| Show THE MAN WHO LOSES we heard that old old chestnut again the other day yes but I 1 know a man who lost money in mining the saying is about on a par with that other once popular fallacy more money is put into mining than is ever taken out we all know men and women who have lost money in mining we also know people pl who have lost money in every other human pursuit and in every industry great and small we know people who would lose in any venture people who have the not uncommon faculty of getting rid of money and who wm will back any grafter who comes along no matter how transparent ills his game V e have have lost a few hard earned dollars ourselves on smoke consumers etc the reason is lack of judgment the inability to discriminate between the wheat and the chaff between the honest man and the rogue because we bought stock in a consumer company which did not exist is no reason why we should condemn the manufacturing ring industry because friend jones made a failure of farming is no reason to suppose that all farms are failures neighbor johnson who entered the merchandising chan dising business also went broke however we do not condemn the practice of buying goods and selling them at a profit except as the high cost of living hits us personally so and smith across the street put the money his father left him into a banking venture he lost it and the failure was blamed to a dishonest cashier though most of us knew better but none of us lambart the banking business for smiths failure mining alining seems to be the only industry which is condemned because people have lost money in it and yet cef mining when conducted along business lines and by hardheaded men of experience has been proven time and again to contain less hazard than many of the so called conservative industries dus tries the fact is that when a man enters mining he is playing for big stakes if he makes good his gains are enormous and out of all proportion to the money invested originally and it is this phase which gives it its fascination and which impels people to speculate without proper investigation the successful man with money to back his judgment who invests in mining with the same care the same cautious investigation that he displays in other investments invariably makes ploney from the industry it is never said of him that he lost money in mining on the other hand the pursuit of the precious and base metals has made more wealthy men of struggling laborers than any other line of human endeavor nevertheless the censure censure directed against mining because of the man who lost is out of all proportion to the grudging credit which is accorded it because of the many who have won |
