Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-17
THE INSIDE OF
WALL STREET
BY EDWIN LEFEvRE.

The American people are beyond question
less hampered by precedents and tradi-
ton than any other nation on the face of
the earth. The fact that our ancestors did
a certain thing in q certain way weighs
less than a scruple with most of US. If
we think our way is better than theirs we
throw their away without a pang. In the
field of mechanical invention We lead the
world, though 1t must be admitted that 1t
is rapidity and economy of production
rather than the quality of the product that
appears to be the chief object sought. There
is a certain love of novelty which is also
one of our most marked national traits. 1t
makes the American mob willing and at
times anxious to change the existing order
of things for new and untried methods and
conditions, accepting the latter's merits en-
urely on hearSay. Even the phlegmatic
TeutSns and the unima ginative English suf-
fer from popular fads. but never to the ex-
tent that we do, and fallacies rise and -four
ish and spread over the land with the ra-
pidity of full-grown Kansas cyclone fal-
lacles political, religious, economical, liter
airy, philosophical and financial. 1t is be-
cause of this undoubted trait that the stu
dent of Wall streets ways wonders why the
average Wall street man at times clingS so
tenaciously to the past, seems to loath to
abandon his habit of measuring the present
with the yardstick of the past. 1t is pos
slpiy because OF that other very American
habit of not looking very far into the fu-
ture. These reflections are pertinent be
cause the present state of the stock market
or rather of sentiment concerning it. shows
now persistently the very shrewd men
among the same professionals are looking
backward instead of forward.
~.
The market has been for weeks what is
called a professional market; the public"
that is, that public which the late Frank
Morris used to call the Great American
Damfool. is neither buying nor selling
stocks. 1t does not wish to speculate, but
the professional spectators do because they
must, and most of the business Just now
consists of what the street terms swapping
contracts" If you will listen to fifty COM
mission firms you will hear the sad wall Of
no business" Some of them will tell you
of days records of 300 or 400 shares, and
the office expenses, hundreds of dollars
daily, running on. But the fifty-first will
tell you of pleasing 10000 or 10000 shares
the same day. That is why, while the ma
jority will talk about their being "abso-
lutely no outside business" the stock ex-
changes daily total Will run close to a mil
lion shares, stocks to the aggregate value
of seventy-five or one hundred millions of
dollars changing hands In five business
hours This 1t Is to be borne in mind, in a
really professional market" The reason
is well known, to wilt, that there are men
today who speculate on a scale absolutely
undreamt of eight or ten years ago. This
does not include the spectators who are
also investors, like the Rockefellers and
their cronies, nor the bankers like J. p
Morgan and the Kuhn. Loeb & Co. coterie,
who manage syndicates, nor the railway
financiers, like e. H. Hartman, nor the In
surance companies, like well, like all of
them; but simply traders" men who
plunge whose philosophy of stock gambling
Is precisely the same that of any room
trader, of the inveterate tape worm
in the commission offices with his daily
sales and purchases and stop loss orders"
or the ruby-nosed "pikers" of New street,
| with their quick switches So much has
been written about these plungers that 1t
Is superfiuous to dwell at length on this
point. The boom which eliminated in the
great crash of the day of the Northern
Pacific corner mads-scores of men fabu-
| lousy rich over night. The prosperity which
began shortly after William Mckinley s
| first election to the presidency and has con-
| tinued ever since has made these fabulous
| fortunes 30 solid as to make stock gambling
| relatively harmless, while their magnitude
| has permitted stupendous plunging. The
public knows, for instance, that John w.
Gates thinks nothing of risking millions,
Mr. Gates having no very decided aversion
| TO newspaper statistics or comments on his
! gambling.
But Gates is only one of a dozen. or of
| two dozen, plugers. each of whom will
| Swing" q line of stock at times that even
| Jay Gould in his palmiest days would hest
/ tate to take on. The other day man who
| has been long of the market thought the
turn had come He gaya orders to sell all