The old man said that Durant was one of the very rare exceptions of men who had gone broke in Wall Street and had been able to come back after they were 60 years of age. Told Robert that Wall Street was a place of ups and downs—mostly downs, and that the time to quit was when you were young and had made your money.
Robert explained to Mr. Watson that he was not guessing and gambling on hope but was following science and not trading on human judgment as he followed the law of cycles as laid down in the Holy Bible. Mr. Watson said, "I wish you success, and for your benefit I will give you my opinion as to the cause of most of the failures in Wall Street, for I know the history of the men who have made the greatest amounts of money, and know most of them personally. Selfishness and greed were the cause of the fall of Daniel Drew. He was not loyal to his associates. His idea was to get the money and look out for himself regardless of whom he hurt. Conditions changed and Drew failed to change with them. The result was that he died a pauper. Thomas W. Lawson, the man who wrote, 'Friday the 13th,' was one of the most daring traders that Wall Street has ever known, worth at one time probably forty to fifty million dollars. He, too, died practically penniless. At one time Lawson had the backing of the Standard Oil crowd and turned against them after they had helped him to make millions. In my opinion, he cut off the hand that fed him and his ruthless attack on men who had been his friends, was the cause of his downfall. Men must be loyal to positions of trust and not reveal secrets of great financial deals by which they profited." Robert said that was his idea. As long as a man remained loyal to his mother, his country, his associates; above all his wife or sweetheart, success was bound to crown his efforts. He believed in the law of compensation; that when a man broke faith with others, he had broken faith with himself, and that failure would follow.
Mr. Watson told Robert that Sully made his money in cotton, and after accumulating millions, quit specializing in cotton and began to trade in stocks and various other commodities, which divided his attention and he was unable to concentrate on cotton alone, the thing that brought him the great success. "I could go over the history of Scales, Livermore, Durant, Ryan and the balance of the great men of Wall Street, and in analyzing their trading, the one weak point would be found in all of them. They diversified too much. Did not specialize in one commodity or a few special stocks, but spread all over the board. The result was they had too many irons in the fire and when one thing started to go wrong and they began to lose money, they would invariably get out of stocks and commodities on which they were making money and keep those that were going against them. Another weak point was that when luck turned against a man in Wall Street, he kept on trying to recoup his losses instead of stopping just as soon as there was an indication that the tide had turned against him. Most men at the heights of prosperity lose their sense of good judgment, become inflated with their success, think they are infallible, refuse to follow science or the advice of anyone, with the result that they continue to buck the tide till all their money is gone."
"Mr. Watson," said Robert, "I believe that if a man starts out to make money for unselfish purposes, he will succeed. That is what I am going to do. Your experience is very valuable to me. Your intimate knowledge of the cause of the failures of other men is a good lesson. I have studied the Bible very carefully because I believe it is the greatest scientific book ever written. The laws are plainly laid down how to make a success. There is a time and a season for everything, and if a man does things according to the time, he will succeed. The Bible makes it plain that not all are born to be prophets, nor to be farmers, doctors or lawyers, but that each can succeed in his own special line, according to time and place. If men would only follow the Bible and know that there is a time to stop trying to make money and to keep what you have, then wait for another season when the time is ripe, they could continue to succeed indefinitely. Has any man ever made a large fortune out of Wall Street and kept it, Mr. Watson?" "Oh, yes," he replied, "if there were not exceptions to the rule, business would not continue to run. I could tell you of dozens of them, but one striking example is that of the late E.H. Harriman who died worth about three hundred million dollars. He had probably made out of the market a hundred million dollars in the last three or four years of his life." Robert asked, "How did he do it?" Mr. Watson answered, "He stuck to one class of stocks—railroads. He studied them day and night, never diverted his attention to other lines. I believe that he possessed some mathematical method which enabled him to forecast stocks many months and years in advance. I have gone over his manipulations and the stocks he traded in, and found that they conform closely to the law of harmonic analysis. He certainly knew something about time and season because he bought at the right time and sold at the right time. He paid a great price for his success, because he neglected his health, sacrificed everything to make his railroads a success and died too young. Such men are the backbone of our country's prosperity. Constructive geniuses of this kind are few and far between and we need more of them. Man's greatest enemy in speculation is 'hope.' He refuses to face facts, and facts are stubborn things. Hope spurs us on. It may be an anchor to the soul, but a very slim anchor in speculation, when facts are against us."
