Do you know that the gambling instinct is responsible for the wonderful growth of the mining industry in the United States? Would you believe that without the gambling instinct the development of the great natural resources of this country would be almost impossible?
With rare exceptions every successful mining enterprise in the United States has been financed in the past by appealing directly to the gambling instinct. In the decade antedating this year considerably more than a billion dollars was raised and invested in this way.
Conservative investors who are satisfied with from three to six per cent. on their money do not buy mines or mining stocks. Speculators (gamblers) who are willing to risk part of their fortune in the hope of gaining fivefold or more in a year or a few years—these are the kind who invest in mines and mining stocks.
There are legions of these. Not less than 500,000 men and women in the United States, according to the best statistical information obtainable, are stockholders of mining companies.
In fact, the gambling instinct finds employment in the mining industry long before a property has reached the stage where it can be classed as even a prospect worthy of exploration. The prospector who follows his burro into the mountain fastnesses or across the desert wastes often gambles his very life against the success of his search; those who grub-stake him gamble their money.
The gambling instinct seems bound to continue to play an important rôle in the mining industry for all time, or until either the fortune-hunting instincts of man are eradicated or all the treasures of the world shall have been mined.
Now, if the practice of catering to the gambling instinct is baneful, I'm a malefactor. So, too, would then be such lofty-pinnacled financiers as Messrs. Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, the Guggenheims and others. My own thought is that it is custom and the times which are responsible for the maintenance of the great game, and not individuals.
The truth is, we are a race of gamblers and we allow the captains of industry to deal the game for us.
Next to money and political power, publicity is recognized by all "doers" as the most powerful lever to accomplish big things. Not infrequently publicity will accomplish what neither money nor political power can. Generally, publicity can be secured and controlled by either money or political power.
When Rawhide was born I had neither money nor political power. The camp needed publicity. I had nothing to secure publicity with but my wit. I promptly requisitioned what wit I had, and used all of it.