I introduce my letter to you, Mr. Jefferson Davis
Jones, with these statements, that I may the more
easily show you to yourself, and justify my opinion of
you ; for it will be hard for me to convince you and
the public of your immorality. The public mind is
thoroughly sophisticated on this subject. The public
has a suitable horror of gambling with dice and cards,



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To JefFerfon Davis Jones. 273

but is quite ready to call those most indecent and im-
moral games of chance which Wall street plays " oper-
ations in stocks." Nay, the public permits these oper-
ations to fix the prices of the property it holds in its
hands, and, indirectly, of the bread it eats. It is quite
as oblivious of the real character of the politicians who
Jead it by the nose. A clever politician, who manages
to keep power in his hands for personal and party ends
— who is unscrupulous in the choice of means for se-
curing his purposes — who is not even suspected of a
patriotic motive in any act of his life — is regarded
with a degree of admiration and esteem. He wins the
objects of his desire, and his success crowns his efforts
with respectability. Jefferson Davis, himself, finds it
for his personal and political interest to plunge the
country which has honored him into the most terrible
war known in history, and the people are filled with
horror at his treachery and his ingratitude. Jefferson
Davis Jones, actuated by the same motive, opposes
him ; and one is just as bad as the other, and owes to
circumstances, and not to his principles, the fact that
he is not in the other's shoes. If Jefferson Davis
Jones, who now prates of liberty and patriotism and
sundry party words and phrases, were in the dominions
of Jefferson Davis, he would be his most willing in-
strument, without the slightest change in the ruling
motive of his life.
