1

2

3

4

Have you ever asked yourselves what helps superstars in all spheres of life to achieve much greater success than other people?

A lot of people have looked for the se-cret of success. Some have even succeeded to come close to it and been able to glimpse it, yet success was just beyond their grasp.

But what is exactly the thing that gives these special abilities to the successful peo-ple. Here is the answer.

While thinking, superstars use both their left logical brain hemisphere and their creative initiative right brain hemisphere. Does it mean that they achieve twice as much as the people using only one of their brain hemispheres? In fact they achieve much more.

Imagine people who use only one of their legs because they think they can walk only in this way. Think what difficulties they overcome when they drive, go upstairs or come into the office. Now compare them with a man who uses both of his legs. He possesses greater dexterity and swiftness. In comparison with the one-legged, people on two legs can do wonders.

When you learn to use all your mental abilities, you will start doing things, which before, when you have thought only with your left brain hemisphere, you have called wonders.

In the past, most probably you made up a list of your tasks and you even imag-ined their realization by achieving success. Some obstacles appeared and you coped

with them. Next stop: success! And what happened then? You reached the inevita-ble plateau where your headlong climbing stopped up to the moment when bigger ob-stacles appeared which you could not over-come. Why?

One remarkable discovery gives the answer to this question.

The main difference between ordinary people and successful people is that super-stars accomplish the mental process on al-pha level of the brain waves so that they use both brain hemispheres.

What is alpha?Alpha is the state where the frequency

of the brain waves slows down almost in half of the normal awake state. While we are actively awake, our brain accomplishes between fourteen and twenty-one energy pulsations per seconds. This is the beta lev-el. It is the active level. When we fall asleep these brain pulsations slow down.

The alpha state is ideal for mental ac-tivity. But normally man falls asleep when his brain comes into alpha level. Now you can learn to use this special ability and con-sciously function in the alpha state, gain-ing access to the boundless power of your thought. You can also learn to think simul-taneously with both halves of your brain. You can develop the same, or even better creative and intuitive abilities than those of superstars. Now the things you dream about and see in your imagination will be materialized in your life.

With the purpose of using to a greater

5

extent your thought, we have not only to enter the alpha state , but to stay there while applying simple and easy to learn technical skills.

There is only one more thing to suc-ceed-you have to adjust your thoughts to use only fifteen minutes per day-to prac-tice the simple exercises of relaxation and to apply the practical mental techniques described herein.

Let’s for a moment consider the brain in order to understand how you function as a human being. Your brain resembles a computer. It works with a small amount of electrical power, which pulsates a couple of times per second. It has the ability to store information and delete it later. This is called memory. When it has been correctly pro-grammed it can use this information for solving various problems.

Your brain has highly specialized spheres. The mantle, the lined grey matter, which forms the outer part of the brain, is divided into two halves: left and right brain hemisphere. The left hemisphere is con-nected to logical, rational thinking, to ob-jective, material senses. It has to understand everything, to find reasons for everything. The right brain hemisphere is connected to imagination, creativity and intuition. This part of your brain sees col ours and forms, appreciates art and music. It can be said that the left brain hemisphere sees the trees and the right one sees the forest. The right brain hemisphere is connected to the subjective mental senses.

In order to achieve all your available potential you have to think simultaneous-ly with both brain hemispheres. You need logic and ability to discover both cause and effect links and creative power and intu-ition. But most people use only their left brain hemisphere. They develop to a high extent their material senses and almost ig-nore the mental ones.

So, you agreed to spend fifteen min-utes every day to develop and acquire the ability of functioning consciously on alpha level. Let’s start!

In order to learn to function con-sciously on alpha level you will need ap-proximately forty days.

What is meant by alpha brain waves? Your brain works with a small amount of energy, which pulsates a couple of times per second. All day long, when you func-tion through your outer conscious level of thinking, the brain pulsates 20 times per second. At night, when you fall asleep, the pulsations slow down to one per sec-ond and even less. Alpha is in the center of this normal day frequency range, about ten cycles per second. This is connected to light dozing, dreams and fantasies in a re-laxed state.. The mental exercise that I shall show you now will help you to learn how to slow down your brain frequency and at the same time to keep you alert, conscious, and awake. This is your first alpha exercise: Do it in the morning immediately after waking up. As your brain begins at this moment to switch from alpha to beta there will be

6

no tendency to fall to sleep as compared to coming into alpha before falling asleep.

1. Tomorrow when you awake in the morning go to the bathroom or the toilet if you need to and come back to bed. Set the alarm clock to ring in 15 minutes in case you fall asleep.

2. Close your eyes and slightly turn them up to your eyebrows (about 20 de-grees).The investigations show that this leads to going in to alpha quicker.

3. Slowly count in reverse order from 100 to 1. Do it mentally, waiting about a second between the numbers.

4. When you reach 1 keep into your mind the mental picture of any of your recent successes. Remember the place, the setting and how you felt.

5. Mentally say to yourself, “With every passing second I feel better and better.”

6. Mentally say to yourself, “I am go-ing to count from 1 to 5. When I reach five I’ll open my eyes feeling happy and in perfect health”.

7. Start counting. When you reach three repeat: “When I reach five I’ll open my eyes feeling happy and in perfect

health.”

8. Keep on counting. When you reach 5, open your eyes and mentally confirm: “I feel happy and in perfect health. It is really true.”

You already know what to do tomor-row in the morning, but what will you do during the next days?

*10 days count from 100 to 1.*10 days count from 50 to 1.*10 days count from 25 to 1.*10 days count from 10 to 1.

After these 40-day exercises of relax-ation through counting in reverse order, count from 5 to 1 and start using your al-pha level.

People are inclined to show impa-tience; they want things to go faster. Please, do not give in to this temptation and follow the written instructions of this article! Be-fore the mental technical skills start giving results, you have to acquire and develop an ability to function consciously on alpha level. As an addition to the techniques you can develop the ability called mental clean-ing. Practice this mental cleaning during the day. Ten days of practice will be useful for acquiring positive thinking.

It is extremely important to learn this,

7

www.whoami-magazine.com

8

9

There are only three ways to get rich: by marriage, by heritage, and by earning more than you spend and investing the rest of your earnings in things whose val-ue will increase with time.

As the first two ways are a matter of fortune and coincidence, a logical question follows: “What should you invest in if you choose the third way?” The rich became rich because of the following things: real estate, owning their own business, shares and savings accounts (owing to the capi-talized interest).

Investment in real estate!

The most important thing is known as “accumulation effect”. When someone be-gins acquiring profitable real estate (resi-dential, trade and industrial areas), the income from these real estates is used for buying new real estate, so when he reaches fifty, it turns out that he owns half of the town. Such a man most likely avoids loans and debts, usually makes progress slow-ly, painfully and methodically, but almost never takes a risk.

The second group of people, who ac-quired their wealth from real estate, by var-ious means acquired real estate and then its price quite unexpectedly increased. These people did not have plans, and they got rich absolutely by chance.

The third group of people, who en-riched themselves, are those who bought real estate and then made great efforts to

increase its price. Such people try to change the category of the land they have in order to include it into building plans for residen-tial buildings and shops. Usually they oper-ate with someone else’s money. If they have some luck, they get rich quickly, but if the work does not go well, their bankruptcy is also as quick.

For success in the sphere of real estate there are two factors with prevailing im-portance: inflation and location.

That is to say that money from real estate can be made more easily when the inflation is high than in periods with low inflation, although it is also possible to suc-ceed in such periods if you operate correct-ly with the right estimation of the real es-tate location.

Investment in your own business!

The second group of wealthy people got rich owing to their own enterprise, ideas and faith in opportunities. Each one of these characteristics is within you and you simply have to discover and take ad-vantage of them.

Shares!

Shares are a very convenient and proper means giving a right of complete and equal participation in the free-enterprise system, where everyone can take advantage to a maximum extent of his individual qualities and skills. The advantage of shares is that

10

they do not require large financial engage-ments, which are obligatory conditions for investment in real estate and sometimes for your own business.

Requirements for successful invest-ment in shares!

Optimism. All investors in successful

shares are some of the biggest optimists in the world. Their optimism is constant. If a man is not a steady optimist, at a given mo-ment he most likely will despair and start doing just the reverse of what he must do. When shares fall and nobody wants to buy at any price, this undoubtedly is the best time for buying.

Some amount of money. At the begin-ning, some amount of money is required, but it is not obligatory to be large. Shares are sold one by one and some of them cost no more than one dollar along with the commission. There is nothing wrong with buying an incomplete lot, which means less than a hundred numbers, because if you wait to raise enough money for a full lot, you may spend the money for something else and never buy shares.

Ability to judge. To be a successful shareholder you must be able to judge cor-rectly the situation and conditions. Some people have this characteristic by birth. Such abilities cannot be acquired; one is ei-ther born with them or not. If you lack this feature, you had better deal with treasury notes or bonds or a money market account.

Luck. If sometime you have to choose between luck and your ability to judge, choose luck as it by definition means suc-cess. Even the best judgment can mislead you.

Patience. Some of the most talented investors in securities are the most patient people.

Determination. Investors in securities are extremely decisive people. As to pur-chases and sales of shares they always make momentary decisions. This is the main rea-son for the success of their investment of capital. In short, indecisive people have no chance to win on the stock exchange.

Courage. Courage is an essential com-ponent of success when the point is about investment in securities. A man should be brave to buy when the others sell, when shares fall and the economy is subdued, or when the stock exchange prices reached the bottom. If we look back, we shall see that the best time for acquiring shares is the moment when everything looks hope-less and dark. During a time of recessions when the economic situation is unfavour-able and continues to get worse it is quite popular not to buy shares. This is absolute-ly wrong!

It is most difficult to make a decision to buy securities when their prices fall. A person always thinks that tomorrow he will buy them more profitably. But at a given moment the market reaches its bottom and starts going up. If someone has consider-able insight that will tell him at what mo-

11

www.whoami-magazine.com

12

13

If you hear for the first time about on-line share trading, you have to know that some people make a mint of money from it.

I hope that after reading this article you will be awakened by the thought that ecommerce is your fate.

If you choose this profession, you will not be alone. A lot of Internet brokers have realized the simple truth that online share trading means that you are your own mas-ter, which in its turn leads to plenty of pos-itive results. First of all you are free and independent.

I am sure you are curious and your heart starts throbbing. Yes, it happens to everyone who is born to be a leader and cannot endure to be commanded by some-one else. Do you have this gift? I hope you will answer, “Yes!” I hope you will have the courage and farsightedness to join the economic miracle of the twenty-first cen-tury, as many before you have done. Ecom-merce is a science and it has its own terms. Calm down! If a given word is not includ-ed in the computer dictionary along with its pronunciation, it makes no sense to re-member it.

A great number of people did not begin the profession of Internet broker because they watched on TV some economists and stock exchange experts without under-standing a single word from their speech.

Why is it so?

It is true that most economists speak in a complicated and incomprehensible jargon , but there is a reason for that. These people do it deliberately! They want you to feel confused and scared. They do not want you to participate in the great eco-nomic revolution. Stock exchange experts benefit from people who do not believe in their own strength and make them feel un-certain. When economists of all kinds flood you with incomprehensible terms, you have to remember one thing – they want to have power over you and keep your head in the mud!

The point is about a fact in the world of business - in short – ECONOMISTS ARE SLY BASTARDS!

Decision for buying shares The truth is that e-commerce is not

gambling. You do not place your bets on red nor black neither on random numbers. You buy shares and your mind and your inner voice tell you which shares are win-ning.

This is not certain A lot of beginning Internet – brokers

make a silly mistake. They examine the company whose shares they have decided to buy. How could you be sure while dig-ging into the information about a company that its profit is not deliberately fixed in or-der to make you spend your money in vain?

14

Do you want examples? The better alternative The names of those shares you have

hit by throwing darts at the newspaper stock exchange pages, which are hung up on the dartboard, are excellent means for choosing shares!

Shares proper for purchasing If you buy shares whose price is ris-

ing, you will make money at the stock ex-change. But if you buy shares that become cheaper, most likely you will lose money instead of winning money.

Which shares become more expen-sive and which become cheaper? How can we tell the difference? The answer is: the rising shares are in green on your screen. The shares that go down are written in red letters.

FROM FIRST PERSON A.B. You might not believe me, but one

night I awoke and found out that I was in front of my computer. I slowly realized what had happened. I had fallen asleep during work. I checked my account and then no-ticed something strange, something really strange. During the last hour I had made about 20 – 30 deals, which means only one

thing - I had made deals in my sleep!!! Then I noticed something even strang-

er – in my sleep I had realized a profit of 6000 dollars!

I remember what I said to myself: “I hope this will never happen again.”

But it happened that next evening. I really got mad!

At one time I realized that I had earned about eight thousand dollars that evening.

Strange! What did I learn? This continued about two weeks. I cal-

culated my profits from e-commerce when I am awake and when I am asleep. Here are the results:

• awake 12% • asleep 78 % There was no doubt – asleep I was a

much better broker. What do stock exchange brokers

know? If the point is about the scientific ap-

proach in e-commerce with shares, every-body pretends to be an expert. Most of all – stock exchange brokers.

There are two things they really do very well:

* They laugh in their clients’ faces

15

www.whoami-magazine.com

16

17

The action of THE FINANCIER takes place in the second half of the 19th century. Relying on the plot based on Charles T. Yerkes’s career, a Chicago millionaire, the writer quite accurately adheres to his biography.

/selected excerpts/

The Philadelphia into which Frank Algernon Cowperwood was born was a city of two hundred and fifty thousand and more. It was set with handsome parks, notable buildings, and crowded with historic memories. Many of the things that we and he knew later were not then in existence—the telegraph, telephone, express company, ocean steamer, city de-livery of mails. There were no postage-stamps or registered letters. The street car had not arrived. In its place were hosts of omnibuses, and for longer travel the slowly developing railroad system still largely connected by canals.

Cowperwood’s father was a bank clerk at the time of Frank’s birth, but ten years later, when the boy was already beginning to turn a very sensible, vigorous eye on the world, Mr. Henry Worthington Cowperwood, because of the death of the bank’s president and the consequent moving ahead of the other officers, fell heir to the place vacated by the pro-moted teller, at the, to him, munificent salary of thirty-five hundred dollars a year. At once he decided, as he told his wife joyously, to remove his family from 21 Buttonwood Street to 124 New Market Street, a much better neighborhood, where there was a nice brick house of three stories in height as opposed to their present two-storied domicile. There was the probability that some day they would come into something even better, but for the present this was sufficient. He was exceedingly grateful.

