The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1901-05-12
SCENES ON wall STREET.

panicky as nysterlcai market for them.
and the men and women in charge Of
/ these places were hard put 10 il TO keep
| any sembldnce OF order Some women
| spectators were those who started "a
with the boom last fail. and who bought
and bought and kept on buying They
had seen signs OF the end lately. And
they saw their accumulated wealth on
paper Thursday wiped out. The veter-
ans took Il quietly. The others Gid not
I'm ruined" shouted a woman in the
corridor of a building that faces one OF
the large uptown hotels. They've got
every cent of mine in there" and She
pointed 10 the door Of q well-known trad
ing room.
You've got q husband 20 support vou.
Kissed her companion. but when I'm out
IN out and that's the end OF It. I've
lost 5000 and it's all l had"
The voices were hard. one hoarse and
one shrill. The womens faces were
hard. also and one was flushed q deep
red, while the other was CHASTITY pale.
They took their troubles differently. TOO.
/ The woman with a husband had to be
assisted out OF the place; the other walk
ed jauntily and alone
There were other groups IN the hall.
Inside the room itself there were about
two dozen women. They did not seem TO
/ see the big cushioned Turkish chairs that
stood all about. They all stood. or paced
Z
the babel Of an afternoon tea, and now
hushed TO whispers. On the wall was
the list with quotations in an unbroken
decline. There. too. was the significant
N. p" and 1000 that 0vershadowed
al the rest There was a center table
with tablets OF blanks being buy" or
SELL but the pens that lay beside them
were all dry with old ink.
The only papers IN the womens hands
were those that messengers brought
from neighboring drug store. and by
the number OF powders consumed IL APP
peared that speculative brains had never
/ been quite so tired before. Figures were
changing meanwhile on the list" and
mems voices called the changes from the
mems trading room next door.
IF rou could only be quiet ladies'
implOred q manager, ''you might al hear
the quotations much better" but they
! could not
why. everybody has lost" exclaimed
one woman TO an inquirer. Then she tip
ped her tongue with venom TO add, u
guess nobody has made, except the buck
et-shops. But there one woman here that
made. She that tall. thin one. O,
somebody has been telling her what to
do She started this morning BY going
short on the list, and she told us she
was going 10 60 it. Just see what she
has made today. But the rest of us
could not sell. we only knew how 10 buy.
That woman came here in December and
she looked so poor and plainly dressed,
I said to myself You won't last long in
this place but she did. And tonight she
VIII be a rich woman. The rest Of us viii
be dead broke. o. I don't know how
I'll ever explain this 70 -"
The speaker caught herself. gave one
quick glance around. and then rushed
away without telling who was TO hear
that explanation. She was young. It
might be her grandfather.
In a trading room not half a mile away
the women Spectators we're veterans
mostly All were old and many were
dressed in black. Men were there also.
and the courtesy Of removing hats was
quite overlooked. Apathy, had succeed
ed the first panic here.
One woman, brushing tears from her
eyes. slipped quietly out to the street.
But the calm ones sat still and watched
the record Of the exchange. The attend
ants sent out for sandwiches to lunch
upon. But nobody disturbed them with
speech, much less with orders. The
place was dead. Only the pairs OF hui
man eyes that watched the quotation
board seemed to be left alive A man
calling numbers at a ticker made the
only sound outside Of the tickers them
selves.
Room traders know that the hard part
of a losing day IS the demand of fright
ened women for the profits that are gone.
The office managers, therefore, kept 10
their private cages and when a custo-
mer had to be faced there was little
chance for disturbance outside.
Those who hung about the rooms were
women who felt that they had nerve
to face the ordeal out. They talked ex-
citedly about my stock" and how 'T
never thought 1t would have gone that
way" and you were wrong abb t your
road. you see" and so on endless
The one thing that the wome- agreed
on was that II they had tried some other
broker or somebody's ticker man had
not had such lovely hair and ewes. or
they had been received like lady by So.
and Sos clerk, then all would have been
different.
At the Produce Exchange. just after II
o'clock Wednesday morning, a cab drove
up and a coiored servant helped an elder
ly woman TO the street. She might have
been 50 years old, and was dressed IN
black although not in mourning. She
hurried into the Produce Exchange build
ing and went up IN the elevator 10 the
Stock Exchange floor. Calling a mes
senger boy, she told him 70 call out
certain broker In few moments the
boy came back with the statement that
the broker was not then on the floor.
What IS the price Of United States
Steel preferred" asked the woman OF the
messenger. The boy told her that the
last quotation was ST. The woman
seemed about 70 collapse. and her ser
want stepped forward 20 support her.
She collected herself somewhat and then
buried her face in her handkerchief and
wept as II she had been suddenly arlict-
ed with a great grief. The cOlored man
kept suggesting that Il would be better
10 60 home and finally the woman con-
scented AS she went down the Produce
b. e. n he ara
heard 20 say;
Jackson. I'm utterly and completely
ruined. 7 haven't dollar 70 my name"
In the rotunda Of the Astor house 20
great crowd gathered around the ticker
that the quotations had 70 b called on.
the men writing down the figures hur-
risdly or bits q paper. Everyone in the
lower part Of the town seemed 20 have a
personal interest IN the market. In the
elevators. on the street corners. che same
anxious faces could be seen. the same
nervous. fncoherent stocsy talk could De
heard Some men who were IA hard
luck themselves we're talking o. others
who were worse or. Said one man.
7 was dining las. night with a friend
Of mine and his wife. I knew that -
had gone heavily short or Northern (
Pacific. The dinner proceeded EayiT
Finally his wife said Did you make any
money today. john
10 he said. Laughing.
Did you lose arvT
No Re said laughing again.
And the dinner proceetef gaviT ~
q matter q fact even thing - had had 1
been wiped out"
one ~ the big private banking houses. /
which vas reported % have icsf heavily 1
vas q scene O. tears. The principals 4
vert ard 90 ga two &C clerks Ire +
'ster'' customer" however uho Rad Iost 4
500 90. received 3 reporter win tkiH OFT
burst.
Say. lex hera. El'1 y0E7 Tie nerve 4
Eerr's q nzn ~ IL Nairs has cert re Q +