Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

was getting Christmas time. Why would it not be a good idea to buy a bond, just a baby bond,

An Investor's Dream

TH

HIS department will furnish information regarding standard investment securities, but cannot undertake to advise the purchase of any specific security. It will give to inquirers facts of record or information resulting from expert investigation, and a nominal charge of one dollar per inquiry will be made for this service. Not more than five issues of stocks or bonds can be discussed in reply to any one inquirer. All letters should be addressed to The Outlook Financial Department.

for my small son? Though only two years old, he could not, of course, understand the full significance of bondownership. But it would do both him and me good for him to possess a real investment, and as time went on we could study investment problems together. I grew quite enthusiastic.

Away uptown I hesitated before the window of a branch office of a famous house that sells bonds all over the world. I noticed that one of the gentlemanly ond purveyors was at leisure, and I valked in.

"Something in bonds," I said. "For yourself?" he inquired politely. "Yes-in a way," I replied. "What Would you suggest?"

"We have some very good first-mortage public utilities," he said. "If you ill only give me an idea"

said. "I might die in Vermont, where we go summers."

Deeper and deeper we delved into the intricacies of bonds. I had never imagined that they could be so varied and complex. Just before he concluded I almost said: "I want a bright-green bond for $500 for my baby boy. All I want is just a plain bond."

"I am sorry," replied the salesman. "They are completely out of fashion, and all we have are pink."

[blocks in formation]

This, of course, was impossible. One pains to inform themselves of the eleannot give what one hasn't.

I checked an impulse to say, "You boot first." But I must have said somehing like it because he opened a drawer 1 his desk and took out a set of circuirs and charts and began to expound.

HEREUPON there ensued one of the most confusing half-hours of my fe. I kept my eyes fixed on his face hile he talked, somewhat atoning by y attention for the lack of intelligence hich, had he been less earnest, he ould surely have observed.

He spoke of long and short term onds; of bonds with and without cerin features which he called "convertie." He mentioned tax-free clauses, nd in this connection named several ates in which I, a resident of Rhode land, had absolutely no interest. "I on't live there," I told him. He went iskly on to inheritance-tax matters. But I may not die in Rhode Island," I

ments of investments, not to say of investing.

There is no royal road to expert learning in any field, particularly in the investment field. Nor is there any short cut. Reading, study, discussion, experience these are the things needed to give one even an approach to familiarity if one would avoid the mental confusion which attacks him who first ventures into this realm.

Reading and good reading-on investment problems is available today at little cost of anything but time. Metropolitan daily newspapers run well-edited financial sections. These departments, not omitting the advertisements, should be read. Some weeklies and several monthlies have more or less adequate financial articles and columns of comment. In addition, there is a fairly large and comprehensive literature about investing and investments.

Those who live in the larger cities can

Why Smith Investors are
Satisfied Investors

Smith First Mortgage Bonds
Yield 62% Net

Principal and interest are protected by safeguards our experience as Investment Bankers for over a half century has developed. Smith Investors are secure in their knowledge of the record of this House: that during 54 years of continuous service there has never been a day's delay in the payment of principal or interest; a record of which we are proud.

The history of this House and complete information relative to the bonds it offers may be had by

Asking for Booklet “6-56”
Our Mail Service Department
No matter where you may be you can
avail yourself of the Mail Order Service
of our Home Office in Washington, D.C.
Your investments and inquiries will be
given the same personal, efficient and
courteous attention you would receive
if you called at one of our offices.

The F. H.SMITH CO.

[blocks in formation]

make contacts with banks and trust companies, not to say brokers and investment houses, which can give current information and advice. Indeed, quite a library of financial reading can be accumulated by writing to responsible advertisers of financial wares and requesting copies of their publications.

A

LL this leads to study. But if study is to be most fruitful it should not be solitary, and that new enterprise, the investment club or discussion club, has arisen to meet this need. How these clubs operate and how they may give experience in addition to theory we have before now set forth.