Henry Worthington Cowperwood was a man who believed only what he saw and was content to be what he was—a banker, or a prospective one. He was at this time a signifi-cant figure—tall, lean, inquisitorial, clerkly—with nice, smooth, closely-cropped side whis-kers coming to almost the lower lobes of his ears. His upper lip was smooth and curiously long, and he had a long, straight nose and a chin that tended to be pointed. His eyebrows were bushy, emphasizing vague, grayish-green eyes, and his hair was short and smooth and nicely parted. He wore a frock coat always—it was quite the thing in financial circles in those days—and a high hat. And he kept his hands and nails immaculately clean. His man-ner might have been called severe, though really it was more cultivated than austere.

Being ambitious to get ahead socially and financially, he was very careful of whom or with whom he talked. He was as much afraid of expressing a rabid or unpopular political or social opinion as he was of being seen with an evil character, though he had really no opin-

18

ion of great political significance to express. He was neither anti- nor pro-slavery, though the air was stormy with abolition sentiment and its opposition. He believed sincerely that vast fortunes were to be made out of railroads if one only had the capital and that curious thing, a magnetic personality—the ability to win the confidence of others. He was sure that Andrew Jackson was all wrong in his opposition to Nicholas Biddle and the United States Bank, one of the great issues of the day; and he was worried, as he might well be, by the perfect storm of wildcat money which was floating about and which was constantly coming to his bank—discounted, of course, and handed out again to anxious borrowers at a profit. His bank was the Third National of Philadelphia, located in that center of all Philadelphia and indeed, at that time, of practically all national finance—Third Street—and its owners conducted a brokerage business as a side line. There was a perfect plague of State banks, great and small, in those days, issuing notes practically without regulation upon insecure and unknown assets and failing and suspending with astonishing rapidity; and a knowledge of all these was an important requirement of Mr. Cowperwood’s posi-tion. As a result, he had become the soul of caution. Unfortunately, for him, he lacked in a great measure the two things that are necessary for distinction in any field—magnetism and vision. He was not destined to be a great financier, though he was marked out to be a moderately successful one….

Frank Cowperwood, even at ten, was a natural-born leader. At the day school he at-tended, and later at the Central High School, he was looked upon as one whose common sense could unquestionably be trusted in all cases. He was a sturdy youth, courageous and defiant. From the very start of his life, he wanted to know about economics and politics. He cared nothing for books. He was a clean, stalky, shapely boy, with a bright, clean-cut, incisive face; large, clear, gray eyes; a wide forehead; short, bristly, dark-brown hair. He had an incisive, quick-motioned, self-sufficient manner, and was forever asking questions with a keen desire for an intelligent reply. He never had an ache or pain, ate his food with gusto, and ruled his brothers with a rod of iron. “Come on, Joe!” “Hurry, Ed!” These commands were issued in no rough but always a sure way, and Joe and Ed came. They looked up to Frank from the first as a master, and what he had to say was listened to eagerly.

He was forever pondering, pondering—one fact astonishing him quite as much as another—for he could not figure out how this thing he had come into—this life—was organized. How did all these people get into the world? What were they doing here? Who started things, anyhow? His mother told him the story of Adam and Eve, but he didn’t believe it. There was a fish-market not so very far from his home, and there, on his way

19

to see his father at the bank, or conducting his brothers on after school expeditions, he liked to look at a certain tank in front of one store where were kept odd specimens of sea-life brought in by the Delaware Bay fishermen. He saw once there a sea-horse—just a queer little sea-animal that looked somewhat like a horse—and another time he saw an electric eel which Benjamin Franklin’s discovery had explained. One day he saw a squid and a lobster put in the tank, and in connection with them was witness to a tragedy which stayed with him all his life and cleared things up considerably intellectually. The lobster, it appeared from the talk of the idle bystanders, was offered no food, as the squid was con-sidered his rightful prey. He lay at the bottom of the clear glass tank on the yellow sand, apparently seeing nothing—you could not tell in which way his beady, black buttons of eyes were looking—but apparently they were never off the body of the squid. The latter, pale and waxy in texture, looking very much like pork fat or jade, moved about in torpedo fashion; but his movements were apparently never out of the eyes of his enemy, for by degrees small portions of his body began to disappear, snapped off by the relentless claws of his pursuer. The lobster would leap like a catapult to where the squid was apparently idly dreaming, and the squid, very alert, would dart away, shooting out at the same time a cloud of ink, behind which it would disappear. It was not always completely successful, however. Small portions of its body or its tail were frequently left in the claws of the mon-ster below. Fascinated by the drama, young Cowperwood came daily to watch.

One morning he stood in front of the tank, his nose almost pressed to the glass. Only a portion of the squid remained, and his ink-bag was emptier than ever. In the corner of the tank sat the lobster, poised apparently for action.

The boy stayed as long as he could, the bitter struggle fascinating him. Now, maybe, or in an hour or a day, the squid might die, slain by the lobster, and the lobster would eat him. He looked again at the greenishcopperish engine of destruction in the corner and won-dered when this would be. To-night, maybe. He would come back to-night. He returned that night, and lo! The expected had happened. There was a little crowd around the tank. The lobster was in the corner. Before him was the squid cut in two and partially devoured.

“He got him at last,” observed one bystander. “I was standing right here an hour ago, and up he leaped and grabbed him. The squid was too tired. He wasn’t quick enough. He did back up, but that lobster he calculated on his doing that. He’s been figuring on his movements for a long time now. He got him to-day.”

Frank only stared. Too bad he had missed this. The least touch of sorrow for the squid came to him as he stared at it slain. Then he gazed at the victor.

“That’s the way it has to be, I guess,” he commented to himself. “That squid wasn’t quick enough.” He figured it out.

20

“The squid couldn’t kill the lobster—he had no weapon. The lobster could kill the squid—he was heavily armed. There was nothing for the squid to feed on; the lobster had the squid as prey. What was the result to be? What else could it be? He didn’t have a chance,” he concluded finally, as he trotted on homeward.

The incident made a great impression on him. It answered in a rough way that riddle which had been annoying him so much in the past: “How is life organized?” Things lived on each other—that was it. Lobsters lived on squids and other things. What lived on lob-sters? Men, of course! Sure, that was it! And what lived on men? He asked himself. Was it other men? Wild animals lived on men. And there were Indians and cannibals. And some men were killed by storms and accidents. He wasn’t so sure about men living on men; but men did kill each other. How about wars and street fights and mobs? He had seen a mob once. It attacked the Public Ledger building as he was coming home from school. His fa-ther had explained why. It was about the slaves. That was it! Sure, men lived on men. Look at the slaves. They were men. That’s what all this excitement was about these days. Men killing other men—negroes.

He went on home quite pleased with himself at his solution.“Mother!” he exclaimed, as he entered the house, “he finally got him!”“Got who? What got what?” she inquired in amazement. “Go wash your hands.”“Why, that lobster got that squid I was telling you and pa about the other day.”“Well, that’s too bad. What makes you take any interest in such things? Run, wash your

hands.”“Well, you don’t often see anything like that. I never did.” He went out in the back

yard, where there was a hydrant and a post with a little table on it, and on that a shining tin-pan and a bucket of water. Here he washed his face and hands.

“Say, papa,” he said to his father, later, “you know that squid?”“Yes.”“Well, he’s dead. The lobster got him.”His father continued reading. “Well, that’s too bad,” he said, indifferently.But for days and weeks Frank thought of this and of the life he was tossed into, for he

was already pondering on what he should be in this world, and how he should get along. From seeing his father count money, he was sure that he would like banking; and Third Street, where his father’s office was, seemed to him the cleanest, most fascinating street in the world…..

21

In this progress of his father young Cowperwood definitely shared. He was quite of-ten allowed to come to the bank on Saturdays, when he would watch with great interest the deft exchange of bills at the brokerage end of the business. He wanted to know where all the types of money came from, why discounts were demanded and received, what the men did with all the money they received. His father, pleased at his interest, was glad to ex-plain so that even at this early age—from ten to fifteen—the boy gained a wide knowledge of the condition of the country financially—what a State bank was and what a national one; what brokers did; what stocks were, and why they fluctuated in value. He began to see clearly what was meant by money as a medium of exchange, and how all values were calculated according to one primary value, that of gold. He was a financier by instinct, and all the knowledge that pertained to that great art was as natural to him as the emotions and subtleties of life are to a poet. This medium of exchange, gold, interested him intensely. When his father explained to him how it was mined, he dreamed that he owned a gold mine and waked to wish that he did. He was likewise curious about stocks and bonds and he learned that some stocks and bonds were not worth the paper they were written on, and that others were worth much more than their face value indicated. “There, my son,” said his father to him one day, “you won’t often see a bundle of those around this neighbor-hood.” He referred to a series of shares in the British East India Company, deposited as collateral at two thirds of their face value for a loan of one hundred thousand dollars. A Philadelphia magnate had hypothecated them for the use of the ready cash. Young Cow-perwood looked at them curiously. “They don’t look like much, do they?” he commented.

“They are worth just four times their face value,” said his father, archly.Frank reexamined them. “The British East India Company,” he read. “Ten pounds—

that’s pretty near fifty dollars.”“Forty-eight, thirty-five,” commented his father, dryly. “Well, if we had a bundle of

those we wouldn’t need to work very hard. You’ll notice there are scarcely any pin-marks on them. They aren’t sent around very much. I don’t suppose these have ever been used as collateral before.”

Young Cowperwood gave them back after a time, but not without a keen sense of the vast ramifications of finance. What was the East India Company? What did it do? His father told him.

At home also he listened to considerable talk of financial investment and adventure. He heard, for one thing, of a curious character by the name of Steemberger, a great beef speculator from Virginia, who was attracted to Philadelphia in those days by the hope of large and easy credits. Steemberger, so his father said, was close to Nicholas Biddle, Lard-ner, and others of the United States Bank, or at least friendly with them, and seemed to be

22

able to obtain from that organization nearly all that he asked for.….

There was another man his father talked about—one Francis J. Grund, a famous newspaper correspondent and lobbyist at Washington, who possessed the faculty of un-earthing secrets of every kind, especially those relating to financial legislation. The secrets of the President and the Cabinet, as well as of the Senate and the House of Representa-tives, seemed to be open to him. Grund had been about, years before, purchasing through one or two brokers large amounts of the various kinds of Texas debt certificates and bonds. The Republic of Texas, in its struggle for independence from Mexico, had issued bonds and certificates in great variety, amounting in value to ten or fifteen million dollars. Later, in connection with the scheme to make Texas a State of the Union, a bill was passed providing a contribution on the part of the United States of five million dollars, to be ap-plied to the extinguishment of this old debt. Grund knew of this, and also of the fact that some of this debt, owing to the peculiar conditions of issue, was to be paid in full, while other portions were to be scaled down, and there was to be a false or pre-arranged failure to pass the bill at one session in order to frighten off the outsiders who might have heard and begun to buy the old certificates for profit. He acquainted the Third National Bank with this fact, and of course the information came to Cowperwood as teller. He told his wife about it, and so his son, in this roundabout way, heard it, and his clear, big eyes glis-tened. He wondered why his father did not take advantage of the situation and buy some Texas certificates for himself. Grund, so his father said, and possibly three or four others, had made over a hundred thousand dollars apiece. It wasn’t exactly legitimate, he seemed to think, and yet it was, too. Why shouldn’t such inside information be rewarded? Some-how, Frank realized that his father was too honest, too cautious, but when he grew up, he told himself, he was going to be a broker, or a financier, or a banker, and do some of these things…..

……It was the period when Pennsylvania’s credit, and for that matter Philadelphia’s, was very bad in spite of its great wealth. “If there’s ever a war there’ll be battalions of Pennsylvanians marching around offering notes for their meals. If I could just live long enough I could get rich buyin’ up Pennsylvania notes and bonds. I think they’ll pay some time; but, my God, they’re mortal slow! I’ll be dead before the State government will ever catch up on the interest they owe me now.”

23

It was true. The condition of the finances of the state and city was most reprehen-sible. Both State and city were rich enough; but there were so many schemes for loot-ing the treasury in both instances that when any new work had to be undertaken bonds were necessarily issued to raise the money. These bonds, or warrants, as they were called, pledged interest at six per cent.; but when the interest fell due, instead of paying it, the city or State treasurer, as the case might be, stamped the same with the date of presentation, and the warrant then bore interest for not only its original face value, but the amount then due in interest. In other words, it was being slowly compounded. But this did not help the man who wanted to raise money, for as security they could not be hypothecated for more than seventy per cent of their market value, and they were not selling at par, but at ninety. A man might buy or accept them in foreclosure, but he had a long wait. Also, in the final payment of most of them favoritism ruled, for it was only when the treasurer knew that certain warrants were in the hands of “a friend” that he would advertise that such and such warrants—those particular ones that he knew about—would be paid.

What was more, the money system of the United States was only then beginning slow-ly to emerge from something approximating chaos to something more nearly approaching order. The United States Bank, of which Nicholas Biddle was the progenitor, had gone completely in 1841, and the United States Treasury with its subtreasury system had come in 1846;……

It was useless, as Frank soon found, to try to figure out exactly why stocks rose and

fell. Some general reasons there were, of course, as he was told by Tighe, but they could not always be depended on.

“Sure, anything can make or break a market”—Tighe explained in his delicate brogue—”from the failure of a bank to the rumor that your second cousin’s grandmother has a cold. It’s a most unusual world, Cowperwood. No man can explain it. I’ve seen breaks in stocks that you could never explain at all—no one could. It wouldn’t be possible to find out why they broke. I’ve seen rises the same way. My God, the rumors of the stock exchange! They beat the devil. If they’re going down in ordinary times some one is unloading, or they’re rigging the market. If they’re going up—God knows times must be good or somebody must be buying—that’s sure…..

Cowperwood understood—none better. This subtle world appealed to him. It an-swered to his temperament…….

