Rocky Ford enterprise., 1908-01-10
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do" or at least the local branch oi
It. has received a severe jolt. know
this joke is rather grim one. but
then the fellows who were so eager
to join should try to see the fun in
il. As Ella Wheeler Wilcox has
phiiosophieaiiy remarked: II is easy
enough to be jolly when life flows
along like 4 song. but tho booster
worth while Is the booster who'll
smile when everything goes dead
wrong. And this is surely the time
for the booster to smile.
Confidence Is good thing when
you don't prove to have too much OF
IL. Confidence is a good thing to
have in your wife or your husband.
but even then Il may be exaggerated
and overdone. Neither an affection
nor a business can be always and en-
tifely maintained on confidence.
Those who charge President Roose-
welt with destroying business conf
denee should remember that we have
been getting desperately near the
point where confidence was about all
we had left. With different kind OF
a president the balloon might have
gone a little higher. certainly. But
then. the farther you fall the harder
you strike. and the higher you
bounce. The President has surely
done us kindness u he has called
US down before we had nothing left
but coincidence" as an asset.
! was in Denver several days last
week and didn't meet single ICON.
hdenee man" on Seventeenth street.
They seemed to be all in their of.
fees up in the big ten story build.
ings. ] met one Of them up there.
And when took him to task for get
ting number of my aequain,anees
into a business investment; that was
- the time paying a reasonable prof
i, and then after paying them ono
small dividend turning il into a stock
jobbing exploitation scheme. he go;
on his dignity and resented the impu-
'a'ion ,ha; there was anything wrong
in the scheme. The honorable gen.
tlcmcn of the board of directors
whose names furnished the Conf
dcnce" asset had bungicd the busi-
ness. he was free to admit. but then
their motives were all right. There
fore il was an insult to question their
methods. II Prcsidcn, Roosevelt has
destroyed the confidence game" OF
the country he has done il simply by
questioning the methods. That Is all
the policeman docs with the solicit
ous fellow who meets you on arrival
IN the city and takes you for an old
friend he knew back east.
1t is painfully true that we arc all
quito anxious to get as much as we
can ioi as little as We can-unmind-
sul OF the fact that whatever we get
somebody has to produce. But when
the difference gets so wide between
the dividends on real tangible invest
mcnts and the dividends on conf.
dcnee", it isn't much wonder that the
producing masses" get sore at the
confidence Glasses" Even those
who have due appreciation of ex-
eeutivc skill and responsibility come
to sympathizc with the plodding, tim
id producer of actual wealth when
something happens that shows him
how hard it is to distinguish between
executive ability and bluff-some-
thing that shows man drawing sal
ary and dividends from stocks man
ufactured out of confidence"
We have worked the incorporation
scheme to pretty near the limit. It
is the incorporation rather than the
Corporation" that lies at the bottom
of Our bed mattress as well as
making our roadway rocky. There
would be no divorce evil If the mar
riage evil didn't previously exist. The
old-fashioned partnership law that
held each member of firm respon-
sible for all its debts has, in the in.
the incorporation laws that hold no.
body in particular responsible and
permit imitation to the limit of "con-
hdence," If President Roosevelt can
get us back to some degree of indi-
vidual responsibility for the schemes
we float he will deserve better things
OF this and later generations than a
third term can give him. He will
stop whole lot of shell games and
put lot of promoters" back in the
wage-earning class.
In short the confidence" game has
run its limit. Hard times have come
again, not only for the confidence
man but for the man who furnished
the confidence. We have got to go