The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-11-15

Colonel Thornton and two or three
friends who followed him from Tracy (
Middleton's Office, all of them 'plungers, :"
were almost enough to keep Hayward
busy on the exchange executing orders.
and, moreover new customers were com
ing in.
Thornton was a rich man, and pro-
tected his own specuIations more than
amply. He noticed the development of his
young partners gambling proclivities, and
demonstrated with him in a kindly pater-
nal sort Of way.
Sally vowed he would stop
Within less than three months he had
broken his promise twice, and his unsuc-
cessful operations in Alabama Coal at
one time threatened seriously to emba1-
rass the firm.
Colonel Thornton came to the rescue
Sally promised, with "a solemnity born
OF sincere fear, never to do it again
But rights last only a little space, and
memory is equally short lived Wall
Street has no room for men with an ex-
cess of timidity or of recollection. He
had gambled before he joined the New
York Stock Exchange.
And then, too, Willis n. Hayward, the
beard member of Thornton &c Hayward.
was a very different person from SALLY,
the nice little telephone boy Of Tracy X
M,ddletons. His cheeks were not pink;
they were notified. His eyes were not
clear and ingenious; they were shifty
and a bit watery. He had been in Wall
Street eight or ten years, and ne over
worked his nerves every day from 10
a. m. TO p. m. on the Stock Exchange.
also from p. IN. to midnight at the cafe
OF big uptown hotel where Wall Street
men gathered to talk shop. His sys-
tenn craved lstimulants; gambling ard
liquor were the strongest he knew
When, after two years, the firm ex-
PRED by limitation Colonel Thornton
withdrew. He had had enough of Hay
wards plunging TO be sure, Sally had
become a shrewd trader" and he had
made $4,000 during the big bull boom;
but he was at heart a trader" which
is to say a mere gambler in stocks, and
I not desirable commission man.
| But Sally, flushed with success on the
bull side, did not worry when Thornton
refused to continue the partnership. The
slogan was: Buy A. O. T. It's sure to
go up!" the initials standing for Any
Old Thing!" The most prosperous per
iod in the industrial and commercial his
/
dtmic of speculative madness such as was
never before known and probably never
again will be. Everybody had money in
abundance and the desire for speculation
in superabundance. Sally formed a new
/ firm medately-Hayward & Co.-wlth
his cashier as partner.
| All mundane things have an end, even
bull markets and bear markets. The
a good business, as did everybody else in
Wall Street. 1t ended, and the firms
customers, after a few bad ''slumps"
in prices. were admonished to turn bears
in order to recoup their losses. Bears
believe prices are too high and should
go lower; bulls, optimists, believe the
opposite. The public can't sell stocks
short any more than the average man
is left handed. These customers were no
xeepticn, SO thy did nothing.
Hayward had 'overstayed the bull
market, though not disastrously; that is,
he was in error regarding the extent
and duration of the upward movement of
prices. He proceeded to fall into a SIM
liar error on the bear or downward side.
| The market had been extremely dull
following what the financial writer's
|
means the loss of millions of dollars by
spectators. Hayward's customers, IKE
everybody elses customers, were not spec
ulating. So he used their money to pro
| tect his own speculations. Office ex-
| penses were numerous and heavy and
commissions few and light
Hayward was very bearsh. He had
| sold stocks, sharing the belief of the ma
ell Al~,N H. vN,,ir
had not been reached. AS result he was
heavily short and he could not ''cover'
at profit, because prices had advanced
very slowly, but very steadily.
| One day a big gambler in Chicago,
holder or keener than his Eastern breth-
rem thought the time was ripe for
bull or upward movement in general,
| and particularly in Consolidated Steel
Rod Companys stock. He was the char
man of the Board of Directors. Mr.
william G. Dorr decided upon plan
whereby the stock would be made at
tractive to that class of speculative III
yestors, SO to speak, who liked to buy
stocks making generous disbursements of
profits to their holders. The first stcp
consisted of sending in large buying or
ders, handled by prominent brokers, ana
! Simultaneously the publication in the
1
daily press Of various items, all recitng
the wonderful prosperity of the Consoh-
dated Rod Company and its phenomenal
earnings also the unutterable cheapness
of the stock at the prevailing price. Mr..
Dorr and associates, of course, had pre-
vousy taken advantage of the big
slump" or fail in values to buy back
at 35 the same stock they had sold to
! the public some weeks before at 20.
Having acquired this cheap stock. they
manipulated by means of further pur.
chase--the price so that They could sell
out at profit.
! 1t SO happened, however, that once be-
| fore dividend rumors about Con. Steel
Rod" had been disseminated, with tie
connivance of Dorr, and they had not
come true, to the great detriment of
credulous buyers and greater profit Of