Frank soon picked up all of the technicalities of the situation. A “bull,” he learned, was

24

one who bought in anticipation of a higher price to come; and if he was “loaded up” with a “line” of stocks he was said to be “long.” He sold to “realize” his profit, or if his mar-gins were exhausted he was “wiped out.” A “bear” was one who sold stocks which most frequently he did not have, in anticipation of a lower price, at which he could buy and satisfy his previous sales. He was “short” when he had sold what he did not own, and he “covered” when he bought to satisfy his sales and to realize his profits or to protect him-self against further loss in case prices advanced instead of declining. He was in a “corner” when he found that he could not buy in order to make good the stock he had borrowed for delivery and the return of which had been demanded. He was then obliged to settle practically at a price fixed by those to whom he and other “shorts” had sold……

…..At first it seemed quite a wonderful thing to young Cowperwood—the very physi-cal face of it—for he liked human presence and activity; but a little later the sense of the thing as a picture or a dramatic situation, of which he was a part faded, and he came down to a clearer sense of the intricacies of the problem before him. Buying and selling stocks, as he soon learned, was an art, a subtlety, almost a psychic emotion. Suspicion, intuition, feeling—these were the things to be “long” on.

Yet in time he also asked himself, who was it who made the real money—the stock-brokers? Not at all. Some of them were making money, but they were, as he quickly saw, like a lot of gulls or stormy petrels, hanging on the lee of the wind, hungry and anxious to snap up any unwary fish. Back of them were other men, men with shrewd ideas, subtle re-sources. Men of immense means whose enterprise and holdings these stocks represented, the men who schemed out and built the railroads, opened the mines, organized trading en-terprises, and built up immense manufactories. They might use brokers or other agents to buy and sell on ‘change; but this buying and selling must be, and always was, incidental to the actual fact—the mine, the railroad, the wheat crop, the flour mill, and so on. Anything less than straight-out sales to realize quickly on assets, or buying to hold as an investment, was gambling pure and simple, and these men were gamblers. He was nothing more than a gambler’s agent. It was not troubling him any just at this moment, but it was not at all a mystery now, what he was. As in the case of Waterman & Company, he sized up these men shrewdly, judging some to be weak, some foolish, some clever, some slow, but in the main all small-minded or deficient because they were agents, tools, or gamblers. A man, a real man, must never be an agent, a tool, or a gambler—acting for himself or for others—he must employ such. A real man—a financier—was never a tool. He used tools. He created.

25

He led.Clearly, very clearly, at nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one years of age, he saw all this,

but he was not quite ready yet to do anything about it. He was certain, however, that his day would come…..

It was while he was calling on her in this way that his Uncle Seneca died in Cuba and left him fifteen thousand dollars. This money made him worth nearly twenty-five thousand dollars in his own right, and he knew exactly what to do with it. A panic had come since Mr. Semple had died, which had illustrated to him very clearly what an uncertain thing the brokerage business was. There was really a severe business depression. Money was so scarce that it could fairly be said not to exist at all. Capital, frightened by uncertain trade and money conditions, everywhere, retired to its hiding-places in banks, vaults, tea-kettles, and stockings. The country seemed to be going to the dogs. War with the South or seces-sion was vaguely looming up in the distance. The temper of the whole nation was nervous. People dumped their holdings on the market in order to get money. Tighe discharged three of his clerks. He cut down his expenses in every possible way, and used up all his private savings to protect his private holdings. He mortgaged his house, his land holdings—every-thing; and in many instances young Cowperwood was his intermediary, carrying blocks of shares to different banks to get what he could on them.

“See if your father’s bank won’t loan me fifteen thousand on these,” he said to Frank, one day, producing a bundle of Philadelphia & Wilmington shares. Frank had heard his father speak of them in times past as excellent.

“They ought to be good,” the elder Cowperwood said, dubiously, when shown the package of securities. “At any other time they would be. But money is so tight. We find it awfully hard these days to meet our own obligations. I’ll talk to Mr. Kugel.” Mr. Kugel was the president.

There was a long conversation—a long wait. His father came back to say it was doubt-ful whether they could make the loan. Eight per cent, then being secured for money, was a small rate of interest, considering its need. For ten per cent. Mr. Kugel might make a call-loan. Frank went back to his employer, whose commercial choler rose at the report.

“For Heaven’s sake, is there no money at all in the town?” he demanded, contentious-ly. “Why, the interest they want is ruinous! I can’t stand that. Well, take ‘em back and bring me the money. Good God, this’ll never do at all, at all!”

26

Frank went back. “He’ll pay ten per cent.,” he said, quietly.Tighe was credited with a deposit of fifteen thousand dollars, with privilege to draw

against it at once. He made out a check for the total fifteen thousand at once to the Girard National Bank to cover a shrinkage there. So it went.

During all these days young Cowperwood was following these financial complications with interest. He was not disturbed by the cause of slavery, or the talk of secession, or the general progress or decline of the country, except in so far as it affected his immediate interests. He longed to become a stable financier; but, now that he saw the inside of the brokerage business, he was not so sure that he wanted to stay in it. Gambling in stocks, according to conditions produced by this panic, seemed very hazardous. A number of bro-kers failed. He saw them rush in to Tighe with anguished faces and ask that certain trades be canceled. Their very homes were in danger, they said. They would be wiped out, their wives and children put out on the street.

This panic, incidentally, only made Frank more certain as to what he really wanted to do—now that he had this free money, he would go into business for himself.

Cowperwood started in the note brokerage business with a small office at No. 64 South Third Street, where he very soon had the pleasure of discovering that his former excellent business connections remembered him. He would go to one house, where he suspected ready money might be desirable, and offer to negotiate their notes or any paper they might issue bearing six per cent. interest for a commission and then he would sell the paper for a small commission to some one who would welcome a secure investment. Sometimes his father, sometimes other people, helped him with suggestions as to when and how. Between the two ends he might make four and five per cent. on the total trans-action. In the first year he cleared six thousand dollars over and above all expenses. That wasn’t much, but he was augmenting it in another way which he believed would bring great profit in the future……

…..Considerable—a great deal, considering how little he had to begin with—wealth was added in the next five years. He came, in his financial world, to know fairly intimately, as commercial relationships go, some of the subtlest characters of the steadily enlarging

27

financial world. In his days at Tighe’s and on the exchange, many curious figures had been pointed out to him—State and city officials of one grade and another who were “making something out of politics,” and some national figures who came from Washington to Phil-adelphia at times to see Drexel & Co., Clark & Co., and even Tighe & Co. These men, as he learned, had tips or advance news of legislative or economic changes which were sure to affect certain stocks or trade opportunities. A young clerk had once pulled his sleeve at Tighe’s.

“See that man going in to see Tighe?”“Yes.”“That’s Murtagh, the city treasurer. Say, he don’t do anything but play a fine game. All

that money to invest, and he don’t have to account for anything except the principal. The interest goes to him.”

Cowperwood understood. All these city and State officials speculated. They had a habit of depositing city and State funds with certain bankers and brokers as authorized agents or designated State depositories. The banks paid no interest—save to the officials personally. They loaned it to certain brokers on the officials’ secret order, and the latter invested it in “sure winners.” The bankers got the free use of the money a part of the time, the brokers another part: the officials made money, and the brokers received a fat commission. There was a political ring in Philadelphia in which the mayor, certain members of the council, the treasurer, the chief of police, the commissioner of public works, and others shared. It was a case generally of “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Cowperwood thought it rather shabby work at first, but many men were rapidly getting rich and no one seemed to care. The newspapers were always talking about civic patriotism and pride but never a word about these things. And the men who did them were powerful and respected….

There came in this period the slow approach, and finally the declaration, of war be-tween the North and the South, attended with so much excitement that almost all current minds were notably colored by it. It was terrific. Then came meetings, public and stirring, and riots; the incident of John Brown’s body; the arrival of Lincoln, the great commoner, on his way from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington via Philadelphia, to take the oath of office; the battle of Bull Run; the battle of Vicksburg; the battle of Gettysburg, and so on. Cowperwood was only twenty-five at the time, a cool, determined youth, who thought the slave agitation might be well founded in human rights—no doubt was—but exceedingly dangerous to trade. He hoped the North would win; but it might go hard with him per-

28

sonally and other financiers. He did not care to fight. That seemed silly for the individual man to do. Others might—there were many poor, thin-minded, half-baked creatures who would put themselves up to be shot; but they were only fit to be commanded or shot down. As for him, his life was sacred to himself and his family and his personal interests. He re-called seeing, one day, in one of the quiet side streets, as the working-men were coming home from their work, a small enlisting squad of soldiers in blue marching enthusiastically along, the Union flag flying, the drummers drumming, the fifes blowing, the idea being, of course, to so impress the hitherto indifferent or wavering citizen, to exalt him to such a pitch, that he would lose his sense of proportion, of self-interest, and, forgetting all—wife, parents, home, and children—and seeing only the great need of the country, fall in behind and enlist. He saw one workingman swinging his pail, and evidently not contemplating any such denouement to his day’s work, pause, listen as the squad approached, hesitate as it drew close, and as it passed, with a peculiar look of uncertainty or wonder in his eyes, fall in behind and march solemnly away to the enlisting quarters. What was it that had caught this man, Frank asked himself. How was he overcome so easily? He had not intended to go. His face was streaked with the grease and dirt of his work—he looked like a foundry man or machinist, say twenty-five years of age. Frank watched the little squad disappear at the end of the street round the corner under the trees.

This current war-spirit was strange. The people seemed to him to want to hear noth-ing but the sound of the drum and fife, to see nothing but troops, of which there were thousands now passing through on their way to the front, carrying cold steel in the shape of guns at their shoulders, to hear of war and the rumors of war. It was a thrilling senti-ment, no doubt, great but unprofitable. It meant self-sacrifice, and he could not see that. If he went he might be shot, and what would his noble emotion amount to then? He would rather make money, regulate current political, social and financial affairs. The poor fool who fell in behind the enlisting squad—no, not fool, he would not call him that—the poor overwrought working-man—well, Heaven pity him! Heaven pity all of them! They really did not know what they were doing.

One day he saw Lincoln—a tall, shambling man, long, bony, gawky, but tremendously impressive. It was a raw, slushy morning of a late February day, and the great war President was just through with his solemn pronunciamento in regard to the bonds that might have been strained but must not be broken. As he issued from the doorway of Independence Hall, that famous birthplace of liberty, his face was set in a sad, meditative calm. Cowper-wood looked at him fixedly as he issued from the doorway surrounded by chiefs of staff, local dignitaries, detectives, and the curious, sympathetic faces of the public. As he studied the strangely rough-hewn countenance a sense of the great worth and dignity of the man

29

came over him.“A real man, that,” he thought; “a wonderful temperament.” His every gesture came

upon him with great force. He watched him enter his carriage, thinking “So that is the rail-splitter, the country lawyer. Well, fate has picked a great man for this crisis.”

For days the face of Lincoln haunted him, and very often during the war his mind reverted to that singular figure. It seemed to him unquestionable that fortuitously he had been permitted to look upon one of the world’s really great men. War and statesmanship were not for him; but he knew how important those things were—at times.

It was while the war was on, and after it was perfectly plain that it was not to be of a few days’ duration, that Cowperwood’s first great financial opportunity came to him. There was a strong demand for money at the time on the part of the nation, the State, and the city. In July, 1861, Congress had authorized a loan of fifty million dollars, to be secured by twenty-year bonds with interest not to exceed seven per cent., and the State authorized a loan of three millions on much the same security, the first being handled by financiers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the second by Philadelphia financiers alone. Cowperwood had no hand in this. He was not big enough. He read in the papers of gatherings of men whom he knew personally or by reputation, “to consider the best way to aid the nation or the State”; but he was not included. And yet his soul yearned to be of them. He noticed how often a rich man’s word sufficed—no money, no certificates, no collateral, no anything—just his word. If Drexel & Co., or Jay Cooke & Co., or Gould & Fiske were rumored to be behind anything, how secure it was! Jay Cooke, a young man in Philadelphia, had made a great strike taking this State loan in company with Drexel & Co., and selling it at par. The general opinion was that it ought to be and could only be sold at ninety. Cooke did not believe this. He believed that State pride and State patriotism would warrant offering the loan to small banks and private citizens, and that they would subscribe it fully and more. Events justified Cooke magnificently, and his public reputation was as-sured. Cowperwood wished he could make some such strike; but he was too practical to worry over anything save the facts and conditions that were before him.

His chance came about six months later, when it was found that the State would have to have much more money. Its quota of troops would have to be equipped and paid. There were measures of defense to be taken, the treasury to be replenished. A call for a loan of twenty-three million dollars was finally authorized by the legislature and issued. There was great talk in the street as to who was to handle it—Drexel & Co. and Jay Cooke & Co., of

30

course.Cowperwood pondered over this. If he could handle a fraction of this great loan

now—he could not possibly handle the whole of it, for he had not the necessary connec-tions—he could add considerably to his reputation as a broker while making a tidy sum. How much could he handle? That was the question. Who would take portions of it? His father’s bank? Probably. Waterman & Co.? A little. Judge Kitchen? A small fraction. The Mills-David Company? Yes. He thought of different individuals and concerns who, for one reason and another—personal friendship, good nature, gratitude for past favors, and so on—would take a percentage of the seven-percent. bonds through him. He totaled up his possibilities, and discovered that in all likelihood, with a little preliminary missionary work, he could dispose of one million dollars if personal influence, through local political figures, could bring this much of the loan his way.

One man in particular had grown strong in his estimation as having some subtle po-

litical connection not visible on the surface, and this was Edward Malia Butler. Butler was a contractor, undertaking the construction of sewers, water-mains, foundations for build-ings, street-paving, and the like. In the early days, long before Cowperwood had known him, he had been a garbage-contractor on his own account. The city at that time had no extended street-cleaning service, particularly in its outlying sections and some of the old-er, poorer regions. Edward Butler, then a poor young Irishman, had begun by collecting and hauling away the garbage free of charge, and feeding it to his pigs and cattle. Later he discovered that some people were willing to pay a small charge for this service. Then a local political character, a councilman friend of his—they were both Catholics—saw a new point in the whole thing. Butler could be made official garbage-collector. The coun-cil could vote an annual appropriation for this service. Butler could employ more wagons than he did now—dozens of them, scores. Not only that, but no other garbage collector would be allowed. There were others, but the official contract awarded him would also, officially, be the end of the life of any and every disturbing rival. A certain amount of the profitable proceeds would have to be set aside to assuage the feelings of those who were not contractors. Funds would have to be loaned at election time to certain individuals and organizations—but no matter. The amount would be small. So Butler and Patrick Gavin Comiskey, the councilman (the latter silently) entered into business relations. Butler gave up driving a wagon himself. He hired a young man, a smart Irish boy of his neighborhood, Jimmy Sheehan, to be his assistant, superintendent, stableman, bookkeeper, and what not.

