The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-01-10
A WALL STREET ROMANCE.
How Bannigan Unloaded His Rubber
 Stock

| -~N--N'%co~NN-
 Stock.
 | Banhigan was an uneducated Irlsh- man. He began life in New England rubber factory and conscientiously | worked his way up from wage of $150 day to die worth five million dollars. | He was shrewd and bright and knew l the value of money He saved to such good purpose that when the rubber trust was formed he was at the head of one of the biggest factories of the country, located in Providence. His knowledge of the trade was so thor ough that despite the fact that he almost invariably used small ITS" in writing letter, he was made president of the trust, his holdings amounting to about forty thousand shares. When matters had been moving along for some time, Ban- nigan made up his mind that the other men in the trust, the big fellows, were not treating him right, and that the best thing he could do was to get out, So he packed his stock certificates in a gripsack, left Providence on the night boat, landed in New York bright and early, had his breakfast, and then made bee-line for stockholders of- flee. He had assured himself in ad- vance that this stockbroker was to be relied upon, and so he told him frankly what he intended to do.
 1T want to sell out, bag and baggage" he said. "I want to get rid of every one of my forty thousand shares. Here they are; put them on the market and sell them" The stockbroker told him that that would never do. If he wanted to realize full value for his holdings he would have to go about it in a different way, for if he should throw his forty thousand shares into the market it would knock the bottom out of prices and he would get little or nothing for his stock. MT. Bennington saw the point and asked what he ought to do.
 Buy" said the broker.
 But I don't want to buy; I have got more now than want"
 That's all right; buy anyway: that will make market for the stock, and you can unload when the time comes"
 How much must I buy?"
 "Oh, about $250,00O worth"
 'But I have not got $250,00O in cash to go and buy rubber stock"
 Well, you can borrow it; man in your position, MT. Bannigan, will have no difficulty in borrowing 25O,000."
 Much against his will the old man was finally persuaded to do as he was told. About two weeks later the broker wrote to him that he must buy some more-this time $2OO,OOO worth MT. Tr- s--kx IL, but finally yielded as before. He bor- rowed $200000 and turned it over With this additional capital to work on, the broker continued to manipulate the market. The insiders soon discovered that some strong party was buying, but they did not know who, Banigan having carefully kept himself in the background His broker operated skill | fully in the stock, one day buying, the | next selling, to keep the stock active. | The broker, after a while began to bor- | row large amounts of the stock. This convinced the insiders that there was 2 big short interest somewhere and | they got together in order to squeeze the shorts. The inside holders who con- trolled most of the stock combined to squeeze "the shorts" out. In further ance of this plan they put the price up 1 to 61 and at about that figure Banigan now found himself full of money while -he other fellows were filled up with his stock. They never awakened to the act that the president had sold out on hem until his shares were delivered against their purchases, as they thought, of ''short' stock. Rubber broke and did not stop tumbling until t had gone from 61 to 16 This deal had all the elements of a 'Gmedv drama and the playwright who 'an do it justice will find material there which vii make him an everlasting for une and reputation.
 It is not often, however. that new 'omers in the street fare as well as his in the end, For a time they will 90 on merrily enough, and send things booming, but in the end most of them get the worst of it,-Henry Clews in he Philadelphia Saturday Evening Post.