So then here is the hope that you, girl, will start right, keep right and end right. I want you to think of sense, sentiment, and simplicity rather than dances, dollars, duds and doings. I want your life to be one of poise, happiness and serenity instead of noise, worry and nerves. This little message is all for you--GIRL. SPECULATION You Can't Earn Your Board on the Board of Trade I've been riding through the golden wheat belt of Kansas, and estimated the new wealth; for that which grows is the only real profit or wealth. All else are trades, speculation or bookkeeping accounts. The farmer plants the wheat. God makes it grow and we eat it. But in a big building in an amphitheater in the city, is a crowd of wild men in shirt sleeves, perspiring, shouting, making signs, clawing the air. This crowd never raised wheat, but they raise pandemonium. It's the board of trade; its job is getting the wheat from the farm to you and me who require it to live. I've recently visited the biggest food market in the world, the Chicago Board of Trade. Below the gallery sat a nice dignified elderly man who wrote a note on a slip of paper, folded it and gave it to a boy. The boy was off like a shot to the wheat pit; he gave it to another white-haired young-faced man of cultured, refined, even scholarly bearing, so different from the row raisers in the pit. This nice man was the floor man for a big grain commission house; he read the message, and then did the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde act. He turned red, purple, and green. His neck swelled, he threw back his head and screamed while he held up his hand and five fingers. Each finger meant 5,000 bushels of wheat; five fingers meant 25,000 bushels to sell. In an instant, like a pack of wolves, the other crazy men raised their hands with bent and twisted fingers, the sign language of the pit. The old man made a sign, the wheat was sold. He was Dr. Jekyll again; he yawned and was composed once more. Soon a boy came with another slip, and the old man went mad again. I asked my host if it wasn't pretty busy today; he said "no, it's a dull market." That 25,000 bushels of wheat was sold half a dozen times. Every broker who handled it got a commission. The buying and selling was speculation. Outside the board were the hangers on, the down-and-outs, the has-beens, who used to be in the pit and throw fits like the nice old man I've described. These has-beens have the speculation bug, and hope they can come back some day and make fortunes out of lucky guesses.