"Speculation" an Unmeaning Term.
Yet with this $100,000 a day going into the hopper of frenzied speculation of all kinds, Bradstreet's for the year 1907 showed business failures from speculation as one-eighth of 1 per cent of the total failures of the country.
Whatever may be Bradstreet's definition of the word "speculation," as used in his lists, the word to the average business man who knows whereof he talks is as unmeaning as any other in the business dictionary. Suppose a man somewhere in a country town loses money in any speculative venture anywhere under the sun. If it is a few dollars only, he may not speak of it at all. If it is enough to embarrass him, perhaps he may have to speak. Under these circumstances the best possible thing to do is to explain that he lost it "on the Chicago Board of Trade." If he has no credit at stake in the matter, and is sore, he may yell murder over his losses "on the board." But hundreds of such men have lost their money in bucket shops, and scores of them have lost it at poker or some other gambling game.