The Art of Making Money as National Religion

Strong Man”/ “Money Master”/ “Industry Commander” as a New Social Ideal

...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 resources. 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 enterprises, and built up immense manufactories. They might use brokers or other agents to buy and sell on exchange; 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... 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. He led.

....Among these panic-struck men Cowperwood was perfectly calm, deadly cold, the same Cowperwood who had pegged solemnly at his ten chairs each day in prison, who had baited his traps for rats, and worked in the little garden allotted him in utter silence and loneliness. Now he was vigorous and energetic. He had been just sufficiently about this exchange floor once more to have made his personality impressive and distinguished...

...”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.”....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.”

(Th.Dreiser, The Financier, M., 1954, p.52-23; 556; 560)

P.T.Barnum, Struggles and Triumphs: Seven Commandments for Success in American Business (1874)

1. Young men starting in life should avoid running into debt. There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt. It is a slavish position to get in, yet we find many a young man hardly out of his “teens” running in debt...Money is in some respects like fire – it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master. When you have it mastering you, when interest is constantly piling up against you, it will keep you down in the worst kind of slavery. But let money work for you, and you have the most devoted servant in the world...There is nothing animate or inanimate that will work so faithfully as money when placed at interest, well secured. It works night and day, and in wet or dry weather.

2. Persevere. When a man is in the right path, he must persevere. I speak of this because there are some persons who are “born tired”; naturally lazy and possessing no self-reliance and no perseverance...Perseverance is sometimes another word for self-reliance. Many persons naturally look on the dark side of life and borrow trouble. They are born so...Until you get so that you can rely upon yourself, you need not expect to succeed, I have known men personally who have met with pecuniary reverses, and absolutely committed suicide, because they thought they could never overcome their misfortune. But I have known others who have met more serious financial difficulties, and have bridged them over by simple perseverance, aided by a firm belief that they were doing justly, and that Providence would “overcome evil with good”.

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