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There must be a radical change made in our laws if we ever expect to
stop the sharks from preying on us. Our laws, like a hole in a fence,
makes access easy, and the endless raids will never cease until the
holes are stopped up. Constant watching, even with the light from former
experiences, will all count for nothing while those holes and breaks are
left open. The persistent work of the crew of sharpers that has the
Nicaragua canal steal in tow shows this necessity for a change in the
economic laws of the country. Duplicating the scheme by which the
Huntingtons and Oakes Ameses robbed the people they submitted their
prospectus for endorsement, and, lo, this whole coast grovels in the
dust to these new Moseses, who are to show them the way out of the
wilderness into which their original, Huntington, has led them.

The canal should be built. But the estimated cost of the whole
enterprise was $66,000,000 according to their own expert, whose report,
eight years ago, was published in "Harper's Weekly" - (published as
news, by the way, but was an advertisement, and paid for as such. And
that Julian Ralph stuff that appeared in that same weekly lately is more
of that peculiar kind of news that is being constantly ground out by the
capitalistic sharks to catch the unwary, and was paid for by Spreckels
- another Moses, that has come to the succor of our beleaguered coast.
The "Journal of Civilization" is a fit organ for the millionaire
corruptionist and the civilization that he is degrading) - and although
they have gone over the ground again and again since that report was
made, the maximum estimate is still well inside $100,000,000. Yet they
now want to issue $100,000,000 in stock; want the people to guarantee
principal and interest on $70,000,000 of bonds, and the right to issue
$30,000,000 of bonds themselves. No wonder it was called a steal on the