31

Since he soon began to make between four and five thousand a year, where before he made two thousand, he moved into a brick house in an outlying section of the south side, and sent his children to school. Mrs. Butler gave up making soap and feeding pigs. And since then times had been exceedingly good with Edward Butler.

He could neither read nor write at first; but now he knew how, of course. He had learned from association with Mr. Comiskey that there were other forms of contracting—sewers, water-mains, gas-mains, street paving, and the like. Who better than Edward Butler to do it? He knew the councilmen, many of them. Het met them in the back rooms of saloons, on Sundays and Saturdays at political picnics, at election councils and conferences, for as a beneficiary of the city’s largess he was expected to contribute not only money, but advice. Curiously he had developed a strange political wisdom. He knew a successful man or a coming man when he saw one. So many of his bookkeepers, superintendents, time-keepers had graduated into councilmen and state legislators. His nominees—suggested to political conferences—were so often known to make good. First he came to have influ-ence in his councilman’s ward, then in his legislative district, then in the city councils of his party—Whig, of course—and then he was supposed to have an organization.

Mysterious forces worked for him in council. He was awarded significant contracts, and he always bid. The garbage business was now a thing of the past. His eldest boy, Owen, was a member of the State legislature and a partner in his business affairs. His sec-ond son, Callum, was a clerk in the city water department and an assistant to his father also. Aileen, his eldest daughter, fifteen years of age, was still in St. Agatha’s, a convent school in Germantown. Norah, his second daughter and youngest child, thirteen years old, was in attendance at a local private school conducted by a Catholic sisterhood. The Butler family had moved away from South Philadelphia into Girard Avenue, near the twelve hun-dreds, where a new and rather interesting social life was beginning. They were not of it, but Edward Butler, contractor, now fifty-five years of age, worth, say, five hundred thousand dollars, had many political and financial friends. No longer a “rough neck,” but a solid, reddish-faced man, slightly tanned, with broad shoulders and a solid chest, gray eyes, gray hair, a typically Irish face made wise and calm and undecipherable by much experience. His big hands and feet indicated a day when he had not worn the best English cloth suits and tanned leather, but his presence was not in any way offensive—rather the other way about. Though still possessed of a brogue, he was soft-spoken, winning, and persuasive.

It was while the war was on, and after it was perfectly plain that it was not to be of

32

a few days’ duration, that Cowperwood’s first great financial opportunity came to him. There was a strong demand for money at the time on the part of the nation, the State, and the city. In July, 1861, Congress had authorized a loan of fifty million dollars, to be secured by twenty-year bonds with interest not to exceed seven per cent., and the State authorized a loan of three millions on much the same security, the first being handled by financiers of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the second by Philadelphia financiers alone. Cowperwood had no hand in this. He was not big enough. He read in the papers of gatherings of men whom he knew personally or by reputation, “to consider the best way to aid the nation or the State”; but he was not included. And yet his soul yearned to be of them. He noticed how often a rich man’s word sufficed—no money, no certificates, no collateral, no anything—just his word. If Drexel & Co., or Jay Cooke & Co., or Gould & Fiske were rumored to be behind anything, how secure it was! Jay Cooke, a young man in Philadelphia, had made a great strike taking this State loan in company with Drexel & Co., and selling it at par. The general opinion was that it ought to be and could only be sold at ninety. Cooke did not believe this. He believed that State pride and State patriotism would warrant offering the loan to small banks and private citizens, and that they would subscribe it fully and more. Events justified Cooke magnificently, and his public reputation was assured. Cowperwood wished he could make some such strike; but he was too practi-cal to worry over anything save the facts and conditions that were before him.

His chance came about six months later, when it was found that the State would have to have much more money. Its quota of troops would have to be equipped and paid. There were measures of defense to be taken, the treasury to be replenished. A call for a loan of twenty-three million dollars was finally authorized by the legislature and issued. There was great talk in the street as to who was to handle it—Drexel & Co. and Jay Cooke & Co., of course.

Cowperwood pondered over this. If he could handle a fraction of this great loan now—he could not possibly handle the whole of it, for he had not the necessary connec-tions—he could add considerably to his reputation as a broker while making a tidy sum. How much could he handle? That was the question. Who would take portions of it? His father’s bank? Probably. Waterman & Co.? A little. Judge Kitchen? A small fraction. The Mills-David Company? Yes. He thought of different individuals and concerns who, for one reason and another—personal friendship, good nature, gratitude for past favors, and so on—would take a percentage of the seven-percent. bonds through him. He totaled up his possibilities, and discovered that in all likelihood, with a little preliminary missionary work, he could dispose of one million dollars if personal influence, through local political figures, could bring this much of the loan his way.

33

One man in particular had grown strong in his estimation as having some subtle po-litical connection not visible on the surface, and this was Edward Malia Butler. Butler was a contractor, undertaking the construction of sewers, water-mains, foundations for build-ings, street-paving, and the like. In the early days, long before Cowperwood had known him, he had been a garbage-contractor on his own account. The city at that time had no extended street-cleaning service, particularly in its outlying sections and some of the old-er, poorer regions. Edward Butler, then a poor young Irishman, had begun by collecting and hauling away the garbage free of charge, and feeding it to his pigs and cattle. Later he discovered that some people were willing to pay a small charge for this service. Then a local political character, a councilman friend of his—they were both Catholics—saw a new point in the whole thing. Butler could be made official garbage-collector. The coun-cil could vote an annual appropriation for this service. Butler could employ more wagons than he did now—dozens of them, scores. Not only that, but no other garbagecollector would be allowed. There were others, but the official contract awarded him would also, officially, be the end of the life of any and every disturbing rival. A certain amount of the profitable proceeds would have to be set aside to assuage the feelings of those who were not contractors. Funds would have to be loaned at election time to certain individuals and organizations—but no matter. The amount would be small. So Butler and Patrick Gavin Comiskey, the councilman (the latter silently) entered into business relations. Butler gave up driving a wagon himself. He hired a young man, a smart Irish boy of his neighborhood, Jimmy Sheehan, to be his assistant, superintendent, stableman, bookkeeper, and what not. Since he soon began to make between four and five thousand a year, where before he made two thousand, he moved into a brick house in an outlying section of the south side, and sent his children to school. Mrs. Butler gave up making soap and feeding pigs. And since then times had been exceedingly good with Edward Butler.

He could neither read nor write at first; but now he knew how, of course. He had learned from association with Mr. Comiskey that there were other forms of contracting—sewers, water-mains, gas-mains, street paving, and the like. Who better than Edward Butler to do it? He knew the councilmen, many of them. Het met them in the back rooms of saloons, on Sundays and Saturdays at political picnics, at election councils and conferences, for as a beneficiary of the city’s largess he was expected to contribute not only money, but advice. Curiously he had developed a strange political wisdom. He knew a successful man or a coming man when he saw one. So many of his bookkeepers, superintendents, time-keepers had graduated into councilmen and state legislators. His nominees—suggested to political conferences—were so often known to make good. First he came to have influ-ence in his councilman’s ward, then in his legislative district, then in the city councils of his

34

party—Whig, of course—and then he was supposed to have an organization.Mysterious forces worked for him in council. He was awarded significant contracts,

and he always bid. The garbage business was now a thing of the past. His eldest boy, Owen, was a member of the State legislature and a partner in his business affairs. His sec-ond son, Callum, was a clerk in the city water department and an assistant to his father also. Aileen, his eldest daughter, fifteen years of age, was still in St. Agatha’s, a convent school in Germantown. Norah, his second daughter and youngest child, thirteen years old, was in attendance at a local private school conducted by a Catholic sisterhood. The Butler family had moved away from South Philadelphia into Girard Avenue, near the twelve hun-dreds, where a new and rather interesting social life was beginning. They were not of it, but Edward Butler, contractor, now fifty-five years of age, worth, say, five hundred thousand dollars, had many political and financial friends. No longer a “rough neck,” but a solid, reddish-faced man, slightly tanned, with broad shoulders and a solid chest, gray eyes, gray hair, a typically Irish face made wise and calm and undecipherable by much experience. His big hands and feet indicated a day when he had not worn the best English cloth suits and tanned leather, but his presence was not in any way offensive—rather the other way about. Though still possessed of a brogue, he was soft-spoken, winning, and persuasive….

It was to Edward Malia Butler that Cowperwood turned now, some nineteen months later when he was thinking of the influence that might bring him an award of a portion of the State issue of bonds. Butler could probably be interested to take some of them himself, or could help him place some. He had come to like Cowperwood very much and was now being carried on the latter’s books as a prospective purchaser of large blocks of stocks. And Cowperwood liked this great solid Irishman. He liked his history. He had met Mrs. Butler, a rather fat and phlegmatic Irish woman with a world of hard sense who cared nothing at all for show and who still liked to go into the kitchen and superintend the cook-ing. He had met Owen and Callum Butler, the boys, and Aileen and Norah, the girls. Aileen was the one who had bounded up the steps the first day he had called at the Butler house several seasons before.

There was a cozy grate-fire burning in Butler’s improvised private office when Cow-perwood called. Spring was coming on, but the evenings were cool. The older man invited Cowperwood to make himself comfortable in one of the large leather chairs before the fire and then proceeded to listen to his recital of what he hoped to accomplish.

“Well, now, that isn’t so easy,” he commented at the end. “You ought to know more

35

about that than I do. I’m not a financier, as you well know.” And he grinned apologetically.“It’s a matter of influence,” went on Cowperwood. “And favoritism. That I know.

Drexel & Company and Cooke & Company have connections at Harrisburg. They have men of their own looking after their interests. The attorney-general and the State treasurer are hand in glove with them. Even if I put in a bid, and can demonstrate that I can handle the loan, it won’t help me to get it. Other people have done that. I have to have friends—influence. You know how it is.”

“Them things,” Butler said, “is easy enough if you know the right parties to approach. Now there’s Jimmy Oliver—he ought to know something about that.” Jimmy Oliver was the whilom district attorney serving at this time, and incidentally free adviser to Mr. Butler in many ways. He was also, accidentally, a warm personal friend of the State treasurer.

“How much of the loan do you want?”“Five million.”“Five million!” Butler sat up. “Man, what are you talking about? That’s a good deal of

money. Where are you going to sell all that?”“I want to bid for five million,” assuaged Cowperwood, softly. “I only want one mil-

lion but I want the prestige of putting in a bona fide bid for five million. It will do me good on the street.”

Butler sank back somewhat relieved.“Five million! Prestige! You want one million. Well, now, that’s different. That’s not

such a bad idea. We ought to be able to get that.”He rubbed his chin some more and stared into the fire.And Cowperwood felt confident when he left the house that evening that Butler

would not fail him but would set the wheels working. Therefore, he was not surprised, and knew exactly what it meant, when a few days later he was introduced to City Treasurer Ju-lian Bode, who promised to introduce him to State Treasurer Van Nostrand and to see that his claims to consideration were put before the people. “Of course, you know,” he said to Cowperwood, in the presence of Butler, for it was at the latter’s home that the conference took place, “this banking crowd is very powerful. You know who they are. They don’t want any interference in this bond issue business. I was talking to Terrence Relihan, who rep-resents them up there”—meaning Harrisburg, the State capital—”and he says they won’t stand for it at all. You may have trouble right here in Philadelphia after you get it—they’re pretty powerful, you know. Are you sure just where you can place it?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” replied Cowperwood.“Well, the best thing in my judgment is not to say anything at all. Just put in your bid.

Van Nostrand, with the governor’s approval, will make the award. We can fix the governor,

36

I think. After you get it they may talk to you personally, but that’s your business.”Cowperwood smiled his inscrutable smile. There were so many ins and outs to this

financial life. It was an endless network of underground holes, along which all sorts of influences were moving. A little wit, a little nimbleness, a little luck-time and opportu-nity—these sometimes availed. Here he was, through his ambition to get on, and nothing else, coming into contact with the State treasurer and the governor. They were going to consider his case personally, because he demanded that it be considered—nothing more. Others more influential than himself had quite as much right to a share, but they didn’t take it. Nerve, ideas, aggressiveness, how these counted when one had luck!

He went away thinking how surprised Drexel & Co. and Cooke & Co. would be to see him appearing in the field as a competitor. In his home, in a little room on the sec-ond floor next his bedroom, which he had fixed up as an office with a desk, a safe, and a leather chair, he consulted his resources. There were so many things to think of. He went over again the list of people whom he had seen and whom he could count on to subscribe, and in so far as that was concerned—the award of one million dollars—he was safe. He figured to make two per cent on the total transaction, or twenty thousand dollars. If he did he was going to buy a house out on Girard Avenue beyond the Butlers’, or, better yet, buy a piece of ground and erect one; mortgaging house and property so to do. His father was prospering nicely. He might want to build a house next to him, and they could live side by side. His own business, aside from this deal, would yield him ten thousand dollars this year. His street-car investments, aggregating fifty thousand, were paying six per cent. His wife’s property, represented by this house, some government bonds, and some real estate in West Philadelphia amounted to forty thousand more. Between them they were rich; but he expected to be much richer. All he needed now was to keep cool. If he succeeded in this bond-issue matter, he could do it again and on a larger scale. There would be more is-sues…..

