The representative., 1901-11-21
WASTE PAPER.
How Many Buy 1t to Get Something
Cheap.
Okolona Messenger.

Okolona Messenger.
No man can bet with safety that he is
getting what he pays for when he buys,
be the article purchased some article of
food or wearing apparel, or an interest in
some new business enterprise. Of course
there are legitimate, genuine articles pro-
duced, but the danger of being deceived lies
in the fact that the counterfeiter and the
schemer is SO adept that the average buyer
cannot detect the differences between the
real and the counterfeit. There used to be
common expression that it was legitimate
for the smart people to live off the suckers
but the difficulty now is that there does
not seem to be any point at which line
may be safely drawn. The smart man in
one line is a sucker in most others, and
naturally becomes the common prey
of the other fellow who has made
himself smart in a different role. In
other words, few men now become
so smart that they are not taken in
by some one who lays his plans to
catch smart people. And when we chase
the rainbow over the hill and watch it
blending with the fog on the next hillside,
we are simply illustrating our attitude when
trying to beat another man at his own
game. The desire to make a little money
on the side often places man in position
where he either neglects or embarasses his
legitimate business, and finally finds him
self listed among the failures, which are
recorded daily throughout the country.
That man who chooses a business which he
is determined to follow through life, and
gives his undivided and uninterrupted at
tention to that business, studying its small
est and most minute details carefully is
pretty sure of success. OF course many
find diversion and sometimes amusement
and profit in making an investment on the
side occasionally, but where there is one
case of this kind there are hundreds where
every cent SO invested is lost, followed Of
ten by the wrecking of a successful busi-
ness. And how surely the fakir who has a
trick to turn finds his way into every COM
munity where the people are prosperous
and have succeeded in laying aside few
extra dollars upon which they may specu-
late. A rich bold mine is discovered some
where away off in the Rocky mountains,
an oil well in Texas. or coal field in Ken
tucky. A few bright fellows, smart fellows,
we had better say, organize a company,
without sufficient money in their own rights
perhaps to pay for printing their station
cry ,and offer for sale the stock of their
company. If the excitement is running
high enough buyers bob up all over the
country and stock is continued on sale in
definitely, the money all drifting into the
pockets of the smart fellows, who soon fold
up their tents and silently steal away to en-
JOY the fruits of their genius and gall, leav-
ing the shareholders to wonder when div
idend will be declared on the stock they
hold. If all the fine paper upon which this
stock has been printed and sold through
out the country could be gathered up,
cleared of the ink on it and sold at pound
rates for blank paper, it would bring more
money than all the purchasers Of such
stocks have made in the aggregate from
their investments and yet smart men, men
who have turned tricks of their own, men
who have been successful in their business
avocations, 60 right along buying this kind
of stock, year after year. A great show
man, who once hourished in this country,
once said that the American people wanted
to be gulled, and that he proposed to give
them exactly what they wanted. 1t is fact
that man can find twenty men willing to
invest in delusion to one that he offers at
its real value the very thing he should pur-
chase because of its worth to him. What is
the matter with us anyway? kr
The Topeka Farmers Advocate, week
1v r,aner Of advanced economic ;deae hos