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Show Si fx? I -Mi$& you. just hov much of a MAN you are. K lfl j j I T!T7 TrjT DON'T drink more than you can handle. This means Ll I S 'rfJw J?.M& cut it out. It's better to be a 'nice fellow" W IBL B L hJP JL ft b L ON'T get too familiar with money. There's such B 6 J3-$rPm I BbWI a tnm as money perspective. Lose it and jKL y H Iff P f U L$8mW you soon hit the vanishing point. f I Jf Tk"Ba I JSMM- V -M DON'T ever give up trying to "come back." You jr S 11 If I I MSIP ' '"' 7T 11111 can do it. The man who first said "they IK mmmW rLJfc. "'' ( ' ffljS never come back" was a worse liar than V- H I BY COL. WILLIAM WAYNE BELVIN. (Formerly President of the San Francisco & Eastern Railroad and a millionaire; recently a beggar and inmate in-mate of Blackwell's Island workhouse, Now on his way hack to respectability and fortune.) 1HAVE been wined and dined by the royalty and nobility of Europe and 1 have eaten a vagrant's fare in tlio workhouse on Blackwell's (eland. f bavo floated loan? lor governments and have begged the price of u meal from strangers on Broadway. I have been associated in business with some of tho greatest men tbis country ha.-, produced and I have thrown in my lot with paupers fur a dime, I married the most beautiful and accomplished woman on the Pacific coast and she divorced me, I have been gentleman and vagrant, a plunger and a pauper, a millionaire and a derelict. The man who first said "Thev never come back" was a worse liar than Satan, and has done more mischief. mis-chief. Today, at the age of 5a, nisi out of the workhouse, without, funds, without a homo, with gnlj my wits as my capital aud my stock in-trade. I find it necessary to start all over again, I'm going to do it. This is not my swan song! .But how did it all come about? "What were the causes of my "decline and fall"? What did i, a man of education and refinement, of imagination and ideas, an ex-millionaire, learn from the level of the breadline, bread-line, the streets, the park bench that was my led as long as the kindness of the policeman held out? A beggar on Broadway I The coins that dropped into my outstretched hand were few, but the lessons borne upon me were heavy. The first of them, lAs ye sow o shall yo reap I ' ' Because my story may save others now floating freo on the high tide of fortune from one day pounding to pieces ou the shore, T am willing to write it How is your money " perspective f" That is an important im-portant question. My lack of true money ''perspective'' I pnt as the great cause of my fall. In strut justice it was also the base of my successes. I lost my money " pertpect i ve " lone before J was twenty-one. When I was eighteen my Jatbor gave me $20,000 to start in business. I had been through Bethel academy and the Miami Military school, I had com pleted in record time the course at a New York business busi-ness college. And yet. I started out with my $30,(100 with absolutely no more real business ideas than the average college boy has at my age. I had learned lessons, but X bad no more Knowledge of what they meant or their practical application than a fish. It. is the common fault of our educational methods I en-gaged en-gaged in the tobacco industry in Danville, ;i. Within it year T hail cornered the tobacco market of the BOllth and mv original capital had grown to ((300,000, Then mv father died aaid mv share of his fortune was (600,000. With this $000,000 I went to Seattle, Wash., and speculated specu-lated heavily in land and railroad interests. There I came under the DOtice of Henry Villa rd. I dabbled in millions. Lesser amounts than a hundred thousand meant nothing to inc. I wa.s only twenty-two and the beneficial check of proportion was lost to me. I could make no allowance for a "vanishing point " When Villard failed I went down with him I Not long ago I walked through Long Acre Square. It was cold and raining. I drew my thin coat around me and wondered where i would sleep. A taxlcab drew np in front of Reetor'l. Out of it stepped a business man with whom I had once put through a deal that netted each of us half a uiilliou. Prom tho taxi camo a vision in 1'ur.s and jewels. I rec-Dgnised rec-Dgnised her. She was an actress at one of tho music halls a woman who had already wrecked two men. gjjP I knew the man's wife in huppier TSSt&tifc days my