There are not many places left where you can get 72% interest and assured safety for your money. Florida, however, still pays that rate on good first mortgage security, and Miller First Mortgage IG. L. Miller Bond & Mortgage Company 603 Miller Building, Miami, Florida. Please send me, without obligation, booklet, "Florida Today and Tomorrow," with description of a Miller First Mortgage Bond issue paying up to 7%. I am interested in a good investment for $.. maturing in about ..... years. (These blanks need not be filled in, but they help us to give you personal attention.) Name... Address....... City and State are a good many stocks, all paying $4 a year in dividends, and it is interesting to see how they vary in price. Here are some of them: 77, 68, 45, 100, 127, 51, 46, 72, 27, 64, 39, 44, 71, 78, 40. These are not all of the stocks paying $4, but a representative list chosen at random. Between the lowest and the highest quotation there is a difference of 100 points, or $100, and the yields range from about 1434 per cent down to a little more than 3 per cent. Quite a difference, and, interestingly enough, on this particular day for which we have the records five times as many shares of the highest-priced stock were sold as of the lowest. This may be accounted for on the grounds that purchasers of the expensive shares are hopeful of additional dividend disbursements, but that is beside the point. Our idea is to show what a wide variation there is in the prices of shares, all of which pay exactly the same number of dollars a year in dividends. And if it is true that a thing is worth what it can be sold for, it is not the dividend rate and yield, but the prices quoted here which are an accurate indiIcation of what investors think these different stocks are worth. Why will a man pay $100 a share for one 4 per cent stock, and only $40 a share for another? Presumably because he considers the one worth that much more than the other. And $4 dividend stocks varying one hundred points in price must include among their number almost every grade of investment, all the way from out-and-out speculations, in danger of having their dividend payments stopped, to highgrade issues whose dividend distributions are regarded as assured, with a prospect of an increase in rate perhaps. Some Bonds are the investments which offer you up to 72% with demonstrated safety. Perhaps you are not familiar with the remarkable,substantial progress which Florida has made. Perhaps you have not read what famous American business men say about the State. To obtain this information, mail the coupon today for booklet "Florida Today and Tomorrow." No obligation. G. L. Miller BOND & MORTGAGE Company Florida's Oldest First Mortgage Bond House 603 Miller Building, Miami, Florida where in between come the business. men's investments, neither one thing nor the other, border-line cases. Some of them undoubtedly will continue to pay dividends regularly and yield handsome returns to their owners; others just as surely are in danger of being obliged to curtail or discontinue dividends, and bring ugly losses upon their owners. Securities of this sort are considered suitable for business men in a position to assume the risks involved. No doubt it is a good thing that there are people justified in buying stocks and bonds of this sort. Many companies would find it impossible to finance themselves if all purchasers of securities demanded high-grade investments, and high-grade investments only. Somebody has to "take a chance" and lend encouragement to new and struggling enterprises. The only point is that there are some people in a position to do this, and there are many who are not. Those who cannot afford the risk should not undertake it; those who can, can use their own judgment. For people in a position to face the possibility of loss, a business man's investment offers the inducement of high yield and the chance of gain; these they may consider ample compensation for the possibility of curtailment or abandonment of dividends and a decline in market value. These points they can decide for themselves, and no one can make the decision for them. On the other hand, it does seem to us extremely unwise for people who would be seriously embarrassed by the loss of any of their capital funds, or who are dependent for their living upon whatever dividends or interest they may receive, to take chances. It does not seem to us that the law of compensation operates in their case, which may seem a hardship, but is nevertheless a fact to be faced. Further, it is possible to console one's self with the thought that those justified in trying for high yields and profits do not always get what they are after, by any means. It is never possible to obtain statistics and definite figures which will corroborate such a statement, and yet the belief is generally held among those who have given the matter their thought, that in the long run the conservative investor makes more money than the speculator. The business man may win with one doubtful investment, and he may lose with another, and over a period of, say, ten years he may be ahead, and he may not. Probably he couldn't tell for certain himself. And one bad loss may easily offset many a gain. Suppose the whole matter be put on a mathematical basis. A business man's investment is on the border line between speculation and safety; in other words, the chances of its proving profitable or costly are exactly even. Now we are told that if a penny is flipped into the air a large number of times it will come down "heads" exactly as often as it will fall "tails." If it is "heads you win" and "tails you lose," you are going to come out just even if you keep on long enough. If the chances of loss or gain in the case of certain types of investments also are even, won't the same result obtain? Of course more elements enter into the matter when investments are being considered, and it is not possible to predict results with accuracy, but the major premise, at least, is that the man who buys this kind of securities is not going to do better than break even. Breaking even is not most people's idea of an ideal result. Perhaps out of ten business men's investments five will show a profit and five will show a loss. It may be the profits will be larger than the losses, or the opposite may be the result. No one can tell, and it seems to us it is not a bad idea for most people to restrain themselves from being too curious about finding out. Leave the answer to the "business men." $37,709.60 in Ten Years How Robert Odell did it is a story that should be read by all who want to invest more profitably. It tells how he faced failure year after year, and then turned the tide of fortune through his own effort. It's a fascinating story of information and inspiration that will hold your interest from first to last. Mail this ad to us with your name and address in margin for free copy of "The Rousing of Robert Odell." R. E. Wilsey & Company 