — CHAPTER SIX. Tricked to the Trenches—Then Snubbed.

By “clear the decks,” and “unload,” when financial storms threaten, bankers mean that any soon-to-shrink stocks and bonds held by them are to be at once sold to (dumped upon) somebody else, to let somebody else stand the certain loss—just as a sinful deacon might sell to his neighboring fellow-worshipper a horse he was sure would die next day, or as an enterprising grocer might sell a rotten lemon to a blind child. It is “legitimate.” It is “opportunity.” It is “business.” And conscience is a nuisance to some people when there is “opportunity” to do “business.”