wife and I had often uecn Wjfif guests at their home. I ah rank "ittifSlKSr l back so thai he would ncrt nee inc. flpsWJT- 1 naw him toss the chauffeur a bill. 1 watched it greedily beggary , sharpens our sight. It " war. $'Jt). The chaulit'ux reaefcod. down. though to make change. My old friend waved him a careless remonstrance and walked into .Rector's after the actress. Many of the jewels she wore had been bought b3 him. Their supper probably cost him close to $50 or more. The chauffeur glared at mo and went off for another "spender." I waited for a little time, watching the gayly dressed people gdng into the restaurant where once 1. too, had boon a "spender," Inside I knew my old friend was "opening wine. ' in the Broadway phrase And 1 had eaten nothing for manv hours. He does not know I saw him. but he may take my warning. His is a case of lost money 'perspective.''' Let him chock himself before he, too, becomes a derelict. After that first failure I went, out to the coast again. I had no funds, but plenty of credit and backing. And I was young. I met there Rebecca McMullin, the most beautiful of the three McMullin sisters, noted for their beauty throughout the west. J started in with railroad propositions agaiu, became president of tho San Francisco Fran-cisco ti Eastern, built one hundred ;'ud sixty miles of road and sold out to the Southern Pacific Wo made $1,800,000 profit out of the deal, of which my share was $600,000. With this money I went to England and formed a bankiug house It was the hey-day of my fortune, and mv wife and r lived at the rate of from $50,000 to $75,000 a year. Mrs. Belvin had been the belie o.l the Pacific roast; she became the belle of Europe. When she was presented to the English court, in 1892, her presentation gown of point lace cost $25,000. It was made in Brussels and took six months to complete. But that wai only one item. We entertained lavishly, and associated with royalty and nobility. L traveled back and forth between America Amer-ica and England half a dozen times a year, and always in princely style. Of coure the crush was bound to come. M i id n was all distorted. I had never seen money matters straight since boyhood Biy money and big deals had given me mental astigmatism. Things began to go wrong. A lien they got nut Q my range of vision I eouldnM stop them. And 1 couldn't see anything inside of a few millions from mv nose. That B a bad as ndt being able to see more than a dollar away from your nose. We returned to America in 1895 with my fortune Badly depleted Now here's a thing to think over. Money is a mighty dangerous thing io -t too familiar and careless with, Mbnej nowadays is power. There's something in it be yond gold Itself. Money has a weird, dangerous life of its own, There's something in it to be afraid of. You understand mo. Muvbe the thoughts of man have dwelt no it ao long- evil thoughts. apricious thoughts, life and death thoughts, all kinds of ambitions and desires I hat all this has created a spirit wo can call "The Money Devil." At any rate, it s bad to get too careless about t ho way von treat it. Oareiessness there seems to bring in other laxities. The character changes, ideals and ambitions am-bitions change. Look at the way many people change when they gnt rich suddenly. Sweetness turns to gall, simplicity to garishness, kindliness to indifference and suspicion. There eomcs a weukening of the moral fibre along other directions. And -hat is when we begin to fall. When T returned I made in Beyen years another fortune out of gold mines J had been living extravagantly as usual. I had by virtue vir-tue of actions killed my wife's love. 1 didn't realize it until too late. When lost it. T lost, the onlv thing ll, at at that time could have kept ruo balanced. I fought it because I wanted her. I lost J began to speculate heavijv. r wou and lost three Fortunes In wheat in lS!t5 and 1S97. 