Business Library

The great monopoly in this country is the money monopoly. So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men, who, even if their actions be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who, necessarily, by every reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. This is the greatest question of all; and to this, statesmen2 must address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the long future and the true liberties of men.

A little reflection will show that humbug is an astonishingly wide-spread phenomenon-in fact almost universal. And this is true, although we exclude crimes and arrant swindles from the definition of it, according to the somewhat careful explanation which is given in the beginning of the chapter succeeding this one.

The object of this work is to help people who are out of employment to secure a situation; to enable persons of small means to engage in business and become their own employers; to give men and women in various lines of enterprise ideas whereby they may succeed; and to suggest new roads to fortune by the employment of capital. The author has been moved to the undertaking by the reflection that there exists nowhere a book of similar character. There have indeed been published a multitude of books which profess to tell men how to succeed, but they all consist of merely professional counsel expressed in general terms.

The aim of this book is to present in clear form the simple principles of investment, and to afford the reader a working knowledge of the various classes of securities, which are available as investments and their relative adaptability to different needs. The book is an outgrowth of the writer's personal experience as an investment banker. Most of the matter, which is presented has appeared in the pages of "System" Magazine, through the courtesy of whose editors it is now rearranged and consolidated for publication in book form.

In the United States, where we have more land than people, it is not at all difficult for persons in good health to make money. In this comparatively new field there are so many avenues of success open, so many vocations which are not crowded, that any person of either sex who is willing, at least for the time being, to engage in any respectable occupation that offers, may find lucrative employment.