We are far from advocating that the schools and colleges should "teach investments." If they perform their tasks well, they are already giving instruction in the very fundamentals of investment. when they teach economics, business, and law. But we strenuously advocate courses in investing and investments for the adult man, whether in business or out of it, whether rich or poor. Such courses can be carried on at any time, at any place, under self-instruction. And no one knows when the knowledge thus attained will be worth many times the effort needed to acquire it. W. L. S.

[blocks in formation]

SITUATIONS WANTED

CONGENIAL, experienced governess8housekeeper, secretary-companion, fond of children, teaching English, German, music, singing, æsthetics, needlework, catering, seeks responsible position anywhere. Unencumbered. 8,175, Outlook.

EXPERIENCED nurse maid wants position. 8,179, Outlook.

HOUSEKEEPER, willing to make herself generally useful. Thoroughly competent to manage a home and servants. Exceptional references. 8,177, Outlook.

HOUSEMOTHER-Refined middle-aged woman, teaching and matron experience, ten years in one position, wishes institutional matroncy. Excellent references. Address American Protestant, 8,172, Outlook.

POSITION as chaperon or housemother for school or institution by cultivated. traveled woman, who understands the problems of youth. References. 8,174, Outlook. READER to invalid or group. College graduate. 8,176, Outlook.

[blocks in formation]

MISCELLANEOUS

TO young women desiring training in the care of obstetrical patients a six months nurses' aid course is offered by the Lying-lHospital. 307 Second Ave., New York. Aid are provided with maintenance and given a monthly allowance of $10. For further par ticulars address Directress of Nursea.

CHRISTIAN home of refinement and cul ture is available for one or two small childres in widow's home in Seattle, Washington Prefer girls of pre-school age. I can give the best of training and real mother love to child needing such. Reasonable rates. High-st references. Address Mrs. N. E. B Hunter Blvd., Seattle, Wash.

A

STRANGER who had been in a small

town but a few days lost a very valuable dog. He went to the newspaper office and wrote an advertisement to be run that night offering a twentyfive dollar reward for the return of the dog, Evening came, and no paper appeared. Finally, anxious to see his "ad," he went down to the office of the newspaper, and found only the janitor there. "Isn't there going to be any paper this evening?" he inquired. "No, suh," replied the floor-sweeper.

"No

paper today. Ev'body's out huntin' fo'

dat dog."

"Nah!" the street orator is quoted as saying in London "Opinion." "Any more interruptions and I finishes upleavin' yer ignorant of the 'orrible times in which yer lives."

The London "Times" recently printed the following personal:

WILL THE GIRL IN GREEN who was selling flags near the Arcade in Bond Street on Wednesday accept the sincere apologies of the man for the gauchery he committed?

By the Way

According to press reports, traffic conditions in Cleveland, Ohio, have come to such a pass that school-children wear metal identification tags similar to those worn by soldiers in the World War. These tags are to aid the police in finding the parents of children injured in crossing streets.

A recent survey of newspaper syndicate services showed that there are 184

standard comic strips being used by dailies all over the country. The most

Though it will be unwelcome news to the moralists, we must report that research shows that the busy bee is shortlived. After being hatched out in the summer months, he wears himself out, rubs his fur off in patches, grows rheu matic in his joints, and dies of old age by the sixth week.

According to the Chicago "Tribune," "The dead man left St. Louis Tuesday to walk to Dayton."

popular comics are furnished with the A

quips in the balloons translated into all
languages for foreign consumption. The
leading syndicates employ "gag men" at
enormous salaries to prime the authors
of these strips with so-called "wise-
cracks."

Lady settlement worker (to roughlooking immigrant): "So you came over in the steerage? How interesting! You know, I never would have suspected you were a college man."

His only A

excuse is that he was carried away by a very charming personality.

In the issue of the next day an answering personal appeared:

GIRL IN GREEN will accept personal apology in same place Wednesday, 11 A.M.

A landmark placed in the little town of Ogden, Kansas, by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey is the starting-point for all surveys and boundaries in the United States. All Government surveys are made on that basing line, probably because that is the geographic center of the country.

An average of nearly 500 cups of coffee per person was consumed in this country during the past year.