886-76 W. Monroe Street Chicago in your home, office, school, club, shop, library. This "Supreme WHEN? Authority" in all knowledge offers service, immediate, constant, lastWHO? ing, trustworthy. Answers all kinds of questions about words, places, people. A century of developing, enlarging, and perfecting under exacting care and highest scholarship insures accuracy, completeness, compactness, authority. An architect, builder, clerk, machinist, merchant, banker, doctor, clergyman, each will find his department treated by a master of that specialty who has gathered his material from the whole field involved. The name Merriam on Webster's Dictionaries has a like significance to that of the government's mark on a coin. The New International is the final authority for the Supreme Courts and the Government Printing Office at Washington. NEW WORDS Thousands have been added. Can you spell, pronounce, and define them? Here are samples: Murman Coast Czecho-Slovak agrimotor mud gun Esthonia aerial cascade hot pursuit Air Council Schick test novocane broadcast Up to Date and Reliable Hon. Calvin Coolidge, states: "Webster's New Inter- WRITE for a sample page of the New G.&C.MERRIAM COMPANY, Springfield, Mass. Established 1831 G. & C. MERRIAM COMPANY, Springfield, Mass. THE OUTLOOK, April 2, 1924. Volume 136, Number 14. Published weekly by The Outlook Company at 381 Fourth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Subscription price $5.00 a year. Entered as second-class matter, July 21, 1893, at the Post Office at New York, under the Act of March 3, 1879. In this issue of The Outlook No. 14 By ELBERT FRANCIS BALDWIN, The A Mummy in Modern Politics Special Correspondence from London by ARTHUR S. DRAPER Wash Day-British and American Style 554 Yes-But What Are the Facts? What Special Correspondence from Wash- The Flag of "Holy Russia". By GREGORY MASON I-A Cowboy Puts the Question II-What Lies Behind Creeds 546 546 546 By the Right Rev. EDWARD L. The Prince of Wales Had Better Try 547 This Kind of Jumping Where is the Youth We have had to deal with the Germany of to-day; Published weekly by The Outlook Company, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York. Copyright, 1924, by The Outlook Company. By subscription $5.00 a year. Single copies 15 cents each. For foreign subscription to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. HAROLD T. PULSIFER, President and Managing Editor ERNEST HAMLIN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief and Secretary Your He's growing up, though you hate to think of it, and in another ten-or even fiveyears he will be going out to face life on his own. What will his weapons be? Are you putting into his hands the tinny, useless implements of "good times" and "careless thought" or are you showing him how to shape his own defenses of self-reliance and experience? This is the time to help him-not when he comes to the fray. Guide him and direct him in the of ways business life while he has the opportunity to mould his future. We Know the Your problem has a simple answer : Let The Outlook give him the background of experience that he will need All over the country boys are being trained in business and are becoming self-reliant, and at the same time are earning money toward their bank accounts. Ask us about our plan. Just send us your boy's name and age and your own name and address. THE OUTLOOK C-5, Junior Sales Division 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City Contributors' Gallery H ILAIRE BELLOC is one of the bestknown and most versatile of English authors. The titles of two of his books are fairly descriptive of the range of his writing. One is called "On Everything," and the other "On Anything." Mr. Belloc ranks with G. K. Chesterton as foremost among Roman Catholic writers in England. He has a wide knowledge of international affairs, particularly of the politics of European diplomacy. Two of his early volumes for children are familiar, "The Bad Child's Book of Beasts" and "More Beasts for Worse Children." His most recent writings have been on the war, on British and international politics, and the Roman Catholic faith. G. LIVINGSTON, in submitting his con tribution to our recent prize contest, makes this interesting comment on the raison d'être for his manuscript: After reading your invitation in a recent issue of your paper, the boys decided that we ought to have our say, and, as I was probably the best speller in camp, I was elected to say it. After writing the inclosed I read it to them and asked if it should be sent and what I should say in submitting it. They said, "Sure, send it, and tell them we worship the same God they do, and, as the ark carrying the human race drifts towards its goal, even cow'boys take observations of events and occasionally do a little thinking.". Use it or throw it in the waste-basket. Excuse pencil. As we are nearly always on the move, we cannot well carry pen and ink. New DUTTON Books Nightshade A brilliant novel of a town past its industrial best as seen by a young man of the town, who feels and passes on to the girls with whom he Y comes into contact the poison of his evil thoughts. The book is full of perfectly etched minor portraits of people among whom he lives, who regard him as a "promising young man," while he knows himself selfish and bored-and is in truth poisonous. $2.00 W. H. Hudson: A By MORLEY ROBERTS Singularly rich in personality was this quiet, practically self-educated man who became one of England's greatest naturalists, perhaps the finest stylist among the writers of his generation, and withal, as Galsworthy put it, "the rarest spirit-a mine of new interests and ways of thought instinctively right." And the man who draws this portrait of him was his intimate personal friend for over forty years, seeing still another side of him from that shown to Edward Garnett, who was his literary adviser and friend. If you do not know W. H. Hudson, first read this book, and then his own account of his early years. $5.00 TheForeign Policies of Soviet Russia By ALFRED L. P. DENNIS, A complete survey from the time of Man and Mystery in Asia By FERDINAND OSSENDOWSKI Author of "Beasts, Men and Gods." Is typical of the author's surprising personality. Men said of his enthralling story of escape from the Bolsheviks, "How could a college professor even survive a journey of such terrific hardship and danger?" "Why, naturally," says he, and explains by producing a second volume quite as entrancing as the first in which he tells of the various expeditions into the interior of Asia which had given him his unrivalled knowledge of the Tartars among whom he was thrown. It is a strange Asia of which he tells, one which even seasoned travellers rarely see, though it is rich in mineral wealth, a hunter's paradise, and even more fascinating to the student of humanity. $3.00 These books can be bought through any bookstore, or if not, from E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue, New York |