Pearson's Magazine, January, 1911, page 48.
Question Box For Investors
Mrs. F. G., Battle Creek, Mich.
The malodorous scandals affecting the Wireless stocks and the promoters have been so widely published that it seems unnecessary to advise my correspondents against these concerns. Still I am in almost daily receipt of letters from persons--many of whom have but small savings to invest--asking if the Continental Wireless or the Collins Wireless or some other wireless stock is a "safe investment." Wireless stocks are not safe investments. They bear about the same relation to a legitimate investment security as a lottery ticket does to a government bank note. Oil stocks--all of them, are speculative, a fact no one should deny, but as compared with wireless stocks, oil stocks may be considered as almost a gilt edge investment. California Oil has earned and paid more than thirty million dollars in dividends in the last ten years. The industry barring some almost impossible calamity will keep on for decades, earning and paying dividends. The record of wireless stocks is not only bare of dividends, but millions of dollars have been lost by those who were induced to put their slender savings into wireless schemes by promoters who assured the investor that the stock would pay fabulous dividends and become as valuable as Bell Telephone.