Here

SHORT time ago we printed a twenty-seven-word sonnet. is one in twenty-two words:

Restrain
Despair,
Fore'er

Inane;
Disdain

Dull care,
And ne'er

Complain.

Now, sir,
You try
A sonnet
Shorter
Than I

Have done it.

Perhaps even this is not an irreducible minimum.

MERICAN meat-packers are very much concerned about the abuse of the term "hot dogs" and want all newspaper editors to slash all references to that popular name. The packers don't care what other slogan is devel oped as long as the "hot dog" is a dead dog. "Red hots" is becoming a preferred term. The chief objective of the meat-packers is the cartoonist's pencil They don't want to see any more o those cartoons depicting a dog entering a meat-grinder and emerging as a string of frankfurters.

Abe Martin says: "The Lord must have his hands full these days helpin those who 'er helpin' 'emselves."

Can you solve the following enigma? Answer next week.

I am a word of letters three,
Which rhyme with one another;
Fond hopes are sometimes pinned on me
Transpose two letters; add another,
Which rhymeth with the three;
Lo, I am now my first self's brother.
Or, stay, my first self's progeny;
No more are fond hopes pinned on me
I gender grief and agony;

From source of hopes (though mixe with fears)

I'm changed into a source of tears.

Answer to last week's puzzle: "Civic

[blocks in formation]

The Week: Pages 419-425

The Prison Revolt at Folsom
Chicago's Right to Lake Michigan
Water-Safer and Saner Flying—A
Man of Mystery-Russia's Peasants
Divide the Bolsheviks-Mr. Lamont
and Japan's Railway in Manchuria-
The Bygone Pride of Kings-Charges
of Contempt-The Colorado Coal
"Battle "Sawdust and Rags -
Mexican Immigration and the Farm
Modern
Love's Labor Lost
Forestry A New Musical Prodigy
-Rumania's Real Ruler Dies--How
Much Shall Taxes Be Reduced ?-
Evolution in Texas-Admiral Bullard
-The New Ambassador to Cuba-
Rating the Undergraduate

--

Editorials: Pages 426-427

The Chinese Talk Turkey-A Park

in the Wilderness What Is the Navy For?

No. 14

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Articles :

418

A Painting by OTHON FRIESZ

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

THE OUTLOOK, December 7, 1927. Volume 147, Number 14. Published weekly by The Outlook Company at 120 East 16th Street, New York, N. Y. Subscription price $5.00 a year. Single copies 15 cents each. Foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. Entered as second-class matter, July 21, 1893, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., and December 1, 1926, at the Post Office at Dunellen, N. J., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1927, by The Outlook Company.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

O far as can be ascertained, the majority of the people of New York State consider Mr. Smith an able administrator and an excellent Governor. A President, nevertheless, faces problems which a Governor does not. Most Americans would like to know what are Mr. Smith's views on the National issues with which these six questions are intimately concerned. Sooner or later, he will answer them. In any case, the questions themselves clear the air.

READERS of The Outlook will be

glad to hear that, beginning in January, several new writers and features will be added, and the number of pages in each issue therefore increased.

OR instance, we have thought for a

FOR

long time of treating music with the greater consideration which it deserves. With the advent of the new year, Eugene Bonner, composer, musician, and critic, will give us every week. a page of his criticisms and reports on music both here and abroad which will afford us all a most intelligent view of a subject too much neglected.

[blocks in formation]
[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

This picture, by a Frenchman, is a virile and luminous piece of pure painting. The composition

lume 147

The Outlook

e Prison Revolt at Folsom
T is no new thing for desperate
criminals with liberty in their minds
and, as they look at it, with little to
, to form and try to carry out a plot
escape. This is one of the explana-

is back of the recent incident at the
som Prison in California. Add to
the fact that, as we are informed, it
long been the practice to send the
gs of the convicted underworld to Fol-
1, which is regarded by criminals as
ir worst possible fate.

December 7, 1927

THE WEEK

under such conditions that the type of
desperado who is always willing to lead
a forlorn hope in a fight for liberty finds
it possible to get assistance from outside
and to spread throughout the prison the
propaganda for the attempt.