The bond issue, when it came, was a curious compromise; for, although it netted him his twenty thousand dollars and more and served to introduce him to the financial notice of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania, it did not permit him to manipulate the subscriptions as he had planned. The State treasurer was seen by him at the office of a lo-cal lawyer of great repute, where he worked when in the city. He was gracious to Cowper-wood, because he had to be. He explained to him just how things were regulated at Har-risburg. The big financiers were looked to for campaign funds. They were represented by

37

henchmen in the State assembly and senate. The governor and the treasurer were foot-free; but there were other influences—prestige, friendship, social power, political ambitions, etc. The big men might constitute a close corporation, which in itself was unfair; but, after all, they were the legitimate sponsors for big money loans of this kind. The State had to keep on good terms with them, especially in times like these. Seeing that Mr. Cowperwood was so well able to dispose of the million he expected to get, it would be perfectly all right to award it to him; but Van Nostrand had a counter-proposition to make. Would Cowper-wood, if the financial crowd now handling the matter so desired, turn over his award to them for a consideration—a sum equal to what he expected to make—in the event the award was made to him? Certain financiers desired this. It was dangerous to oppose them. They were perfectly willing he should put in a bid for five million and get the prestige of that; to have him awarded one million and get the prestige of that was well enough also, but they desired to handle the twenty-three million dollars in an unbroken lot. It looked better. He need not be advertised as having withdrawn. They would be content to have him achieve the glory of having done what he started out to do. Just the same the example was bad. Others might wish to imitate him. If it were known in the street privately that he had been coerced, for a consideration, into giving up, others would be deterred from imitating him in the future. Besides, if he refused, they could cause him trouble. His loans might be called. Various banks might not be so friendly in the future. His constituents might be warned against him in one way or another.

Cowperwood saw the point. He acquiesced. It was something to have brought so many high and mighties to their knees. So they knew of him! They were quite well aware of him! Well and good. He would take the award and twenty thousand or thereabouts and withdraw. The State treasurer was delighted. It solved a ticklish proposition for him.

“I’m glad to have seen you,” he said. “I’m glad we’ve met. I’ll drop in and talk with you some time when I’m down this way. We’ll have lunch together.”

The State treasurer, for some odd reason, felt that Mr. Cowperwood was a man who could make him some money. His eye was so keen; his expression was so alert, and yet so subtle. He told the governor and some other of his associates about him.

So the award was finally made; Cowperwood, after some private negotiations in which he met the officers of Drexel & Co., was paid his twenty thousand dollars and turned his share of the award over to them. New faces showed up in his office now from time to time—among them that of Van Nostrand and one Terrence Relihan, a representative of some other political forces at Harrisburg. He was introduced to the governor one day at lunch. His name was mentioned in the papers, and his prestige grew rapidly…….

38

The development of Cowperwood as Cowperwood & Co. following his arresting bond venture, finally brought him into relationship with one man who was to play an im-portant part in his life, morally, financially, and in other ways. This was George W. Stener, the new city treasurer elect, who, to begin with, was a puppet in the hands of other men, but who, also in spite of this fact, became a personage of considerable importance, for the simple reason that he was weak.

Just the same, and in spite of, or perhaps, politically speaking, because of all this, George W. Stener was brought into temporary public notice by certain political methods which had existed in Philadelphia practically unmodified for the previous half hundred years. First, because he was of the same political faith as the dominant local political party, he had become known to the local councilman and ward-leader of his ward as a faithful soul—one useful in the matter of drumming up votes. And next—although absolutely without value as a speaker, for he had no ideas—you could send him from door to door, asking the grocer and the blacksmith and the butcher how he felt about things and he would make friends, and in the long run predict fairly accurately the probable vote. Furthermore, you could dole him out a few platitudes and he would repeat them. The Republican party, which was the new-born party then, but dominant in Philadelphia, needed your vote; it was necessary to keep the rascally Democrats out—he could scarcely have said why. They had been for slavery. They were for free trade. It never once occurred to him that these things had nothing to do with the local executive and financial administration of Philadel-phia. Supposing they didn’t? What of it?

In Philadelphia at this time a certain United States Senator, one Mark Simpson, to-gether with Edward Malia Butler and Henry A. Mollenhauer, a rich coal dealer and inves-tor, were supposed to, and did, control jointly the political destiny of the city. They had representatives, benchmen, spies, tools—a great company. Among them was this same Stener—a minute cog in the silent machinery of their affairs.

In scarcely any other city save this, where the inhabitants were of a deadly average in so far as being commonplace was concerned, could such a man as Stener have been elect-ed city treasurer. The rank and file did not, except in rare instances, make up their political program. An inside ring had this matter in charge. Certain positions were allotted to such and such men or to such and such factions of the party for such and such services ren-dered—but who does not know politics?

In due course of time, therefore, George W. Stener had become persona grata to Ed-ward Strobik, a quondam councilman who afterward became ward leader and still later

39

president of council, and who, in private life was a stone-dealer and owner of a brickyard. Strobik was a benchman of Henry A. Mollenhauer, the hardest and coldest of all three of the political leaders. The latter had things to get from council, and Strobik was his tool. He had Stener elected; and because he was faithful in voting as he was told the latter was later made an assistant superintendent of the highways department.

Here he came under the eyes of Edward Malia Butler, and was slightly useful to him. Then the central political committee, with Butler in charge, decided that some nice, docile man who would at the same time be absolutely faithful was needed for city treasurer, and Stener was put on the ticket. He knew little of finance, but was an excellent bookkeeper; and, anyhow, was not corporation counsel Regan, another political tool of this great trium-virate, there to advise him at all times? He was. It was a very simple matter. Being put on the ticket was equivalent to being elected, and so, after a few weeks of exceedingly trying platform experiences, in which he had stammered through platitudinous declarations that the city needed to be honestly administered, he was inducted into office; and there you were.

Now it wouldn’t have made so much difference what George W. Stener’s executive and financial qualifications for the position were, but at this time the city of Philadelphia was still hobbling along under perhaps as evil a financial system, or lack of it, as any city ever endured—the assessor and the treasurer being allowed to collect and hold moneys belong-ing to the city, outside of the city’s private vaults, and that without any demand on the part of anybody that the same be invested by them at interest for the city’s benefit. Rather, all they were expected to do, apparently, was to restore the principal and that which was with them when they entered or left office. It was not understood or publicly demanded that the moneys so collected, or drawn from any source, be maintained intact in the vaults of the city treasury. They could be loaned out, deposited in banks or used to further private interests of any one, so long as the principal was returned, and no one was the wiser. Of course, this theory of finance was not publicly sanctioned, but it was known politically and journalistically, and in high finance. How were you to stop it?

Cowperwood, in approaching Edward Malia Butler, had been unconsciously let in on this atmosphere of erratic and unsatisfactory speculation without really knowing it. When he had left the office of Tighe & Co., seven years before, it was with the idea that hence-forth and forever he would have nothing to do with the stock-brokerage proposition; but now behold him back in it again, with more vim than he had ever displayed, for now he was working for himself, the firm of Cowperwood & Co., and he was eager to satisfy the world of new and powerful individuals who by degrees were drifting to him. All had a little money. All had tips, and they wanted him to carry certain lines of stock on margin for

40

them, because he was known to other political men, and because he was safe. And this was true. He was not, or at least up to this time had not been, a speculator or a gambler on his own account. In fact he often soothed himself with the thought that in all these years he had never gambled for himself, but had always acted strictly for others instead. But now here was George W. Stener with a proposition which was not quite the same thing as stock-gambling, and yet it was.

During a long period of years preceding the Civil War, and through it, let it here be ex-plained and remembered, the city of Philadelphia had been in the habit, as a corporation, when there were no available funds in the treasury, of issuing what were known as city warrants, which were nothing more than notes or I.O.U.’s bearing six per cent. interest, and payable sometimes in thirty days, sometimes in three, sometimes in six months—all de-pending on the amount and how soon the city treasurer thought there would be sufficient money in the treasury to take them up and cancel them. Small tradesmen and large con-tractors were frequently paid in this way; the small tradesman who sold supplies to the city institutions, for instance, being compelled to discount his notes at the bank, if he needed ready money, usually for ninety cents on the dollar, while the large contractor could afford to hold his and wait. It can readily be seen that this might well work to the disadvantage of the small dealer and merchant, and yet prove quite a fine thing for a large contractor or note-broker, for the city was sure to pay the warrants at some time, and six per cent. inter-est was a fat rate, considering the absolute security. A banker or broker who gathered up these things from small tradesmen at ninety cents on the dollar made a fine thing of it all around if he could wait.

Originally, in all probability, there was no intention on the part of the city treasurer to do any one an injustice, and it is likely that there really were no funds to pay with at the time. However that may have been, there was later no excuse for issuing the warrants, seeing that the city might easily have been managed much more economically. But these warrants, as can readily be imagined, had come to be a fine source of profit for note-brokers, bankers, political financiers, and inside political manipulators generally and so they remained a part of the city’s fiscal policy.

There was just one drawback to all this. In order to get the full advantage of this con-dition the large banker holding them must be an “inside banker,” one close to the politi-cal forces of the city, for if he was not and needed money and he carried his warrants to the city treasurer, he would find that he could not get cash for them. But if he transferred them to some banker or note-broker who was close to the political force of the city, it was quite another matter. The treasury would find means to pay. Or, if so desired by the note-broker or banker—the right one—notes which were intended to be met in three months,

41

and should have been settled at that time, were extended to run on years and years, drawing interest at six per cent. even when the city had ample funds to meet them. Yet this meant, of course, an illegal interest drain on the city, but that was all right also. “No funds” could cover that. The general public did not know. It could not find out. The newspapers were not at all vigilant, being pro-political. There were no persistent, enthusiastic reformers who obtained any political credence. During the war, warrants outstanding in this manner arose in amount to much over two million dollars, all drawing six per cent. interest, but then, of course, it began to get a little scandalous. Besides, at least some of the investors began to want their money back.

In order, therefore, to clear up this outstanding indebtedness and make everything shipshape again, it was decided that the city must issue a loan, say for two million dol-lars—no need to be exact about the amount. And this loan must take the shape of inter-est-bearing certificates of a par value of one hundred dollars, redeemable in six, twelve, or eighteen months, as the case may be. These certificates of loan were then ostensibly to be sold in the open market, a sinking-fund set aside for their redemption, and the money so obtained used to take up the long outstanding warrants which were now such a subject of public comment.

It is obvious that this was merely a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. There was no real clearing up of the outstanding debt. It was the intention of the schemers to make it possible for the financial politicians on the inside to reap the same old harvest by allowing the certificates to be sold to the right parties for ninety or less, setting up the claim that there was no market for them, the credit of the city being bad. To a certain extent this was true. The war was just over. Money was high. Investors could get more than six per cent. elsewhere unless the loan was sold at ninety. But there were a few watchful politicians not in the administration, and some newspapers and non-political financiers who, because of the high strain of patriotism existing at the time, insisted that the loan should be sold at par. Therefore a clause to that effect had to be inserted in the enabling ordinance.

This, as one might readily see, destroyed the politicians’ little scheme to get this loan at ninety. Nevertheless since they desired that the money tied up in the old warrants and now not redeemable because of lack of funds should be paid them, the only way this could be done would be to have some broker who knew the subtleties of the stock market handle this new city loan on ‘change in such a way that it would be made to seem worth one hun-dred and to be sold to outsiders at that figure. Afterward, if, as it was certain to do, it fell below that, the politicians could buy as much of it as they pleased, and eventually have the city redeem it at par……

42

Manipulative tricks have always been worked in connection with stocks of which one man or one set of men has had complete control.

It is difficult to make perfectly clear what a subtle and significant power this suddenly placed in the hands of Cowperwood. Consider that he was only twenty-eight—nearing twenty-nine. Imagine yourself by nature versed in the arts of finance, capable of playing with sums of money in the forms of stocks, certificates, bonds, and cash, as the ordinar man plays with checkers or chess. Or, better yet, imagine yourself one of those subtle masters of the mysteries of the higher forms of chess—the type of mind so well illus-trated by the famous and historic chess-players, who could sit with their backs to a group of rivals playing fourteen men at once, calling out all the moves in turn, remembering all the positions of all the men on all the boards, and winning. This, of course, would be an overstatement of the subtlety of Cowperwood at this time, and yet it would not be wholly out of bounds. He knew instinctively what could be done with a given sum of money—how as cash it could be deposited in one place, and yet as credit and the basis of moving checks, used in not one but many other places at the same time. When properly watched and followed this manipulation gave him the constructive and purchasing power of ten and a dozen times as much as his original sum might have represented. He knew instinc-tively the principles of “pyramiding” and “kiting.”

The growth of a passion is a very peculiar thing. In highly organized intellectual and artistic types it is so often apt to begin with keen appreciation of certain qualities, modified by many, many mental reservations. The egoist, the intellectual, gives but little of himself and asks much. Nevertheless, the lover of life, male or female, finding himself or herself in sympathetic accord with such a nature, is apt to gain much.

Cowperwood was innately and primarily an egoist and intellectual, though blended strongly therewith, was a humane and democratic spirit. We think of egoism and intellec-tualism as closely confined to the arts. Finance is an art. And it presents the operations of the subtlest of the intellectuals and of the egoists. Cowperwood was a financier. Instead of dwelling on the works of nature, its beauty and subtlety, to his material disadvantage, he found a happy mean, owing to the swiftness of his intellectual operations, whereby he

43

could, intellectually and emotionally, rejoice in the beauty of life without interfering with his perpetual material and financial calculations. And when it came to women and morals, which involved so much relating to beauty, happiness, a sense of distinction and variety in living, he was but now beginning to suspect for himself at least that apart from maintain-ing organized society in its present form there was no basis for this one-life, one-love idea. How had it come about that so many people agreed on this single point, that it was good and necessary to marry one woman and cleave to her until death? He did not know. It was not for him to bother about the subtleties of evolution, which even then was being noised abroad, or to ferret out the curiosities of history in connection with this matter. He had no time. Suffice it that the vagaries of temperament and conditions with which he came into immediate contact proved to him that there was great dissatisfaction with that idea. People did not cleave to each other until death; and in thousands of cases where they did, they did not want to. Quickness of mind, subtlety of idea, fortuitousness of opportunity, made it possible for some people to right their matrimonial and social infelicities; whereas for others, because of dullness of wit, thickness of comprehension, poverty, and lack of charm, there was no escape from the slough of their despond. They were compelled by some devilish accident of birth or lack of force or resourcefulness to stew in their own juice of wretchedness, or to shuffle off this mortal coil—which under other circumstances had such glittering possibilities—via the rope, the knife, the bullet, or the cup of poison.

