[40 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
grocery store or a metropolitan bank—will tell you a very dif- 
ferent story concerning the risks of business. He is under no 
fond delusion that business enterprises “run themselves.” He 
will tell you of the shifting prices and supplies of raw materials, 
and the danger of carrying either too large or too small inven- 
tories. He will discuss labor shortages and unemployment, 
wage-scale agreements, efficiency, strikes, boycotts, walkouts, 
lockouts, picketing, arbitrations, injunctions, and accident com- 
pensation. After briefly touching upon insurance, advertising, 
and the problem of obtaining loyal and efficient management, 
he will have something to say also concerning sales managers 
and salesmen, expense accounts, sales policies, the protection of 
trade-marks, and the ever-changing markets for his products, 
with a few concluding remarks upon competition here and 
abroad, tariffs, bank accommodation, foreign exchange rates, 
and (possibly with a rising inflection) taxation. 
Anyone who has followed him, except the purblind doctri- 
naire, will gather from his remarks some idea of why corpora- 
tion net earnings and dividend rates vary so greatly, not merely 
from year to year, but even from month to month, and will 
begin to appreciate the truth of the statement by the late Presi- 
dent Hadley of Yale University, that “The success or failure 
of a man engaged in manufacturing, transportation, or in agri- 
culture depends more upon his skill as a prophet than upon his 
industrv as a producer ”’ 
Assumption of Risk in the Modern World.—These risks 
of business pervade the entire field of human enterprise. They 
are fundamental to and must be borne by the manufacturer, the 
wholesaler, the jobber, and the retailer in every line of trade. 
[n a large measure the contractor, the builder, the banker, the 
real estate dealer or owner, or anyone who creates or constructs 
anything in the present to sell in the future—all are speculators. 
The farmer, who continually stakes his capital and his judg- 
ment against even the blind forces of nature, is probably the 
most persistent. heroic. and useful speculator in the country.