Better prisons and an adequate
number of them provide one means
to forestall revolt.

Chicago's Right to
Lake Michigan Water

CH

A telegram received by The Outlook C

m its Pacific coast correspondent just this issue is going to press states that reak had evidently been planned for nths, and that, despite all devices of dern prison discipline, quite an aral of weapons of various kinds had en accumulated by the prisoners. ly merest chance the changing of repository for the master keys-prented the break from being successful, which case a thousand escaped crimIs might have created a reign of terror oughout the countryside. Governor Young, of California, is dited with the statement that, to his Owledge, a break at Folsom has been red for at least a dozen years—ever ce the prison began to be badly conted.

As was seen in the almost successful t for an outbreak from the Tombs son in New York City about a year , and as was also seen in the escapes the desperado Chapman from the anta Federal Penitentiary, there is hing so wild and reckless that it will be undertaken by prisoners who have nable to possess themselves of arms money.

This tragic event, which will probably in the execution of several of the spirators on a charge of murder, uld be taken as a warning, not only prison authorities and legislators, but the country at large, for such things pen most often when crowded condias in prisons exist, and there is far too h of this evil, not alone in Califorbut throughout the country. It is

HICAGO cannot be enjoined under
present circumstances from draw-

Number 14

matter is likely to come up for further debate.

This is not merely a National, but also an international question. Canada has rights on the Great Lakes which the United States is bound to respect. These are not involved in this particular decision, but they will have to be considered ultimately in our treatment of the whole subject of plans for inland waterways.

Chicago's drainage canal is not, and cannot be, a local issue.

Safer and Saner Flying

ing water, as it is now doing, throughness.
L

the Chicago Drainage Canal from Lake

Michigan. This is the opinion of
Charles E. Hughes in his report as Spe-
cial Master to the United States Su-
preme Court. Several States have been
trying to get an injunction to prevent
Chicago from drawing off this water.
They still have the right to file briefs
opposing the opinion of the Special Mas-
ter. But even if the Supreme Court up-
holds Mr. Hughes, the controversy will
not have ended. Appeal can still be
made to Congress.

There are two main reasons for oppos-
ing the drawing off of this water. In the
first place, as we have had occasion to
report, the use of this water enables Chi-
cago to empty its sewage into the Illinois
River, and thus to make of that river
what amounts to an open sewer. But
besides that the drawing off of this
water has lowered the level of Lake
Michigan and Lake Huron to the injury
of navigation.

On the other hand, it is urged that the right to divert water in this way is essential for the development of our inland waterways.

Mr. Hughes finds that, although Congress has not directly authorized the diversion of water, it has conferred upon the Secretary of War the authority to regulate the diversion; and that it is under that authority that Chicago has acted. The entire control of the diversion, Mr. Hughes notes, remains with Congress. Therefore in Congress the

IFE insurance is a cold, hard busiIt issues policies and fixes premiums on statistics, not on sympathy or enthusiasm. Accident insurance in particular has in every policy a somewhat grisly valuation of every lost digit or limb and evaluates the sum each dollar of premium entitles the payee to receive for everything from a hurt thumb to a deadly wound.

So, when we find that insurance companies now recognize aviation as a proper field for their activity, we know that, like railway and motor-car travel, flying is no longer a sport or a desperate occupation, but part of the world's business. Not long ago an aviator who asked for accident insurance was politely refused. Now, we are told, policies will be issued to pilots and passengers flying on regularly scheduled aircraft between established airports in licensed aircraft in charge of licensed pilots.

The restriction is a sound and reasonable one, and it will have its effect in discouraging "stunting" and "barnstorming" in favor of well-ordered and well-executed flying.

That the margin of safety in the air is growing is shown by a statement from the Bureau of Naval Aeronautics that, while there was one death to every 244,443 miles flown by naval airmen in the year ending July 1, 1924, there was in 1927 up to the same date one death to every 868,484 miles flown. It is facts like this that make air-accident insurance under reasonable conditions now

« AnteriorContinuar »