“I would die, too,” he thought to himself, one day, reading of a man who, confined by disease and poverty, had lived for twelve years alone in a back bedroom attended by an old and probably decrepit housekeeper. A darning-needle forced into his heart had ended his earthly woes. “To the devil with such a life! Why twelve years? Why not at the end of the second or third?”

Again, it was so very evident, in so many ways, that force was the answer—great men-tal and physical force. Why, these giants of commerce and money could do as they pleased in this life, and did. He had already had ample local evidence of it in more than one direc-tion. Worse—the little guardians of so-called law and morality, the newspapers, the preach-ers, the police, and the public moralists generally, so loud in their denunciation of evil in humble places, were cowards all when it came to corruption in high ones. They did not dare to utter a feeble squeak until some giant had accidentally fallen and they could do so without danger to themselves. Then, O Heavens, the palaver! What beatings of tomtoms! What mouthings of pharisaical moralities—platitudes! Run now, good people, for you may see clearly how evil is dealt with in high places! It made him smile. Such hypocrisy! Such cant! Still, so the world was organized, and it was not for him to set it right. Let it wag as it would. The thing for him to do was to get rich and hold his own—to build up a seeming

44

of virtue and dignity which would pass muster for the genuine thing. Force would do that. Quickness of wit. And he had these. “I satisfy myself,” was his motto; and it might well have been emblazoned upon any coat of arms which he could have contrived to set forth his claim to intellectual and social nobility……

This particular panic, which was destined to mark a notable change in Cowperwood’s career, was one of those peculiar things which spring naturally out of the optimism of the American people and the irrepressible progress of the country. It was the result, to be accurate, of the prestige and ambition of Jay Cooke, whose early training and subsequent success had all been acquired in Philadelphia, and who had since become the foremost fi-nancial figure of his day…….

It was a brilliant chance. His genius had worked out the sale of great government loans during the Civil War to the people direct in this fashion. Why not Northern Pacific certifi-cates? For several years he conducted a pyrotechnic campaign, surveying the territory in question, organizing great railway-construction corps, building hundreds of miles of track under most trying conditions, and selling great blocks of his stock, on which interest of a certain percentage was guaranteed….

…He had once written a brilliant criticism to some inquirer, in which he had said that no enterprise of such magnitude as the Northern Pacific had ever before been entirely de-pendent upon one house, or rather upon one man, and that he did not like it… So when the notice was posted, he looked at it, wondering what the effect would be if by any chance Jay Cooke & Co. should fail.

He was not long in wonder. A second despatch posted on ‘change read: “New York, September 18th. Jay Cooke & Co. have suspended.”

Cowperwood could not believe it. He was beside himself with the thought of a great opportunity…If this were true, a great hour had struck. There would be wide-spread panic and disaster. There would be a terrific slump in prices of all stocks……

“Now,” thought Cowperwood, to whom this panic spelled opportunity, not ruin, “I’ll get my innings. I’ll go short of this - of everything.”…..

…Where many men were thinking of ruin, he was thinking of success. He would have Wingate and his two brothers under him to execute his orders exactly. He could pick up a fourth and a fifth man if necessary. He would give them orders to sell everything - ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty points off, if necessary, in order to trap the unwary, depress the

45

market, frighten the fearsome who would think he was too daring; and then he would buy, buy, buy, below these figures as much as possible, in order to cover his sales and reap a profit……

He hurried back to the exchange, the very same room in which only two years before he had fought his losing fight, and, finding that his partner and his brother had not yet come, began to sell everything in sight. Pandemonium had broken loose. Boys and men were fairly tearing in from all sections with orders from panic-struck brokers to sell, sell, sell, and later with orders to buy; the various tradingposts were reeling, swirling masses of brokers and their agents. Outside in the street in front of Jay Cooke & Co., Clark & Co., the Girard National Bank, and other institutions, immense crowds were beginning to form. They were hurrying here to learn the trouble, to withdraw their deposits, to protect their interests generally…

Among these panic-struck men Cowperwood was perfectly calm, deadly cold …He forced his way into the center of swirling crowds of men already shouting themselves hoarse, offering whatever was being offered in quantities which were astonishing, and at prices which allured the few who were anxious to make money out of the tumbling prices to buy… Cowperwood’s house had scarcely any of the stocks on hand. They were not car-rying them for any customers, and yet he sold, sold, sold, to whoever would take, at prices which he felt sure would inspire them…..

When the time for closing came, his coat torn, his collar twisted loose, his necktie ripped, his hat lost, he emerged sane, quiet, steady-mannered…

The next day was Friday, and suggested many ominous things. Would it be another Black Friday? Cowperwood was at his office before the street was fairly awake. He figured out his program for the day to a nicety... Yesterday, in spite of the sudden onslaught, he had made one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and he expected to make as much, if not more, today….News of these facts, and of failures in New York posted on ‘change, strengthened the cause Cowperwood was so much interested in; for he was selling as high as he could and buying as low as he could on a constantly sinking scale. By twelve o’clock he figured with his assistants that he had cleared one hundred thousand dollars; and by three o’clock he had two hundred thousand dollars more…... Saturday morning came, and he repeated his performance of the day before, following it up with adjustments on Sun-day and heavy trading on Monday. By Monday afternoon at three o’clock he figured that, all losses and uncertainties to one side, he was once more a millionaire, and that now his future lay clear and straight before him.

As he sat at his desk late that afternoon in his office looking out into Third Street, where a hurrying of brokers, messengers, and anxious depositors still maintained, he had

46

the feeling that so far as Philadelphia and the life here was concerned, his day and its day with him was over. He did not care anything about the brokerage business here any more or anywhere. Failures such as this, and disasters such as the Chicago fire, that had overtak-en him two years before, had cured him of all love of the stock exchange and all feeling for Philadelphia. He had been very unhappy here in spite of all his previous happiness; and his experience as a convict had made, him, he could see quite plainly, unacceptable to the element with whom he had once hoped to associate. There was nothing else to do, now that he had reestablished himself as a Philadelphia business man and been pardoned for an offense which he hoped to make people believe he had never committed, but to leave Philadelphia to seek a new world.

“If I get out of this safely,” he said to himself, “this is the end. I am going West, and going into some other line of business.” He thought of street-railways, land speculation, some great manufacturing project of some kind, even mining, on a legitimate basis.

“I have had my lesson,” he said to himself, finally getting up and preparing to leave. “I am as rich as I was, and only a little older. They caught me once, but they will not catch me again.” He talked to Wingate about following up the campaign on the lines in which he had started, and he himself intended to follow it up with great energy; but all the while his mind was running with this one rich thought: “I am a millionaire. I am a free man. I am only thirty-six, and my future is all before me.”

...The West, as he had carefully calculated before leaving, held much. He had studied the receipts of the New York Clearing House recently and the disposition of bank-bal-ances and the shipment of gold, and had seen that vast quantities of the latter metal were going to Chicago. He understood finance accurately. The meaning of gold shipments was clear. Where money was going trade was a thriving, developing life...

“It is advantageous, anyhow,” Cowperwood said…

The Financier Dreiser, Theodore

47

48

Customers’ satisfaction is the primary objective of almost any kind of business. You and anyone of your em-ployees, who deserves his salary, want to do every-thing within your power in order to increase the num-ber of your loyal custom-ers. You want to find out cus-tomers, who have never used your product or service and to turn them into your fans. “The fans” are those custom-ers, who are loyal to the utmost. They not only re-sist the temptation to aban-don you, but they also very actively praise you. Those fans are your biggest, free of charge trade power. They are a better means of achiev-ing success than marketing, promotions and even prices.

During the recent 25 years Gallup Organization has in-terviewed over a milliard of customers trying to un-derstand what in fact they want. One of the findings is that customers’ needs are different depending on the industry.

The most astonishing fact is that in spite of those differences, four of the cus-

tomers’ expectations are con-stant, regardless of the type of business and people. Those four expectations are hierar-chical. This means that first of all the customer’s lower level expectations should be satisfied, before he is ready to pay attention to the upper levels. Those consecutive ex-pectations show the leaders and the companies what to do in order to transform their customers into their loyal attorneys.

The accuracy is the low-est level expected by custom-ers. They expect to receive exactly the room that they have booked at a hotel. They expect their bank statements to show precisely the balance of their bank account. When they go to a restaurant, they expect the waiter to serve them exactly what they have ordered. It does not matter how polite the employees are if the company fails the ac-curacy test, customers will abandon it.

The availability is the next level. Customers expect their favourite hotel chain to have hotels in different towns and countries. They ex-

49

pect their bank to work at any time when they want to use its services, enough ca-shiers and short queues. They expect their favourite res-taurant to be nearby, to have enough parking lots and the waiters immediately to un-derstand the customer’s look meaning “I need you”.

Any company that increas-es its availability will cer-tainly win more customers, who want to try its product or service.

It is important to be known that even satisfied, those ex-pectations can only protect against creating discontent among customers.

It is important to be known that even satisfied, those ex-pectations can only protect against creating discontent among customers. Companies that cannot meet those ex-pectations will fail. But the accuracy and availability is not everything. This is only a part of the transformation process from a customer into an attorney. The next two ex-pectations accomplish the process. They not only pro-tect against creating negative feelings of discontent, but

also create positive feelings of satisfaction. They trans-form the capricious customer into a convincing attorney.

The partnership is the third level expected by the customer. He wants from you to listen to him, to be warm-hearted and to make him feel as if you are a team.

Example:

To encourage the target market and to make college students drink more Snapple, the company promised awards to the students who were lucky to buy a bottle with a special code under the cap. Instead of offering directly money to the students, the company de-cided to direct the awards to the young customers’ primary needs. So the first award was presented as, “Let Snapple pay for your one-year rent. Twelve payments of 1000 dol-lars.” The second award was, “Let Snapple pay for your car. Twelve payments of 300 dol-lars”. Even the small awards with one-off payment described how this amount of money would be useful for the students. The one-hundred award said

50

www.whoami-magazine.com

51

52

We live in an age of capitalistic triumph. The new stock exchanges in countries that were recently bastions of communist pow-er are a fact. We buy and sell currencies on the FOREX market from home!

From seventy to ninety percent of an employee’s work in modern companies is intellectual. The basic production means is small, gray and weighs about one kilogram and three hundred grams. It is the human brain.

The perfect human brain whose pow-er is irrefutable defeats the traditional pro-duction means, raw materials, physical la-bour and capital. Try to think of even one large successful modern company that is supported by “muscles”.

Knowledge is the basic means of supe-riority of countries, corporations and indi-viduals.

The new cold war is more impercepti-ble. It is a battle of and for brains! All of us, more and more often face situations which require from us still deeper knowledge in order to function and finally to succeed.

Technology, which took the image of biotechnology, information technolo-gy, transport technology etc., continues to transform the world.

The main contribution of technology boils down to the creation of information systems. The influence of information tech-nology is omnipresent. Today information spreads without hindrance. You cannot avoid it. It is annoying like the sand in your swimming suit but you cannot get rid of it.

IT compresses time and space. We live in a diminishing world. The Internet is the seventh continent. The new immigrants in it are virtual. Instead of moving people from one place to another we start moving our thoughts and ideas. This is a new game with new rules. Most organizations do not succeed in adapting to them and perish.

IT has universal influence. The com-petitors are one click away. We again go shopping but the booths are located in cy-berspace, on the web.

The electronic nervous system of a company is the so-called “infostructure” and it is more important than its infrastruc-ture. The companies with bad infostructure look like 93-year old ladies, with high heel shoes and official evening dresses, firmly determined to participate in the world fi-nals of the men’s one hundred meters.

The national country is not an actual analytical unit any more. Under the con-ditions of an interdependent economy the users’ behaviour is not determined by patri-otic feelings. At the cashier’s counter people do not think about their motherland or the country they live in. They do not care about employment, unemployment and the trade deficit.

Today when choosing an educational institution young people gather informa-tion on business colleges all over the world no matter their nationality. State borders mean nothing for the future leaders. Their choice is based only on the vision of the best alternative. The evaluation criteria of the

53

best educational institution are: attractive appearance of the future colleagues, long, sandy, beaches, cheap alcohol and tolerant attitude towards marijuana use. The factors mentioned above determine the competi-tiveness of the different regions.

Today’s state looks as if it is pressed against the wall – too big to deal with the little people’s problem and too small for the global problems like unemployment, pol-lution and poverty.

There is a close connection between the sunset of the national states and the in-ternationalization as a potential possibil-ity for business (and not only for it). The modern world is managed by companies and this has not found yet an adequate re-flection in the structure of the institutions which exercise control on them.

A great variety of values arises as a re-sult of the collision between different cul-tures, tastes and experiences. We are ob-sessed with the mania of hybrids. Blending is only a step away from confusion. In spite of this, the one is not always a consequence from the other. The Japanese thinkers inter-pret the Western philosophers’ ideas. The American companies invade the Japanese market. Those who realize the importance of differences in the cultural values of na-tions and races will succeed.

The word that describes our mod-ern world in the best way is “more”. More alternatives, more goods, more entertain-ment. We live in a world of surplus, a world of abundance.

The world sinks into the ocean of knowledge, products, services and infor-mation. Quite often “more” means “more of the same”.

One of the characteristics of a society of abundance and surplus is monotony – the same people with the same knowledge and ideas work for the same companies. The fruit of their labour is of equal quality and equal price. Consciously or not, all in-dividuals and companies with their prod-ucts participate in a common competition. This is a good piece of news for the modest users, but for the executive managers the moment for their longest prayer has come.

The society of abundance is formed and developed under the influence of: mar-ket expansion that raises into the user a ma-niacal inclination to go shopping; reckless over-supply and technical progress leading to a continuous decrease in the prices of products and goods.

Now those who form the demand are in power. The auction houses based on the Internet are a good example. Their creators realized the truth that in times of reckless oversupply those who form the over-con-sumption are in power. So you want to be-come an owner of a new car, but you hardly expect to bargain with Mercedes, Honda, Toyota or even with the smallest car com-pany in the world. And yet, wouldn’t every-thing look different if you know that you could unite with 999 people who want to have the same car? Users unite. The winner is the final customer. He has the absolute

54

power on the market. In times of an abun-dance of goods and services companies must work diligently in order to be noticed.

