WHOSE OX?

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Dec 20, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 51.

WEBSTER'S old spelling book, we remember, tells the tale of a man's going to inquire of a lawyer as to what damage he, the farmer, ought to pay the lawyer as the lawyer's ox had broken into his field, had a fight with the farmer's, and the farmer's ox had killed the lawyer's. And in a very bland way the lawyer stated the price of the ox. "All right," the farmer said, " that is just about what I thought,—only your ox broke into my field, and my ox is the one that is killed." "O!" said the lawyer; and then he began to make another argument as to what duty was, and the laws of accident, chance, etc., but the farmer stopped him and said, " We will abide by your judgment. I can clearly perceive that your argument depends entirely upon whose ox is gored."

Mr. John Pierpont Morgan seems to feel about the same as the lawyer did. Report states that another capitalist, Zimmerman, has beaten him out of millions of dollars in a deal, and Mr. Morgan is greatly enraged over it, and declares that he will punish the men responsible for the affair. And yet how many during all these years of his amassing wealth has Mr. Morgan beaten—men who lost their all? The loss of ten million dollars is a mere bagatelle to Mr. Morgan. He ought to be willing to bear it with a smile; but men who bear the sway in the financial world that he and a few others do, get to thinking, after a while that they must be treated as tho they were members of the royal family, and no one must even presume to question their right to rule and reign in every affair of life. There is coming a time, and that soon, when all of them will bow before the King of Kings.