THE LESSON OF IT ALL
What is the lesson of my experience--the big broad lesson for the
American citizen? This is it:
Don't speculate in Wall Street. You haven't got a chance. The cards are
stacked by the "big fellows" and you can win only when they allow you
to. The information that is permitted to reach you as to market
probabilities through the financial columns of the daily newspapers is,
as a rule, poisoned at its fountain. It has for its major purpose your
financial undoing. Few financial writers dare to tell the whole
truth--even on the rare occasions when they are able to learn it. Most
of them are, indeed, subsidized to suppress the truth and to accelerate
public opinion in the channels that mean money in the pockets of the
securities sellers. As for the literature of stock brokers it is
generally even more misleading. Few brokers ever dare to tell the whole
truth for fear of embittering the interests and being hounded into
bankruptcy and worse.
As for myself, what excuse have I had for catering to the gambling
instinct? This is it: I thought the promoter and the public could both
win. I now know that this happens only rarely. As the game is now
generally played by the big fellows, the public hasn't got a chance.
I have not got a dollar. Who profited?
The answer is: If anybody, the aggregate. The world has been the
gainer. It is richer for the gold, the silver, the copper, and other
indestructible metals that have been brought to the surface, as a
result of this endeavor, and added to the wealth of the nation.
But for the gambling instinct and the promoter who caters to it, the
treasure-stores of Nature might remain undisturbed and fallow and the
world's development forces lie limp and impotent.
THE END