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RICHES—OR JUST A COMPETENCE? 581
saw, was more likely to come to him who,
instead of seeking wealth, endeavored to
safeguard himself against poverty.
"I eschewed gambling, speculation,
even all that savored of investment. For
years, I was afraid to trust even the
soundest securities. My faith—and it
was not too profound a faith at that—
was vested in the savings bank. Year in
and year out, I let my money remain
there, growing only by the additions I
made and the slow accretions of interest.
If there had been Postal Savings Banks
in those days, I would have been satisfied
with the two per cent interest on deposits
provided by our generous government,
for the feeling of security that I would
have gained thereby.
"By and by, as I grew older and
learned more of the ways of the commercial
world, my antipathy to normal
sound investments gradually vanished.
I permitted my money to draw five and
six per cent on farm mortgages and giltedge
stocks and bonds. Never, however,
would I permit myself to take any sort
of risk, and that is a rule from which I
have never departed.
"Analyzing my father's life, I can see
that his mistakes were the result of combined
optimism and inexperience. He
had moved to Kansas without any previous
knowledge of the character of the
soil or climate except such as he
had obtained from nebulous
hearsay. Second, he had gone
into a business which he did
not really understand, and third and
worst of all, he had gone into business
without a full comprehension of the
methods, responsibilities, and pitfalls of
economic independence. Lastly, he had
permitted himself to be stampeded by failure
and, like a gambler, had attempted to
retrieve all by taking chances.
"Analyzing life, I realized that the
road to wealth was strewed with too
many wrecks to be really inviting. If
one broke down on the journey, it often
meant poverty.
"Therefore. I resolved never to take a
chance; that meant never to go into busi-
ness for myself, for men in business mu^t
take chances every now and then. It
meant, too, that my investments must be
safe, and that meant a low rate of interest,
which, in turn, meant a slow accumulation
of money. But this method presented
decided advantages. With the
luck of life breaking half-way even, it
meant that I was certain in time to acquire
a competence; that in my declining
years I would be reasonably sure of a
comfortable income."
So to the young man starting out in
life there are apparently two routes, the
The Plodder Gets There Surely, if He Uses as Much
Thought in His Plodding as He Would Use in Attempting
a Sprint
slow but safe and sure, and the swifter
but more uncertain. As a matter of fact,
however, there is but one route—the
first. For only the man who is able
to accumulate money by caution and selfsacrifice
will be able, as a rule, to get together
the capital to go into business for
himself. And once this capital is accumulated,
he can then look about him and
see if he prefers the uncertainties of
wealth or the certainty of a comfortable
competency.