What is the lesson of my experience—the big broad lesson for the American citizen? This is it:

Don't speculate in Wall Street. You haven't got a chance. The cards are stacked by the "big fellows" and you can win only when they allow you to. The information that is permitted to reach you as to market probabilities through the financial columns of the daily newspapers is, as a rule, poisoned at its fountain. It has for its major purpose your financial undoing. Few financial writers dare to tell the whole truth—even on the rare occasions when they are able to learn it. Most of them are, indeed, subsidized to suppress the truth and to accelerate public opinion in the channels that mean money in the pockets of the securities sellers. As for the literature of stock brokers it is generally even more misleading. Few brokers ever dare to tell the whole truth for fear of embittering the interests and being hounded into bankruptcy and worse.

As for myself, what excuse have I had for catering to the gambling instinct? This is it: I thought the promoter and the public could both win. I now know that this happens only rarely. As the game is now generally played by the big fellows, the public hasn't got a chance.

I have not got a dollar. Who profited?

The answer is: If anybody, the aggregate. The world has been the gainer. It is richer for the gold, the silver, the copper, and other indestructible metals that have been brought to the surface, as a result of this endeavor, and added to the wealth of the nation.

But for the gambling instinct and the promoter who caters to it, the treasure-stores of Nature might remain undisturbed and fallow and the world's development forces lie limp and impotent.

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.

Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed.