Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1895-07-11

Limited Capital.

business men and try to oter some cura-
tive prescriptions.
Limited Capital.
In tho first place, have to remark that
q great many Of our business men feel
ruinous trials and temptations coming to
them from email and limited capital in
business. 1t is everywhere understood
that it takes now three or four times as
much to do business well as once it did.
Once a few hundred dollars were turned
into goods-the merchant would be his
own store sweeper, his own salesman, his
own bookkeeper; he would manage all the
affairs himself, and everything would be
net profit. Wonderful changes have come; f;
costly apparatus, extensive advertising, ex-
orbitant store rents, heavy taxation, ex-
pensive agencies are only parts Of the de-
mand made upon our commercial men,
and when they have found themselves in
such circumstances with small capital,
they have sometimes been tempted to run
against the rocks Of moral and financial
destruction. This temptation Of limited
capital has ruined men in two ways.
Sometimes they have shrunk down under
the temptation. They have yielded the
battle before the first shot was fired. At
the fist hard dun they surrendered. Their
knees knocked together at the fall Of the
auctioneer's hammer. They blanched at
tho financial peril. They did not under
stand that there Is such thing as heroism
In merchandise and that there are Water
loos of the counter and that a man can
fight no drawer battle with the sword than
he can with the yardstick. Their souls
melted in them because sugars were up
when they wanted to buy and down when
they wanted to sell and unstable goods
were on the shelf and bad debts in their
ledger. The gloom Of their countenances
oyershadowed even their dry goods and
groceries. Dependency, coming from linn
tied capital, blasted them. Others have
felt 1t in different way. They have said:
"Here have been trudging along l have
been trying to be honest all these years.
find 1t Is of no use. Now it Is make or
break" The small craft that could have
stood the stream is put out beyond the
lighthouse, on the great sea of speculation.
He borrows few thousand dollars from
friends who dare not refuse him, and he
goes bartering on a large scale.
He reasons in this way: Perhaps I may
succeed, and If don't I will be no worse
of than am now, for $100,0 900 taken
from nothing nothing remains" Stocks
are the dice with which he CANDLES. He
bought for few dollars vast tracts of
western land. Some man at the east, liv-
ing on fat homestead, meets this gam
bier of fortune and is persuaded to trade
of his estate for lots In western city
with large avenues, and costly palaces,
and lake steamers smoking at the wharves,
and rail trains coming down with light
ming speed from every directien. There it
Is all on paper. The city has never been
built, nor the railroads constructed, but
everything points that way, and the thing
will be done as sure as you live. Well, the
man goes on, stopping at no fraud or out
rage In his splendid equipage he dashes
past, while the honest laborer looks up
and wipes the sweat from his brow and
says, "I wonder where that man got all
his money" After awhile the bubble
bursts. Creditors rush in. The law
clutches, but finds nothing in its grasp.
The men who were swindled say, 81 don't
know how l could have ever been deceived
by that man." and the pictorials in hand.
SUlll6 WOuu CuGs Sob lOTbn tho hoEO " uo AL
ten years had genius enough to fail fol
s150,O0O.
And that is the process by which many
have been tempted through limitation Of
capital to rush into labyrinths from which
they could not be extricated. would net
want to chain honest enterprise. would
not want to block up any of the avenues
for honest accumulation that open before
young men. On the contrary, would like
to cheer them on and rejoice when they
reach the goal, but when there are such
multitudes Of men going to ruin for this
life and the life that is to come, through
wrong notions of what are lawful spheres
Of enterprise, it is the duty Of the church
Of God, and the ministers Of religion, and
the friends of all young men to utter q
plain, emphatic, unmistakabls protest
These are the influences that drown mer
In destruction and perdition.
Overanxiety.
Again, great many Of our business
men are tempted to ovsranxiety and care
You know that nearly all commercial bust
nesses are overdone in this day. Smitter
with the love Of quick gain, our cities art
crowded with men resolved to be rich al
all hazards. They do not care how money
comes, II 1t only comes. Our best NOR