Tonopah bonanza. [volume] (Butler City [i.e. Butler], Nev.) 1901-1909, 1903-11-14
MINING STOCKS
AS INVESTMENTS
Compared With Some Other
Securities
Actual Figures Showing Profits From
The Development OF Gold
Mines.

and Engineering Review we quote a
most interesting and exhaustive
article, which gives an insight into
the virtue of mining stocks as an
investment, also the popular misap-
prehension regarding securities of
this class:
As the masses become more ecu
Gated in and conversant with the
laws which govern trade and Incl
dentally and consequently with the
art of money getting, it is noticeable
that the trend of investment is along
the lines of mining and its kindred
industries.
There are reasons for this and the
wonder is that they have not been
more apparent to investors with
limited means in the past. But it
was never the policy of masters of
finance to teach the people that more
money could be made in mining bust
ness than in any other. Bankers
and others whose interests it is to
secure for themselves and their bust
ness, money which might be diverted
TO the more profitable channel of
mining if the public should realize
what they themselves know well,
that the only chance for people of
moderate means to gain riches is
along the lines of judicious invest
ments, will not enlighten the public.
A few hundred dollars might lie in
a saving bank for half century at
3 or 81 per cent interest and at the
end of that time the depositor would
not be much richer than when he
first placed it there. But there are
thousands of instances where an in
vestment of a few hundred dollars in
mining stock has placed the investor
in the independent class, if not actu-
ally amorg the wealthy class. Why
is this? Because the investor has
done with his own money what the
banker does with the depositor S
placed it where it would earn the
most money in the shortest time.
There are bankers in every western
state who have invested heavily in
mining, but who would pooh pooh the
idea of q similar investment if con-
suited by one of their depositors.
There is food for serious thought
here.
But the people are thinking, and
the more they think about invest
ments of safe and profitable nature,
the more money enters into the
business of mining. 1t is no longer
tenable to assert that mining is a
gamble. Real mining is safer bust
ness than any other we can think of
and it certainly is more profitable.
Men who have made their millions
from mining investments are scat
tered all over the land and are living
evidences of that fact.
Sharks enter the mining business
as they do into other industries, but
the losses which are entaied by their
thieving propensities or by the silly
indiscretions of investors, who invest
first and investigate afterward,
should not be criterions of the inuus-
try. These failures though are used
to the detriment of mining, but let
us recount some of the failures in
other lines of business.
For the nine months ending Sep
TENDER 30, this year, there were
SIG failures in commercial lines in
the United States with total liabili-
ties of SOL, 655, 855, and among the
insolvent firms were sixty-seven
banks which suspended with liabilities
of So, 721 GIL, An this is not unusual
and compares favorably with some
years, for there is no prospect of
industrial depression. How does
that compare with mining?
The great mercantile agencies
record no such failures in mining
business. II half a million dollars are
lost in unwise speculation in mining
the fact is heralded all over the land,
but when SOL. 655, $50 is lost in other
it is simply commented |
~