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Show Selling Stocks to Suckers i helping our fellow men and a lot of j other stuff that today makes me j laugh; but it is a grim jest, for it has cost my fellow men many millions mil-lions of dollars. This organization grew from twenty-five offices to almost one hundred while I was with it. The resaon for the growth of these houses is not hard to find. The Liberty Liber-ty Loan drives educated people to the habit of investing and demonstrated demon-strated that the liquid wealth of the country was in the hands of the masses. This gave many enterprising enterpris-ing Wallingfords the bright idea of becoming money lords in short order. Their plan was this: "We will go out upon the highways and byways of the whole land and we will gather in as we can, small amounts, large amounts, or whatever the people have to invest; we will spread rapidly, rapid-ly, and in short order we will have an organization that will cover every dollar-producing locality in the United Unit-ed States. People are making big money and we will give them oppor- (As Told in the World's Work by "One of the Biggest Suckers") j In March, 1919, I was looking for a job. My eyes lighted on an ad in a copy of the Brooklyn Eagle: "This may be the turning point in your life." The ad went on to say that if the reader was willing to work and learn, he could in a very short period of time carve out for himself i position as manager of a house that was expanding and needed men who wanted to get somewhere in the world. I went to see a genial, corpulent individual about this "opportunity." He invited me to sit down at his desk and immediately started in to sell me a job. Within five minutes I knew it was a stock-selling proposition, proposi-tion, but he had talked to me of an organization that was taking a much iceded service to the working man j and a lot of other high sounding; .Viings and for those five minutes ofr interview I was side-tracked so tp j peak. As he continued the thought' ame into my mind, "How can a good j tunities to invest m corporations which need additional finances. We have a wonderful opportunity to create a large business while tin-going tin-going is good. At the same time wr will roll up millions for ourselves." In this stock-selling game there are now involved all types of men, good, bad and indifferent, honest and dis honest, and others who are not exactly ex-actly dishonest .but do not walk the straight and narrow path, and who close their eyes and try to hypnotize themselves into the belief that V.vjj' are honest. The first of these lnrg, stock-selling organizations sprang up during the war and soon became ' a veritable incubator for more such concerns. Six months' experience in some of them was deemed sufficient financial experience by many to start out for themselves. This, of course, is not a new game, but the actual number of companies in existence today to-day and the men employed in the fellow wanting a position is told he can make ten to twenty thousand dolars a year selling these securities There are about twenty thousand stock salesmen running around New York to sell stock in new enterprises or companies being refinanced with the aid of these chain-office brokerage broker-age establishments. Probably two hundred million' dolars a year is go- fellow like this be a faker?" I walked out of his office unconvinced; uncon-vinced; he had not sold me a job, but le had succeeded in selling himself o me. He gave rac some literature 0 take along with me and made me promise to read it. This I did on the trolley car going home. I found it ':o be. a glowing picture of what the future held for me if I would put my iime and , ability to work for his house. It was well put together and io man reading it could find any fault vith the . arguments presented. It lecided for me what I would do. The aext morning at 8 o'clock I was on "he job ready and eager to learn what the future held for a fellow "who would follow the system and work." I did so for two years. Then I awakened to the fact that I was a sucker a bigger sucker than the people I was selling stocks to. I received re-ceived my commissions all right on 5very bit of business I brought in, and 1 hired and trained men for my genial friend. Each morning there .vas a meeting (they are still holding them) and each morning there was talk about high ideals and pep and nost unheard-of figures. Every day :n the New York dailies can be found numberless ads more or less cleverly written in which the young sale of their stocks has reached al- - ing 'into these stocks in New York alone, and every large city in the country has a branch olfice of one or more of those organizations that is sending its ambitions young men salesmen tlnoughot the surrounding territory. And what of ihe stocks that are being so enthusiastically offered with the bait of ''Large earning power on your money?" For every one that will pay somc-whorc near what the buyer is led to expect from it, there are several that will go to the wall, and the balance will never pay more than G or 8 per cent. And when the owner wants to get his money out of these stocks he will learn their true v.oilh. According to (present available .figures ho ean, only g'ct one-third or one-half of what he paid for the stock if the company is still in existence. If he is willing to wait to let the organization from which he bought it. dispose of it for him it will cost him anywhere from 10 to 25 per cent for selling commission com-mission and he will have to wait some time for his money. He has no redress; re-dress; he has bought the stock and must continue to hold it while others are buying the new stocks the house has contracted for. I can emphatically emphatic-ally state that what a salesman tells vou concerning the easy convertabil-ity convertabil-ity of these stocks is all bunk. The i only time a bank may loan money on them is to accommodate a responsible business man who deposits with it, and then the bank is likely to lose confidence in the business 'man's judgement. For two years I worked like a Trojan for the advancement of an "Ideal," then I woka up to the fact that I had been doing my share to swell the bank account of a bunch of professional "idealists." My exper-perience exper-perience taught me a lot. |