Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1896 — On the “Ground Floor.” [ARTICLE]

On the “Ground Floor.”

Thousands of men who fancy that they may grow quickly and easily rich through speculation have been deluded with the assurance, from older and warier speculators than they, that they were “going In on the ground floor” in some financial scheme. This means that a man belongs, or supposes that he belongs, to the small circle of operators who are In the inner management of the “enterprise,” and who' may be expected to get the cream of the profit. How this admission to the “ground flotfr” often works—how, Indeed, It may be expected to work—is Illustrated by a story told on the exchanges. A., who was Inclined to speculate, met 8., a solid business man, In the street one day, and said to him: “If you will lend me five hundred dollars, I can pay It back in thirty days, with Interest, and make five hundred out of It for myself." “How can you do that?” “Oh, there’s a great scheme on the street—a perfectly sure thing—and I have a chance to go In on the ground floor.” “Are you positive?” “Perfectly positive." The business man, on this assurance, lent him the money. More titan . % month afterward the two met again, and B, asked A- bow his Investment was coming on. "Oh, that's all gone up the spout,” answered A. ' 4 “You mean the money’s lost?" “Every cent of It!” “#hy, I thought you were going In on the ground floor.” “I did go in on the grohfld floor.” “What was the matter, then?” “There was a miserable scamp In the cellar I” This will no doubt be found to be tbs case in the majority of tempting Investments. Wealth is seldom honestly gained without time, effort and the exercise of prudence and sagacity; and where it is made in sudden and questionable ways, there is a “mean scamp in the cellar” to absorb the Investments of the deluded people who think they are influential in the enterprise.