This book is for you! Read as you run, and may you run as you read.
G. G. R.
New York, March 15, 1913.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| I | THE RISE AND FALL OF MAXIM & GAY | [11] |
| The Birth of an Idea to Coin Money. | ||
| The Higher Mathematics of the Operation. | ||
| How "The One Best Bet" Was Coined. | ||
| Real Inside Turf Information. | ||
| The Public Asks to Be Mystified. | ||
| Prestige Restored by a Clerk's Ruse. | ||
| A Boastful Race Player Gives Aid. | ||
| Fortune Changes Her Mood and Smiles Again. | ||
| The Kentucky Colonel Falls in Line. | ||
| Betting the Public's Money at Great Profit. | ||
| $130,000 Is Lost and Won in a Day. | ||
| A Disastrous Newspaper Wind-up. | ||
| II | MINING FINANCE AT GOLDFIELD | [46] |
| A Partnership of Pure Nerve. | ||
| Bucking the Tiger on the Desert. | ||
| Bidding $3,000,000 When Broke. | ||
| Millions in the Vista Held No Charms. | ||
| "Human Interest" Versus Technical Mining. | ||
| Beginning the Advertising Business. | ||
| Some Advertising that Paid. | ||
| Building Gold Mines with Publicity. | ||
| Hair-Raising Stories for Distant Readers. | ||
| The Mercury of Speculation. | ||
| The Birth of Bullfrog. | ||
| Enter, Charles M. Schwab. | ||
| Why the Bottom Fell Out. | ||
| How About the Public's Chances? | ||
| Jumping Jack Manhattan. | ||
| III | THE BREWING OF A SATURNALIA OF SPECULATION | [89] |
| Trying It on the Stray Dog. | ||
| Advertising for Thinkers. | ||
| Yes, "Business Is Business." | ||
| Fortunes that Were Missed. | ||
| The Tale of Bullfrog Rush. | ||
| Prize Fights and Mining Promotion. | ||
| The Year of Big Figures. | ||
| The Story of Goldfield Consolidated. | ||
| At the Height of the Frenzy. | ||
| IV | THE GREENWATER FIASCO | [133] |
| Getting Into the Game. | ||
| All the Copper in the World. | ||
| The Collapse of Greenwater. | ||
| The Shame and the Blame. | ||
| V | ON THE EVE OF THE GREAT GOLDFIELD SMASH | [144] |
| The Rise of Wingfield and Nipon. | ||
| The Winnings of a Tenderfoot. | ||
| I Am Landed High and Dry. | ||
| The Beginning of the Raid. | ||
| Some Pertinent Personalities. | ||
| The Time When Money Talks. | ||
| Clouds in the Western Sky. | ||
| From Credit to Crash. | ||
| Down with the Sullivan Trust Company. | ||
| Some Hindsight that Came Too Late. | ||
| VI | NIPISSING AND GOLDFIELD CON | [179] |
| An Orgy in Market Manipulation. | ||
| The Guggenheims Enter Nipissing. | ||
| Nipissing on the Toboggan. | ||
| Who Got the $75,000,000? | ||
| The Wonder Mining-Camp Stampede. | ||
| Teague Attacks Senator Nixon. | ||
| "Calling for a Show-Down." | ||
| Manipulating Goldfield Con. | ||
| Enter, Nat. C. Goodwin & Co. | ||
| The Story of the Goldfield Labor "Riots." | ||
| The Death of Governor Sparks. | ||
| VII | RAWHIDE | [219] |
| Real Gold at Rawhide. | ||
| The Rawhide Coalition Mines Company. | ||
| A Race of Gamblers. | ||
| VIII | THE PRESS AGENT AND THE PUBLIC'S MONEY | [227] |
| Publicity via Elinor Glyn. | ||
| "Al" Miller's Siege. | ||
| The Funeral Oration for Riley Grannan. | ||
| Among the "Big Fellows." | ||
| The Reverse English. | ||
| The Power of the Public Print. | ||
| Rawhide Again. | ||
| IX | THE WALL STREET GAME | [264] |
| Good Big Fish vs. Bad Little Fish. | ||
| Righteous Wall Street and the "Sucker" Public. | ||
| The Marketing of Mining Stock. | ||
| I Buck the Wall Street Game. | ||
| The "Double-Crossing" of Rawhide Coalition. | ||
| "Inside" Market Support. | ||
| X | ENTER, B. H. SCHEFTELS AND COMPANY | [288] |
| More Truth on the "Mining Financial News." | ||
| The Scheftels Principles. | ||
| The Scheftels Company Against Margin Trading. | ||
| XI | A FIGHT TO THE DEATH | [308] |
| The Firing of the First Guns. | ||
| The Story of Ely Central. | ||
| The Assault on Ely Central. | ||
| The Clash of Battle. | ||
| A Bombshell in the Enemy's Camp. | ||
| A Government Raid Is Rumored. | ||
| The Raid on B. H. Scheftels and Co. | ||
| A Tool's Confession. | ||
| The Guggenheims. | ||
| XII | THE LESSON OF IT ALL | [362] |
FOREWORD
You are a member of a race of gamblers. The instinct to speculate dominates you. You feel that you simply must take a chance. You can't win, yet you are going to speculate and to continue to speculate—and to lose. Lotteries, faro, roulette, and horse-race betting being illegal, you play the stock game. In the stock game the cards (quotations or market fluctuations) are shuffled and riffled and STACKED behind your back, AFTER the dealer (the manipulator) knows on what side you have placed your bet, and you haven't got a chance. When you and your brother gamblers are long of stocks in thinly margined accounts with brokers, the market is manipulated down, and when you are short of them, the prices are manipulated up.
You are on guard against the Get-Rich-Quick man, and you flatter yourself that you can detect his wiles at a glance. You can—one kind of Get-Rich-Quick operator. But not the dangerous kind. Modern Get-Rich-Quick Finance is insidious and unfrenzied. It is practised by the highest, and you are probably one of its easy victims.