p. 16 | Piling up Money

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 24, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 39.

Piling up Money

Piling up Money.—James (chapter 5) calls it heaping up treasure. As an instance of this, take the United States Steel Corporation. When the companies that form it were merged, it was felt necessary to guarantee it by a syndicate, and J. P. Morgan & Co. formed the syndicate of guarantors, some 200 bankers and capitalists. The guarantors agreed to advance to these merged interests any sum not to exceed $200,000,000 within fifteen months. They only advanced $25,000,000 for eight months. "For this service," the New York World tells us, "the syndicate's profits up to this time have been $30,000,000, and its ultimate total profits can not be less than $56,500,000. This is at the rate of 220 per cent. on the actual money invested. Morgan & Co.'s own share of the total profits will be $11,300,000—a very modest sum indeed, considering that Mr. Morgan was the chief engineer of the whole enterprise. Never before in the history of the world has money been made so fast and in such vast sums in any country as in ours to-day. The anti-trust laws plainly say: 'Thou shalt not combine in a trust, or in any other way, to control production and prices.' But the merger-makers, coining money by the millions, blithely say: 'We care not who makes the laws of a nation, if we can underwrite its monopolies.' The sad end predicted by the apostle will surely come to pass. James 5:1.

It is not by earthly influence, by famous men, by human device, that God's cause is carried forward. God can use all these, if they are consecrated to Him; but He is not dependent upon them; and if they are not consecrated to His service, they are a hindrance, a drag, not a help. "Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."