Give my love to mother, and all,
Your son,
Walter.
When Mr. Kennelworth received Robert's letter, he dictated the following reply to his stenographer:
My dear Robert:
Your very interesting letter received. I have the greatest faith in your ability and believe that if anyone can work out anything valuable from the Bible, you can do it. I have watched very carefully your persistency, and am much impressed with your loyalty and determination. It is admirable the confidence and faith that you have in yourself, as well as having great confidence in the greatest book of all, The Holy Bible.
But when it comes to speculation, Robert, I want to give you some advice from my experience. It is a very dangerous game. It may be inviting, but it is not a business, Robert. It is a gamble. Of course I know that some men make it a business. Most men cannot control themselves when they get into it, the result—they gamble, and in the end, lose all.
I will give you a little experience that I had. I went to New York many years ago, and on advice and information from some friends of mine, was induced to buy some oil stock. This was in the Fall of 1919. Oil stocks advanced rapidly, and along in October, my friends advised me to buy more. I had some handsome profits and did buy more. I confess that I knew nothing about oil stocks or any other stocks, but simply followed my friends' advice in buying them. In November, 1919, the market smashed all to pieces, and the oil stocks declined 50 to 100 points. I had big profits at the top, but before the break was over, I not only lost all of my profits, but about $50,000 or $60,000 of my capital.
This taught me a lesson. I had made my money in the lumber business and in railroading. I had now gone into something that I knew nothing about and suffered a heavy loss. My friends and brokers tried to induce me to hold on and put up more margin; said that I would eventually come out all right, but I took the loss and charged it up to experience. Had I held on to these stocks, I would have lost my entire fortune, because they continued to go down during 1920 and 1921, and were 50 to 60 points lower than where I sold out. So you can see, Robert, what a costly experience this would have been and how wise I was to stop in time.
The best advice that I can give you is, to stop before you start. You will save time and worry, aside from the loss of what little money you have saved up. I want to encourage and help you in every way possible, and I feel that I am helping you in giving you advice of this kind.
Wishing you all success in your studies, I am