OCR Text |
Show THE FOREIGN COMPANY. Collier's assertion that but one In three hundred or one In thirty thousand thou-sand offers of mining stock Is worthy of consideration aroused considerable criticism In this community. Yet facts go to prove the correctness of the estimate. Take tho result In Utah In twenty-live years. A very conservative estimate Is that In the past quarter century not less than 2,000 Utah concerns have offered mining min-ing stock for sale. In that time not more than llfty dividend payers have Ijcen produced. That means that tho investor has had one chance In four hundred in twenty-live u-ars Most investors fondly delude themselves In to the belief that a ear will bring them a handsome return on their money, but in the caso of Utah they have had but one chance In ten thousand thou-sand each year. In line with this long chance In mining min-ing investlments, the Literary Digest presents the result of a careful Investigation Inves-tigation of every company that advertised adver-tised stock for sale In the Sunday edition edi-tion of the New York Herald In 1001 and UK).!. There was a total of 150 companies advertised, and the facts reveal that but one of those companies Is paying dividends today. Tho investigator in-vestigator says of this single company: "It has paid two dividends of one per cent each year, and Its stock Is selling In the open maiket at less than half what Investors paid for it five years ago, altho its promoters asserted then that 'It Is doubtful whether anything has over been offered to the public for subscription which gives so much promise from so small an outlay.'" One hundred and four of tho companies compa-nies have gone out of exlitcncc. Tiik Hki-uiilican has no dcslro to dlscourago legitimate investment. The homo company with even a passably fair proposition headed by men whoso names are a guarantee for honesty and good business Judgment should receive the heartiest suuport, but tho promiscuous, promis-cuous, haphazard Investment In foreign for-eign propositions is not good business Judgment, Is but a gamble, In fact, and takes from any community good coin that doesn't tlnd Its way back readily. Tho man who has his debts paid, has his wife and children properly prop-erly provided for, carries an Insurance policy and has money that Is Idle can afford to Invest In promiscuous stock propesltions of which he knows llttle-or llttle-or nothing, but for the other man (and most all belong In this class) It is rankest rank-est folly to listen to the alluring tale of the promoter. It is for these that Tiik n.K,rmiucAN gives space to figures fig-ures that place a discount on foreign stock propositions. |