Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-02-28
REGULATING BRoK gRs.


EDS. RECORD UNION: The bill known as
the Gorley bill, and with which the public is
already familiar, aims at correcting the ex.
isting evils of stock business and stock specu.
lation generally. No doubt the object of the
author was to accomplish this purpose and
none other. We trust, and taking this for
granted, he will hasten to correct hisfalse posi-
| ton when it is proven that he is g barking up
the wrong tree" No one knows better than
Mr.. Gorley himself that brokers are only
agents; that they are neither mine owners
nor stock manipulators; chat they do not
levy assessments, do not control the working
of mines nor the working of the stock mar
ket. Specializing members of the San Fran
cisco Stock Exchange are few and far be-
tween. The days when Keene swung the
market and Mark Mcdonald swept down on
certain stocks are days OF the past. Now
there is not a broker in the Board
that is known as an operator on the market,
either to lower or raise stocks. The present
members are simply agents, obeying instruc-
tionS received from clients and operators who
control and manipulate the market to their
own sweet will. To pass a bill regulatiI G
brokers will no more accomplish the END
aimed at than to pass bill regulating Il e
collector of the S. V. W. w. He is only
an agent, who is obeying the instructions
from his principals. The Spring Valley
Water Works Company is the one to regu-
late. Suppose bill was introduced to regu
late the agents OF the Central Pacific Raj
road Company there would be as much
sense in 1t as TO regulate brokers. Mine own
ers and niue manipulators are the real par
ties to regulate by legislative enactment.
1t is they who put up deals on
the market. It is they who regulate tie
prices of stocks, by orders to buy to sell.
Any one familiar with the business knows
this to be the case. Brokers are the instru-
ments through which they work. With re-
gard to the New York Stock Exchange. does
any one for moment think it would correct
the evils of speculation by regulating the
brokers of New York There like in San
Francisco, brokers obey the instructions of
their principals-buy or sell railroad bonds,
Government bonds and other securities. One
feature in the bill is certainly beyond expla-
nation. That no broker shall borrow money
ON his securities is the one referred to. In
no civilized city of the world where
brokers do business, whether in Government
securities, wheat, cotton, no matter what the
class or kind of security, Is the broker pre-
cluded from negotiating the same with his
banker. What good can be accomplished by
this provision of his bill2 1 have, in all the
comments and arguments, looked IN vain for
an answer.
Clients now doing business with brokers do
not request the passage of the Gorley bill for
their protection, and most assuredly they are
the parties interested. | have yet TO hear of
any petitions from clients and dealers in
stocks, petitioniug the enactment of such
cinching measure on brokers. To my mind
the bill has originated from one wholly igno-
rant Of the subject, or conceived in malice to
avenge his own personal grievances.
BROKER.
San Francisco, February 25, 1880.