Get a list of 100 wildcat investment schemes which are dead beyond hope of resurrection, and it is a safe prediction that one-half the names will contain the word "guarantee" or "security." These two words are as common to the eye in the graveyard of fake investment schemes as is that of Smith, Jones or Brown in any country cemetery; they adorn practically every other tombstone in the last resting place of defunct financial frauds. The question of the value of either of these words in the title of a corporation or concern is disposed of by the statement that there is no legal restriction in the choice of names of companies; the organizers are as free to name their flimsy creation "The Rock of Gibraltar Guarantee Security Company" as the parent is to saddle a weak, under-sized male child with the name of Samson. And, as a rule, there is as much license or propriety in giving the name of the mighty enemy of the Philistines to a stunted boy as there is for applying the name "guarantee" or "security" to a company which is brought into being for the purpose of going out after the savings of the "small investor." Why? Because the companies which are really warranted in making either of these words a part of their corporate name do not have to go into the highways and hedges and beat the bushes for their business; it comes to them by force of their "financial strength." They have no need to drum it up. GOOD ADVICE ON "GUARANTEE." However, scores of oil, mining and investment companies which do not use either of these clever catchwords in their corporate titles cannot be charged with undervaluing the "pulling power" of such phrases; in their literature this kind of bait is employed with the greatest skill and plausibility. One of the most common ways in which this idea is dressed is this: "We guarantee you, under all conditions and at all times, to get you, without cost to yourself, the highest market price for your holdings." This sounds very assuring; it carries with it a protective and almost paternal atmosphere and seldom fails to inspire in the trusting investor the feeling that there is a strong hand always ready to take the investment off his shoulders the moment it threatens to become a burden. This particular phrase is especially fortunate and typical, by way of illustration, for the reason that it couples with the word "guarantee" another term which is a warm favorite with the word artists of the get-rich-quick studies. I allude to the phrase, "highest market value." Wherever either of these clever signals to credulity is displayed the possible investor should invariably remember these points: =First--A guarantee is never stronger than the guarantor.= =Second--A security only has a "market value" in the fair and true sense of the term where a large demand for it meets a large supply; there, and there only, exists an active market and a genuine "market value."=