To be noticed they have to go to ex-tremes. Exaggeration is a business necessi-ty. Times of extremes require extreme mea-sures. Today’s society is of the type “I saw, I had, I heard, I did, I was there”. Monotony is not seen. To be distinguished among the rest means some seconds of attention and a possibility to conquer a part of the mind and heart of the customer. To attract him you have to offer him direct, strong and immediate experiences. Some people still measure atoms as if they are the most im-portant things in life. Their balances are for atom-machines, buildings etc. but do they really catch the most important assets of companies measuring those things?

We go from the world of atoms to the world of bits.

Let’s take for example Microsoft. It is not the largest company in the world, but it is still quoted very high on the stock ex-changes. In 1993 the company had 14 000 employees and a turnover of about 3.75 billion dollars. In the same year one of the biggest corporations in the world General Motors had a turnover of 120 billion dol-lars.

Even under these circumstances, at the end of 1993 Microsoft was worth more than General Motors. Today it is worth a couple of times more!!!Think about the scale of General Motors. It has thousands of build-ings and enormous complicated machines.

The company has existed for a long time and has over 500 000 employees! And yet, Microsoft exceeds its market value without doing great efforts. Microsoft does not have as many offices, machines and storehouses as General Motors. It does not have as many employees. In fact the only asset of Micro-soft is the human imagination. Think about Google, eBay, Skype, FACEBOOK, Apple.

Today brain power rules over the mod-ern corporations. It is their essence. The competition is in the sphere of competence. A company like Erickson comprises more than 60% services and pure knowledge and for companies of the sort of Hewlett Pack-ard and IBM this value goes close to 90%! All these companies convert, regardless of their wish, from production companies with a few services into companies offering services with small production.

A total change into the speculation is necessary! If you can touch something today most likely it will not cost a billion! What is valued today the most is imma-terial – the trademark, relationships con-centrated within a company, concepts and ideas.

We live in a world without borders, a world of globally connected society, where of significance is who the manufacturer is and not where the goods are produced. To-day we attach importance to the manufac-turer and not to the place of manufacture. The expression “made in …” changed into “made by…”.

Globalization is a fact. It concerns

55

national states, companies, products, ser-vices and individuals. By virtue of the law the multinational companies are local, but according to their scope of action they are global; global products like Coca Cola and Absolut vodka.

The spirit of entrepreneurship con-quered the world. It left the Old Continent at the end of the 19th Century and visited the USA. Today it keeps going to the West and reached the Far East. It is still moving to the West, waving the magic wand over China and the ex Soviet Union. We live in a new reality.

Looking at the West we see the real present. Most jobs are created namely there. America is strange because only certain re-gions, industries and companies develop with extremely dynamic rates. California is one of the centers of growth. This is one unusual place where 40% of the population never use knives and forks when eating as they prefer to eat standing up with their hands. So, it seems that the international competition is between those who eat with sticks, those who eat with forks and knives and those who eat with hands. They might use their hands while eating but when they rule the economy they certainly use their heads. This is the economy of the small and immaterial things and girls with Siliwood asses (Silicon Valley and Hollywood). Mak-ing more money and beautiful women is the name of the game. From a business point of view the developing sector of entertain-ment is of interest. Although the movie

production of the countries from the EU is bigger than that of the USA, the American movies possess 69 % of the West-European market. Movies, music, electronic toys and computer games merge with all aspects of information technologies, hardware and software, telecommunications, Internet etc. into one quite enchanting infusion.

The American economy is a leader in the information society. Its products be-come lighter and lighter every minute. The companies from Silicon Valley are valued six times as much as those in Detroit.

During the next 24 hours over 63 new American millionaires will go outside to en-joy themselves under the rays of the warm Californian Sun.

Regardless of everything, in the name of the objective reality I should say that the present does not come only from the Far West. The Far East marks an amazing eco-nomic boom due to the strong strive for ed-ucation of the countries from that region.

An investigation of Merrill Lynch shows that in some places like Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan over 70% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is formed by activities in the sphere of services. These economies are based on pure knowledge. A country like Singapore spends 30% of its GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for educa-tion and research work. Those people cer-tainly have a plan. But of course Singapore might be wrong. What will happen if the key capital of the present is not knowledge? Keep dreaming!

56

A larger part of the production in South Asia is realized in China, a country that has a population of 413.9 million un-der the age of 20. The Chinese are young, well educated and they want to be rich. Ac-cording to an investigation recently done it is a primary motivating factor for about 66% of China’s population.

The pure competition on a global level started years ago. Today it is more than ever based on the intellect. If you remember, at the beginning the Japanese produced cheap goods. The West ignored them like plas-tic garbage. Then they made progress and started producing better goods. The West made a mistake and did not pay them the deserved attention. As a result the Japanese destroyed almost all Western electronics companies and in practice killed the auto-mobile companies. Now billions of brains started their march to riches and the one who knows will win!

The present is not connected only with the Far West or the Far East. The Near East is also not to be ignored and hides explosive potential. The economies of the countries for that region underwent deep changes.

When we talk about that region we always use some complementing perspec-tives.

1. For some companies Eastern Eu-rope is a big mess, due to the lack of infra-structure, organized crime, and a different mentality.

2. For others Eastern Europe is a gi-gantic market – Mercedes sells a lot of lux-

urious cars in Moscow.3. Those countries are an enormous

import market. The mega sale of brains is organized there, especially of people who have worked for the military industry.

There is a trend in some Russian com-panies towards not hiring personnel from the West, because in their opinion the West-erners are not true capitalists. They state that the Western employee accustomed to comfort cannot work long hours and obey certain rules if necessary. The Eastern Eu-ropeans are hungry and smart!

West Europe is surprising with its potential. Nokia is a manufacturer of the sweetest and most stylish cell phones in the world. Today Finland exports more elec-tronics than timber. The Finns have more Internet hosts per capita than any other country in the world. England continues to be a leader in lots of spheres – the most fa-mous airlines are English. Look at easyJet and Virgin.

Europe offers a lot of multicultural decisions. Look at the football teams and the population of the country. The head of-fices of some prosperous companies like Nestle and ABB seem to stand the differ-ences more easily and more positively that other European companies. The Managing Board of ABB consisted at times of eight people from four nationalities and the Ex-ecutive Board had one more with nine. The ex Executive Director of the company says that “not the passport but the competition is the key criterion in selection”.

57

www.whoami-magazine.com

58

Success is a specific way of thinking. Success comes with the knowledge of this specific way of thinking and may become a habit of ours forever. Success comes to those ones who want it and believe that they can achieve it and who turn their desires into action. People who have achieved success, readily share their stories about how they have devoted years to their work, their pas-sions and dreams before they finally con-gratulate themselves on success. What is common for all of them is that they love their work. When we do what we love, we

employ our inner potential in chasing our own prosperity, offering the world the best we are capable of.

“If I could, I’d write a huge encyclopedia just about the words luck and coincidence. It’s with those words that the universal language is written.”

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

Success means conscious implemen-tation of certain principles and good luck

Picture from “The Opus” movie!

59

comes at the moment when continuous preparation encounters the suitable oppor-tunity. Age, education, money, origin, and the experience of our childhood do not af-fect these principles. The childhood of the richest and self-made people in the world very often has been ordinary, poor, and mis-erable. At school many of them were con-sidered stupid. Still, all of them, at a certain moment of their lives, took their destiny in their hands. Having received some enlight-enment through dream or book, through the words or fate of someone else, they took their road to success.

“You should pay more attention to the cara-van,” the boy said to the Englishman, after the camel driver had left. “We make a lot of detours, but we’re always heading for the same destina-tion.”

“And you ought to read more about the world,” answered the Englishman.

“Books are like caravans in that respect.”

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

You should know that you can start from nothing, like so many before you, and achieve your loftiest purposes. Simply, you have to believe that it is possible and to be firmly determined to build up the kind of life you desire.

All successful people have met with failure not only once. Thomas Edison made ten thousand experiments before invent-ing the incandescence electric lamp. Fail-

ure does not come to those ones who never give up their dreams

For success and wealth, money is al-ways a consequence, and a side effect, unin-tentionally achieved, by one’s personal de-votion to something even bigger than him.

One warning before going on. Quite often, you will get advice how to develop entrepreneur activity and set up a business of your own. This does not mean that you have to leave everything you are doing at the moment. Not everyone was born to be an entrepreneur. You have to possess a certain type of individuality and feel over-mastering desire to be a boss of yourself. If you have such a feeling, most probably you possess the basic features to start a business of your own.

You might know some of the things you will read in this article. This is just one more proof of the validity of the great truths that have turned into principles of success. These principles should be repeated many times, every day, over and over again, until we consciously understand them and, what is more important, until our subconscious-ness processes them and accepts them as truth. Then, great changes will take place in our lives. And until then, we should re-member that the key to success is in our strongest desires and boldest dreams. Our subconsciousness fulfils everything what our own beliefs imposes on it, and can be controlled or changed by us!

You have to believe that you are able to succeed in order to make success possible.

60

This is the most important prerequisite for succeeding in everything. Undoubtedly, it is your beliefs that create your life experi-ence. No matter what you are, and what you have been taught by your parents, at school, by television, books, friends, and what you have believed before. You can change your beliefs and make your life better, never mind how many times you have been told that you should not lose your time pursu-ing your dreams and that you cannot have what you want. This advice is always given by losers. Since they are a majority, we of-ten can hear that it is impossible for us to achieve any success in any of our initiatives.

„And anyone who interferes with the desti-ny of another thing never will discover his own.”

The alchemist’s words echoed out like a curse.

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

This is not true! Both success and fail-ure are a way of thinking.

When you realize that you can change your way of thinking, you will find out that it is possible not only to succeed, as you would like, in all spheres of your lives, but also that it is easy, much easier than you have ever imagined. In fact, the time you are living in definitely can be called time of unprecedented opportunities. It is an age of enlightenment and full development of inner people’s potential. The useful ideas

that have flashed in your mind and which you do not allow to be realized because you do not believe in your own potentialities or because of some acquired fears could be-come true by means of self-suggestion and self-programming.

Success is a way of thinking and state of mind

Failure is a way of living for most peo-ple. Failure is a habit, and as such efforts are needed to be overcome.

In this article, I will explain the vital-ly important role of consciousness which is the only thing that can programme the subconsciousness for success and happy life. When we understand how to subdue the force of thought in service of prosper-ity, we will inevitably succeed.

Now it is very difficult

It is being proved every minute that this statement is not true. While negative-ly thinking and improvident people waste their time being slaves to their low self-confidence, working work they hate, thou-sands of small enterprises appear in the world and thrive. Every year millions of people become millionaires. Think about the movies that are being filmed, the books that are being published, and the availabil-ity of customers all over the world due to the Internet. To achieve success today is not only possible but also in fact much eas-

61

ier. The whole world is at our disposal for new ideas, products and services. Success depends primarily on our way of thinking, and our beliefs

I am too young

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Com-puters, earned his first million when he was twenty-three years old, his first ten mil-lion when he was twenty-four, and his first hundred million at age of twenty-five. Ac-cording to an old saying, a young man with a clear goal in life achieves success early. Youth more often is an advantage rather than disadvantage. Lack of experience can be compensated by courage, boldness, in-tuition, and originality. History shows that most successful people were very inexpe-rienced when they started their enterprise and they acquired knowledge in the course of work .

I am too old

Raymond Kroc, the founder of the McDonalds corporation, established his company at the age of 52, after spending 30 years selling paper products and automatic milkshake machines to restaurants all over the country. During his trips, Kroc saw amusing business activities such as cafete-rias, family snack bars, dining cars, ham-burger stands, and became a sort of expert in the lowest step of the American restau-rant business.

Research among rich people shows that many of them achieve their goals when they reach and middle age and even later. It is possible that this is the time when they gather the fruits of their preceding efforts when others thought about retirement. It is a fact that a lot of people, quite late in life, start their second or third career, which sometimes is more successful than the pre-vious ones. Age does not matter. Years of experience, even if you have had failures, are invaluable.

I have no capital

At the beginning, most people do not have initial capital. When we start a business, money is not important. The important things are good creative business ideas and positive mind. Undoubtedly, you have at least one talent, one passion, one hobby, which can become lucrative if they are ap-plied in the best way and remember there is not shortage of money for launching good ideas.

I have always been poor

Poverty is a tradition in many families. Poverty is transmitted by laws of social in-heritance – a term designating the mecha-nisms by which one generation transmits to another generation being under its con-trol, its prejudices, superstitions, beliefs, faith, ideas, which this generation has in-herited from the previous generation. Fam-

62

www.whoami-magazine.com

63

64

65

Cosmic vitality is with me. I am a part of the world. The world is a part of the Cos-mos. The Cosmos determines the laws of life. I cannot change those laws, therefore, I can change only myself in order to be in harmony with the constant order.

I know that nothing happens by chance. Everything has its explanation but sometimes time is necessary for finding it.

I live my life according to my own vi-sions for what here and now is important to me and what makes me happy.

What was important to me yesterday is not obligatory to be important today. Every day requires its own strategy and maybe a different way of thinking for coping with the daily tasks. Believing in myself I feel free in my decisions and every time I make the best decisions even when later I have to change them. I make decisions; this is what matters.

I know best what I want and always have a plan for realizing my intentions.

My plan is the frame within which I live my life as I live every day. My plan shows me the sequence of my steps, which I have decided to do. My creativity, spontaneity and faith make the impossible possible and blast the borders of my plan if the decision is not consistent with my steps or my plan is not suitable for achieving my objective.

I am! My wishes, needs and dreams are important to me!

My objective is, owing to my own strength, to be free and happy as much as possible everyday of my life.

I believe I can achieve everything I want to have.

Everything that I need to have a happy and rich life is inside of me. I listen to my inner voice and always go along with the happiness and the cosmic power inside of me.

I eliminate immediately everything that bothers me or makes me sick and al-low only what makes me free and happy.

I remove yesterday’s knowledge if to-day’s knowledge helps me be freer and happy. Every day is a new life and I live it spontaneously thinking of the things that I like and desire. I achieve what I can in rela-tion to the above mentioned. What I can-not achieve today, I achieve it when its time has come.

My faith is the step towards achieving the unimaginable.

