The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-10-13
THE PIT" AS VIEWED
BY THE REAL TRADER

Wheat was $1.1s when the market
opened at the Metropolitan last eve
ming, and it was wild market. Viewed
from the interior of Sam Grety's pri
vate office, it looked mighty danger
ch ca vas he aHpGenaR ee
wheat 90 down to 9oc, and learned just
how it goes down and why, and went
away satisfied that the interior work
ing of a great speculative center had
been laid bare. There was no longer
any mystery about it.
Every fourth or fifth chair in the
house was occupied by a man identi-
They were the only ones mystifed.
They could not understand why a mar
ket wild to the point of insanity should
suddenly fall into deathlike stiffness
just because Crookes or Landy wanted
to say something, nor could they quite
see how the ~, struggling mass of inf f}
a avoid coming g' Zoo much "down center"
lest they bl ock that part Of the pit
where Jadwin was to appear. They
saw representation of the Chicago
pit in panic utterly unlike what the
pit in panic would be. They were
disappointed.
Of course, a play =, written for grain rain
grip upon the average theatergoers.
What, then, is the matter. with tThe
Pit'7 It is a good show. 1t fails in
one thing, it has not the power to
carry the audience into the thought Of
the trade, into the spirit Of specula-
ton. No one can define the specula-
tive feeling. Unless one has actually
been in wheat or stocks, it is hard to
know it, Yet many man who never
went to sea has breathed the salt air
of the sailors life in w. Clark Rus
sell g stories. Such a thing Frank Nor
ris did in his book, and this the play
maker failed to do.
Every trader who saw the play was
story must have come from flash into
the authors mind of the element OF
romantic interest lying in the subject
the same romanticism that lies deep in
every phase of life, even the common
place. This is the indefinite, evanes
cent something about a place or calling
or statue or picture, that for want of
The man who wrote the book knew this
had felt it, had walked in it. In places
it shows in his book. The man who
took the box and put the inanimatt
characters into life and set the stage
for them has produced a good show, bu
he has missed the indefnable touches
he has lifted the story out of its at
mosphere.'
Probably no bookmakers ever saw
stage horserace or any sailor a ship
wreck scene without disappointment
So felt the grain men who looked upo1
the pit scene last night.
In the book, for instance, one follow
the mental struggles of Cressler whe,
approached by the bear clique, with alb
sorbing interest. The fight of this MAJ
with himself, his yielding again to tn
temptation long ago stamped down b.
strong will, crushed but not killed
still lying in the brain after all tn
years, the giving way of his resolutions
and his efforts to outargue and deceiv
his own mind the drawing back Of thi
man into the speculative world-thi
is one of the finest psychologists
t touches in the book. Obviously it ca
. only be limited at on the stage. Agar
/. when the reader looks into Sam Gret
rvs office on the Hateful morning, whe
the pit traders are awaiting their il
= structions for the opening, he sees Sal
: 20 over to the water tank and take
9 swallow of ice water, and then anothe
) drink. Then he throws out the waite
= and turns away momentarily and turn
. back and fills the glass and takes al
other swallow, and then another an
b another. And probably no grain ma
q ever read the book who did not refet
that had all this been real and had b
been a trader, and had he seen Sal
= Gretry on that morning he would hav
known that it was all off with Jadwil
i j. E. Neville