Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1903-03-28
AS TO SPECULATION
SOME TRUTHS 1T WILL PAY YOU
TO REMEMBER-
"Oid Gorgon Graham" Pork Packer,
Chicago, Gives Few Valuable
Hints to His Son, Pierrepont-The
Only Safe Road to Follow.

Now, l want to give you that tip
on the market. There are several
reasons why it isn't safe for you to
trade on Change just now, but the
particular one is that Graham & Co.
will fire you if you do. Trading on
margin is a good deal like padding
around the edge of the old swimming
hole-it seems safe and easy at first,
but before a fellow knows it he has
stepped off the edge into deep water
The wheat pit is only thirty feet
across, but it reaches clear down to
Hell. And trading on margins means
trading on the ragged edge of moth
ing. When a man buys, he's buy
ing something that the other fellow
hasn't got. When a man sells, he's
selling something that he hasn't got.
And it's been my experience that the
net profit on nothing is nit. When
a speculator wins he don't stop till
he loses, and when he loses he can't
stop till he wins.
You have been in the packing bust
ness long enough now to know that it
takes a bull only thirty seconds to
lose his hide; and if you'll believe me
when I tell you that they can skin
bear just as quick on Change, you
won't have Board of Trade Indian
using your pelt for a rug during the
long winter months.
Because you are the son of a pork
packer you may think that you know
a little more than the next fellow
about paper pork. There's nothing
in it. The poorest men on earth are
the relations of millionaires. When
1 sell futures on Change, they're
against hogs that are travelling into
dry salt at the the rate of one a sec
ond, and if the market goes up on me
I've got the solid meat to deliver.
But, if you lose, the only part of the
hog which you can deliver is the
| squeal.
1 wouldn't bear down so hard on
| this matter if money was the only
| thing that a fellow could lose on
Change. But if clerk sells pork,
and the market goes down, he's
| mighty apt to get lot of ideas with
holes in them and bad habits as the
small change in his profits. And if
| the market goes up, he's likely to go
short his self-respect to win back his
money.
1 dwell a little on this matter of
speculation because you've got to live
next door to the Board of Trade all
know something about a neighbours
dogs before you try to pat them.
Sure Things, Straight Tips and Dead
| Cinches will come running out to
meet you, wagging their tails and
looking as innocent as if they hadn't
just killed a lamb, but they'll bite.
The only safe road to follow in specu-
lation leads straight away from the
Board of Trade on the dead run.
a. OF course the Board of Trade, and
every other commercial exchange
have their legitimate uses, but all you
need to know just now is that specu-
lation by a fellow who never owns
more pork at a time than he sees
on his breakfast plate isn't one of
them. When you become a packer
| you may go on Change as a trader;
| until then you can go there only as a
sucker.-From Letters from a Self
Made Merchant to His Son." by
George Horace Lorimer. By permits
sion of Small, Maynard & Co., Pub
fishers, Boston, Mass.