My proficiency to estimate correctly consists of estimating what is important to me and what I have to give up in order to achieve what I want to.

Money does not define my desires and needs but my desires define what I want.

I continuously strive for achieving my dreams in order to walk ahead to happi-ness and freedom. I use my patience; that means I reach my objective without impa-tience and haste until I achieve the desired result.

Patience also means to learn from my defeats until I reach the desired success. I consider my defeats like steps on the ladder to success.

66

Concentration also helps me very much.

Concentration means all thoughts, feelings and energy to be directed to what I want to achieve. For that purpose I mobi-lize the strength of thinking and imagina-tion, the power of intuition and knowledge and my faith that I can achieve everything.

Total concentration is the rejection of everything that prevents me from reaching the objective and permission of everything that leads to its realization.

Life is a manipulative game in which even when I lose I win because I learn most from my failures.

I always put in all my energy to win everything. I play games in which I know that I will finally win.

My biggest victory is to be free and happy without needing a victory.

In the manipulative game I can rely only on myself. I am my best friend. We are inseparable friends in happiness and un-happiness, in life and death.

I play the manipulative game in life on my own rules, remembering that my ego is many-sided.

* My throbbing heart will hamper me

to act as I have decided. When I doubt. * Strict adherence to the rules of the

game will hamper me to use those solutions that areunexpected even to me; solutions of creativity, intuition, imagination and in-stinct and those things are namely what

helps me to surprise my enemies. In order to win a victory in the manip-

ulative game, there is no pride and ambi-tion, there is no fear and sympathy. I know neither repentance nor a feeling of guilt be-cause the enemy can use them against me.

I feel calm only when I am always on the alert. So, I am sure that nothing can sur-prise me except nice things like good luck and love.

Spreading rumours is an instrument in the manipulative game. The manipula-tive game is more dangerous than fair play.

A rumour is a purposeful lie, which is accepted as a truth. I live according to my truth therefore I am not afraid of rumours.

I use against my enemies their weak points and the best from myself.

When I eat and drink I want to eat and drink and I satisfy the needs of my body, spirit and heart. I eat and drink neither out of anger and fear nor to forget.

I live truly only when I pursue my ob-jective. In pursuing my objective I need love, sex and satisfaction.

A natural need which I have suppressed for a long time makes me sick. I cannot sat-isfy the need of my genitals in my head.

Sex has nothing in common with mor-als. Morals are an instrument of the manip-ulative game invented by the clever for the stupid.

About love and sex I always have ap-propriate alternatives so that nobody can blackmail me.

67

www.whoami-magazine.com

68

69

70

71

72

www.whoami-magazine.com

73

74

I was prepared to dislike Max Kelada even before I knew him. The war had just finished and the passenger traffic in the ocean-going liners was heavy. Accommo-dation was very hard to get and you had to put up with whatever the agents chose to offer you. You could not hope for a cabin to yourself and I was thankful to be given one in which there were only two berths. But when I was told the name of my com-panion my heart sank. It suggested closed portholes and the night air rigidly excluded. It was bad enough to share a cabin for four-teen days with anyone (I was going from San Francisco to Yokohama, but I should have looked upon it with less dismay if my fellow passenger`s name had been Smith or Brown.

When I went on board I found Mr Kelada`s luggage already below. I did not like the look of it; there were too many la-bels on the suit-cases, and the wardrobe trunk was too big. He had unpacked his toilet things, and I observed that he was a patron of the excellent Monsieur Coty; for I saw on the washing-stand his scent, his hair-wash and his brilliantine. Mr Kelada`s brushes, ebony with his monogram in gold, would have been all the better for a scrub. I did not at all like Mr Kelada. I made my way into the smoking-room. I called for a pack of cards and began to play patience. I had scarcely started before a man came up to me and asked me if he was right in thinking my name was so and so.

“I am Mr Kelada,” he added, with a

smile that showed a row of flashing teeth, and sat down.

“Oh, yes, we`re sharing a cabin, I think.”

“Bit of luck, I call it. You never know who you`re going to be put in with. I was jolly glad when I heard you were English. I`m all for us English slicking together when we`re abroad, if you understand what I mean.”

I blinked.“Are you English?” I asked, perhaps

tactlessly.“Rather. You don`t think I look like an

American, do you? British to the backbone, that`s what I am.”

To prove it, Mr Kelada took out of his pocket a passport and airily waved it under my nose.

King George has many strange sub-jects. Mr Kelada was short and of a sturdy build, clean-shaven and dark-skinned, with a fleshy hooked nose and very large, lustrous and liquid eyes. His long black hair was sleek and curly. He spoke with a fluency in which there was nothing Eng-lish and his gestures were exuberant. I fell pretty sure that a closer inspection of that British passport would have betrayed the fact that Mr Kelada was born under a bluer sky than is generally seen in England.

“What will you have?” he asked me.I looked at him doubtfully. Prohibition

was in force and to all appearance the ship was bone-dry. When I am not thirsty I do not know which I dislike more, ginger ale

75

or lemon squash. But Mr Kelada flashed an oriental smile at me.

“Whisky and soda or a dry martini, you have only to say the word.”

From each of his hip pockets he fished a flask and laid it on the table before me. I chose the martini, and calling the steward he ordered a tumbler of ice and a couple of glasses.

“A very good cocktail,” I said.“Well, there are plenty more where that

came from, and if you`ve got any friends on board, you tell them you`ve got a pal who`s got all the liquor in the world.”

Mr Kelada was chatty. He talked of New York and of San Francisco. He dis-cussed plays, pictures, and politics. He was patriotic. The Union Jack is an impressive piece of drapery, but when it is nourished by a gentleman from Alexandria or Beirut, I cannot but feel that it loses somewhat in dignity. Mr Kelada was familiar.” I do not wish to put on airs, but I cannot help feel-ing that it is seemly in a total stranger to put “mister” before my name when he ad-dresses me. Mr Kelada, doubtless to set me at my case, used no such formality. I did not like Mr Kelada. I had put aside the cards when he sat down, but now, thinking that for this first occasion our conversation had lasted long enough, I went on with my game.

“The three on the four,” said Mr Ke-lada.

There is nothing more exasperating when you are playing patience than to be

told where to put the card you have turned up before you have had a chance to look for yourself.

“It`s coming out, it`s coming out,” he cried. “The ten on the knave.”

With rage and hatred in my heart I fin-ished.

Then he seized the pack.“Do you like card tricks?”“No, I hate card tricks,” I answered. “Well, I`ll just show you this one.”He showed me three. Then I said I

would go down to the dining-room and get my seat at table.

“Oh, that`s all right,” he said. “I`ve al-ready taken a seat for you. I thought that as we were in the same state-room we might just as well sit at the same table.”

I did not like Mr Kelada.I not only shared a cabin with him and

ate three meals a day at the same table, but I could not walk round the deck without his joining me. It was impossible to snub him. It never occurred to him that he was not wanted. He was certain that you were as glad to see him as he was to see you. In your own house you might have kicked him downstairs and slammed the door in his face without the suspicion dawning on him that he was not a welcome visitor. He was a good mixer, and in three days knew everyone on board. He ran everything. He managed the sweeps, conducted the auc-tions, collected money for prizes at the sports, got up quoit and golf matches, orga-nized the concert and arranged the fancy-

76

dress ball. He was everywhere and always. He was certainly the best haled man in the ship. We called him Mr Know-All, even to his face. He took it as a compliment. But it was at mealtimes that he was most intoler-able. For the better part of an hour then he had us at his mercy. He was hearty, jovial, loquacious and argumentative. He knew everything better than anybody else, and it was an affront to his overweening van-ity that you should disagree with him. He would not drop a subject, however unim-portant, till he had brought you round to his way of thinking. The possibility that he could be mistaken never occurred to him. He was the chap who knew. We sat at the doctor`s table. Mr Kelada would certainly have had it all his own way, for the doc-tor was lazy and I was frigidly indifferent, except for a man called Ramsay who sat there also. He was as dogmatic as Mr Ke-lada and resented bitterly the Levantine`s cocksureness. The discussions they had were acrimonious and interminable.

Ramsay was in the American Consul-ar Service and was stationed at Kobe. He was a great heavy fellow from the Middle West, with loose fat under a tight skin, and he bulged out of this really-made clothes. He was on his way back to resume his post, having been on a flying visit to New York to retell his wife who had been spending a year at home. Mrs Ramsay was a very pretty little thing, with pleasant manners and a sense of humour. The Consular Ser-vice is ill-paid, and she was dressed always

very simply; but she knew how to wear her clothes. She achieved an effect of quiet dis-tinction. I should not have paid any partic-ular attention to her but that she possessed a quality that may be common enough in women, but nowadays is not obvious in their demeanour. You could not look at her without being struck by her modesty. It shone in her like a flower on a coat.

One evening at dinner the conversation by chance drifted to the subject of pearls. There had been in the papers a good deal of talk about the culture pearls which the cun-ning Japanese were making, and the doctor remarked that they must inevitably dimin-ish the value of real ones. They were very good already; they would soon be perfect. Mr Kelada, as was his habit, rushed the new topic. He told us all that was to be known about pearls. I do not believe Ramsay knew anything about them at all, but he could not resist the opportunity to have a fling at the Levantine, and in five minutes we were in the middle of a heated argument. I had seen Mr Kelada vehement and voluble before, but never so voluble and vehement as now. At last something that Ramsay said stung him, for he thumped the table and shouted:

“Well, I ought to know what I am talk-ing about. I`m going to Japan just to look into this Japanese pearl business. I`m in the trade and there`s not a man in it who won`t tell you that what I say about pearls goes. I know all the best pearls in the world, and what I don`t know about pearls isn`t worth knowing.”

77

Here was news for us, for Mr Kelada, with all his loquacity, had never told any-one what his business was. We only knew vaguely that he was going to Japan on some commercial errand. He looked round the table triumphantly.

“They`ll never be able to get a culture pearl that an expert like me can`t tell with half an eye.” He pointed to a chain that Mrs Ramsay wore. “You take my word for it, Mrs Ramsay, that chain you`re wearing will never be worth a cent less than it is now.”

Mrs Ramsay in her modest way flushed a little and slipped the chain inside her dress. Ramsay leaned forward. He gave us all a look and a smile flickered in his eyes.

“That`s a pretty chain of Mrs Ramsay`s, isn`t it?”

“I noticed it at once,” answered Mr Kelada. “Gee, I said to myself, those are pearls all right.”

“I didn`t buy it myself, of course. I`d be interested to know how much you think it cost.”

“Oh, in the trade somewhere round fif-teen thousand dollars. But if it was bought on Fifth Avenue shouldn`t be surprised to hear that anything up to thirty thousand was paid for it.”

Ramsay smiled grimly. “You`ll be surprised to hear that Mrs

Ramsay bought that siring at a department store the day before we left New York, for eighteen dollars.”

Mr Kelada flushed.

“Rot. It`s not only real, but it`s as fine a siring for its size as I`ve ever seen.”

“Will you bet on it? I`ll bet you a hun-dred dollars it`s imitation.”

“Done.”“Oh, Elmer, you can`t bet on a cer-

tainty,” said Mrs Ramsay.She had a little smile on her lips and

her tone was gently deprecating.“Can`t I? If I get a chance of easy

money like that I should be all sorts of a fool not to take it.”

“But how can it be proved?” she con-tinued. “It`s only my word against Mr Kelada`s.”

“Let me look at the chain, and if it`s imitation I`ll tell you quickly enough. I can afford to lose a hundred dollars,” said Mr Kelada.

“Take it off, dear. Let the gentleman look at it as much as he wants.”

Mrs Ramsay hesitated a moment. She put her hands to the clasp.

“I can`t undo it,” she said. “Mr Kelada will just have to take my word for it.”

I had a sudden suspicion that some-thing unfortunate was about to occur, but I could think of nothing to say.

Ramsay jumped up.“I`ll undo it.”He handed the chain to Mr Kelada. The

Levantine look a magnifying glass from his pocket and closely examined it. A smile of triumph spread over his smooth and swar-thy face. He handed back the chain. He was about to speak. Suddenly he caught sight of

78

Mrs Ramsay`s face. It was so white that she looked as though she were about to faint. She was staring at him with wide and terri-fied eyes. They held a desperate appeal; it was so clear that I wondered why her hus-band did not see it.

Mr Kelada stopped with his mouth open. He flushed deeply. You could almost see the effort he was making over himself.

“I was mistaken,” he said. “It`s a very good imitation, but of course as soon as I looked through my glass I saw that it wasn`t real. I think eighteen dollars is just about as much as the damned thing`s worth.”

He took out his pocket book and from it a hundred-dollar bill. He handed it to Ramsay without a word.

“Perhaps that`ll teach you not to be so cocksure another time, my young friend,” said Ramsay as he took the note.

I noticed that Mr Kelada`s hands were trembling.

The story spread over the ship as sto-ries do, and he had to put up with a good deal of chaff that evening. It was a fine joke that Mr Know-All had been caught out. But Mrs Ramsay retired to her state-room with a headache.

Next morning I got up and began to shave. Mr Kelada lay on his bed smoking a cigarette. Suddenly there was a small scrap-ing sound and I saw a letter pushed under the door. I opened the door and looked out. There was nobody there. I picked up the letter and saw that it was addressed to Max Kelada. The name was written in block let-

ters. I handed it to him.“Who`s this from?” He opened it.

“Oh!”He took out of the envelope, not a let-

ter, but a hundred-dollar bill. He looked at me and again he reddened. He tore the en-velope into little bits and gave them to me.

“Do you mind just throwing them out of the porthole?” I did as he asked, and then I looked at him with a smile.

“No one likes being made to look a perfect damned fool,” he said.

“Were the pearls real?”“If I had a pretty little wife I shouldn`t

let her spend a year in New York while I stayed at Kobe,” said he.

At that moment I did not entirely dis-like Mr Kelada. He reached out for his pocket book and carefully put in it the hun-dred-dollar note.

By W. Somerset Maugham

***

Meanwhile, the boy thought about his treasure. The closer he got to the realization of his dream, the more difficult things became. It seemed as if what the old king had called “be-ginner’s luck” were no longer functioning. In his pursuit of the dream, he was being constantly subjected to tests of his persistence and courage.

79

www.whoami-magazine.com

80