Mr. Watson told Robert that his friend Walter had related to him all about his love affair and the disappearance of Marie. He said, "My boy, the great love you have for her is now furnishing the hope which will carry you to success. When that hope is gone, you will have to find a new one or you cannot go on." Robert told him that Marie had said that anticipation was greater than realization. "Robert," he said, "I want to tell you the story of my love affair. I have made and lost many fortunes in Wall Street, and when things have gone wrong and I have reached the depths of despondency, have seen my last dollar fade away, been deserted by friends of my prosperous days, then when there seemed nothing else to live for, nothing to make me fight on, there would come a hope, the angel of memory would steal over me and I would again hope that some day, somewhere, I would find my Katie." Here the old man's eyes grew dim with tears. He drew an old wallet from his pocket, took out a package, slowly unwrapped it. In there was a picture in a little gold frame. The aged hands trembled, his voice grew weak as he handed the picture to Robert with some faded flowers which he had pressed out and kept and said: "These flowers were picked by her own little hands over forty years ago." He then broke down and wept bitterly. Robert was deeply moved by the old man's great devotion to his long-lost sweetheart and begged him to tell more of the story.
The old man dried his eyes and went on—"Over 50 years ago when I was a young man, I lived near St. Joseph, Missouri. I went to school at a country schoolhouse. Katie Larson was a beautiful young girl. We grew up together. I don't really know when I fell in love with her, but I know that in my school days I loved her and always intended to marry her. The years went by. I had never told Katie of my love. She had grown to be a woman and I kind of took it for granted that she knew and understood that I loved her and intended to marry her. Time went by and we were often together. There was never any trouble or disagreements. I was anxious to succeed and decided that I should make some money before I proposed to Katie. Time drifted swiftly by, I was not as successful as I hoped to be, and finally one day I received the saddest news of my life—Katie had married. I realized that she had probably waited and hoped for me to make known my intentions but my financial affairs had held me back. I knew it was all my fault. I should have confided my plans to her and asked her to have patience and wait. From that day I was a changed man. My heart was broken and if no hope had been left for me, I would never have gone on, but from that day on, hoped and prayed that I might one day have her, even if for only a few years or weeks, in my declining years. Katie moved away after marrying and probably it was the hope for her love some day that spurred me to action. I worked harder than ever. Success crowned my efforts. I studied medicine, moved to Dallas, Texas, became a very successful doctor. There I met a woman whom I thought I loved. We were married and lived seemingly happy for a few years, but the spark of love for Katie in my heart never died. We had a little girl born and I named her Katie, which proved later a very foolish thing to do. She was the pride of my life, my hope was centered on her. Finally I made the mistake that many men make. I told my wife of my great love for Katie. After that time, she lost faith in me and we slowly drifted apart. Then came separation and divorce. I had accumulated considerable money and now being very unhappy, I decided to leave Dallas and go to New York and try the speculative markets. Success and failure have followed alternately, like the rising and falling of the tides. There has never been a day when I have come to Wall Street that I have not hoped to one day meet Katie again. That hope has kept me alive. I have often tried to find her, but the years have brought changes. She moved away to California and I have never been able to find out whether she is living or dead. I hope that you will never have to go thru the years that I have gone thru without the love and comfort that the woman you love can give. Your faith is supreme and that will carry you safely thru, and even if you never find Marie, it is better to live for that ideal because it will make you a better man, as love always brings out the best."
Robert was very much interested in the old man's story, but very sorry that it had never ended as he had hoped it would with him and Marie. Mr. Watson told Robert that he thought he had wonderful ideas about speculation, and that if he would only stick to them and not be swept off his feet by success, that he would eventually reach the greatest height. He quoted Kipling's "If."
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!
He told Robert the greatest test of a man would come when he reached the stage of great prosperity. That almost any man could stand reverses but very few could stand prosperity. Money could buy so many things which were not necessary to a man's happiness and attracted so many people who would do him harm rather than benefit him that most men started on the down grade as a result of too much money and too great prosperity. Robert agreed that this was right. Said that with him money was only a means to an end and said that he wanted it so he could help others and benefit his country. Mr. Watson told him that as soon as his success was generally known and he was well established in New York many selfish women would be attracted to him and that if he possessed the weak point which had been the undoing of many men, he would be lost. That was being influenced by flattery from beautiful women. He said, "Remember, my boy, they are attracted to the money and not to the man, but few men can keep their heads at a time when women and men crowd around to praise their success. I remember a poem that I used to read when I was a boy, part of which runs something like this:
'They crowd around me, those stately dames and belles,
And pay to me the royal homage that all great success compels;
But where is she, that sweetheart of my former years,
Who stood by me, when others could see nothing in me.'