St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-02-07

Office to another, bending over the tape and
talking all day long about the market, aud
predicting its course. Once in while they
put up Ave dollar bill in u bueket-shop, and
strut around like
FIGHTfNG-cOcKS
II they increase 1t to ten dollars; but that Is
the end, for they stake the ten dollrrs and
lose 1t. There are ex-railroad presidents ana
ex-bank presidents, and ey-everybodies. IL
is sad to see them, and sadder to hear them
talk, but it is the old story OF fortunes
thrown away in gambling; for Wall stree
operating, as usually conducted on margin,
is gambling, simon pure. and you cannot
make anything else of 1t. Nineteen out OF
twenty vi the men who engage in 1t lose
money. They always have some good ex-
PLANTATION of why they fail, but the fact re-
mains that they do fal-aud that should be
convincing, and should serve as warning.
Tnree-quarters of the Wall street operators
to-day are striving not to increase their for
tunes, but to get back what they have lost.
There is o fascination about winning a'few
huadred dollars that overbalances the regret
of losing few thousand. A man will lose
four times running, aud yet go in the fifth
time with an assurance within him that he
can win back all he has lost. Ii he chances
to win one thousand dollars after he has lost
four thousand, he instantly believes that nc
can make his fortune. He never loses that
belief while he has u hundred dollars re-
naming, and when the hundred is broken
he repairs to bucket shop-having become
GHOST OF WALL STREET
firm in the belief that on cash capital OF
ten or twenty dollars he will recuperate
enough to take him back into regular
brokers' office, where he will pile up the
money until he is rich again. And SO he
CANT es every cent on which he can put MS
hands. The Wall street game as played at
present is losing game, and the sooner a
man who is behind the game sewers all con-
neeton with it, the better OFF he will find
himself in the immediate hereafter. jaw
Gould did not make his money trading in
tue fluctuations Of stocks. he did IL by buy
ing entire railroads, reorganizlng them,
watering their stock, consolidating them'
and putting them on the public at an enor-
nous advance from irst cost or cost to him
self. His gigantic schemes have been ORR
ginated by him. The theory has been TO get
possession of bankrupt roads and consoli-
AAtS bhCiu an0 GIVE IuCii appearance vi
prosperity. The Wabash system is made up
of some twenty different roads, not more
than three of which were paying running ex-
penses when Gould bought them. Yet lie
threw them together and ran the price OF
preferred stock up to 81, and the common
stock up to 60, at which prices the public re-
lieved him of them aud he moved on to
fresher pastures and put up fresher jobs.
His amalgamations and his consultations
nave been on a most stupendous scale, and
have demanded the output of millions, but
they have brGu hit back tens OF millions. The
same is true, but 10 Il lesser extent. of Van
derbilt. He has increased the fortune that
MS father left to him, not by specializing in
stocks, but by solid investment and by the
increase in values of the properties that
came into his possession. The men who
have made fortunes through stock specula-
tions are indeed few. The men who have
lost fortunes in the same manner are num-
bered by thousands.