1 formed tho Brit-ieh Brit-ieh -American Finance company. It prospered. It was u solid concern with good men back of it. It prospered. I was president of it and owned the controlling interest It failed in 1P06 becaiifls I still oouldn 't we anything Lcsa than a million. J i 1 Then f made my third great but logical mistake i began to drink heavily, The night camo when T M, stripped without a cent, without a meal, with nothing left to pawn, no piaCc to sleep even. I stood for a whib, stupidly staring at the Broad-Wy Broad-Wy crowds. Beautiful women in silks and furs and jewels; well-groomed me., a top hats and dean Kaon. lea,, linen! The thought of it was maddening Bv p-s and by dozens they went by me, women who bore upon them jewels 1 had given them! Men who wore about to spend part of the thousands their deals With me had pnt in their pockets. And there I stood 232i ,cry T,ith DOt 0De cent iub jewels they were wearing! My InouCy thov spending! What should I do? In my dull resent- men,. I approached one 0f them, a man T had dined n dozen times. He shook his head angrily and passed on. - "These panhandlers." T heard him say to the woman beside him. J the police did their duty they d be in the workhnu.se.'7 The woman looked at me. Tn mv anger, T was following Hose behind. "ll,, doesn't seem like an ordinary beggar," she said. "Oh, well," said the man ami handed nie a quarter, And I took it! Mv anger died out T was glad in get. ,1. Think of thift yon men with money and 00 money " perspective ' who are throwing vour dollars dol-lars right and left' You will say 1 should have, had pndo and have thrown it In his face1 Von 're wrong' That kind of pndo is for the story books. When vou're in the bread line on the streets, a park bench -our bed, you soon get to know what buncombr. all that is. The price of pride then i- starvation. That quarter bought me a drink, a meal and a bed. I met a man from Chicago in Washington Square one night. I will not tell Ins name. Once it was honored m the west. 1 think that now he tie amun-the amun-the cadavers in Borne hospital dissecting mom ? Woman and a banking deal that had it gone through would have born h-ejUmare, but, failing to go through, was not. had stripped him. h I bad sought a bench farthest from the Htrht Take WARNING J Did This 11 He sat wearily beside me. ft was a strange meeting. Neither Nei-ther recognized tho other at first. We sat there, the two derelicts, heads in hand?, trying try-ing to jet a few minutes' slo p before the poli -e made us move on. At last we turned and looked at each other. "Belvin"' he gasped. We talked. I remember remem-ber his last words. "Belvin," be said, "the trouble with us men who havo been something and are now derelicts is simply that we havo no real sense of proportion. Thing? never were as good as Ihec seemed to us in our hey-lay. hey-lay. Things now are not really bad at all. What is to prevent ou and me from earning at least a dollar a day? We are strong enough even yet to j abor. And that would buy ua ill we need. But we won t do t. We thought the world owed is a living! The world owes is nothing. We won't labor because. we st.il think of lurselves as we were when we iad millions. We beg because re unconsciously think it more larmonious. We look at life h rough the same glasses we ii when we were 'spendera.' . ..-I f n k.. ll we could nu uuhwtsb vi memories or see them in their real 1 k proportions we could win success again. I ML. We look at ourselves as beggars, and 1 3j we are beggars. W "Belvin. no man throughout lire am ever really has more than what is in W himself. "The things we collect r money, women, rarefies, pictures, all if it are illusions. We are today in reality no more of a failure of a SVfCoeiS than we hae ever been, fail even realizing this, I cannot make i apply practically to my lite Ami so I am going to end it. This last act ol mine will pro 8 hotl much I lack this sense of proportion. I know there i hope, lut I won't take it; 1 know T'm down and out onlv a.- long a 1 will to be, hut T A :J can't, will otherwise! Try to see it U you can!'' S Jl Mv begging career was hort. I was not my8elf or 1 would not have ::one so low. On Blackwell's Island 1 got huck both my -igm ionic Of proportion and of money values. lb-re are my conclnsions, loarncn gearij cDuuKn. A8 SOW so shall ye also reap.'- is just as true no vet it has always been; r man never has in IMe any more Han IS in him- elf Let him develop and stfengthen himself, everv-thinc everv-thinc will come to him. Don't loan on an.oue. Don t denend on anyone. Learn rigorous seli-reiiauco. 'non't drink- Von don t have to and . sooner or later it will get the bolter of you. No man is stronger . , hRKevp"vour money onse dear. Don J lofie yn sense of vahieb. Don't let the money devil get JO .. Do these and you'll never be a beggar. |