Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-09
INSIDE OF WALL STREET
The Present Rising Market Said Be Due Largely Manipulation
"a Word Dsliked by the Big Men.

BY EDWIN LEFEvRR.

makes It manipulation. AS OF nearly ev-
erything else in life. in the stock market
much may be said for and against stock
manipulation. 1t is both legitimate and
illegitimate inevitable and deplorabie. 1t
has it's use and it's abuse. What has not?
But in the present instance, whether H. Is
morally justifiable or not. whether 1t shall
prove financially successful or not, and the
big men win and the little men lose,
striking feature Of the so-called bull manip
alton at the moment Is that when you ask
for the names and identity OF the guilty
men, you receive no better answer than
that they" are all at work-Standard Oil.
Morgan. Hartman Baker. Gould. Moore,
Ryan. Brady and the rest. well as
divers pools. Many of the accused happen
to be out of the city but there are tele-
graph lines and cables and vision of all
these men munching sandwiches beside the
ticker which they are studying too closely
to take time to eat square midday meal
is conjured UP
In the old days there was less talk about
manipulation. Mr.. James r. Keene did me
the honor some years ago to say had done
more to populariZe the word than any other
scribbler he knew. 1t Is the word he most
disiked to see in print in connection with
his market operations, and he even made
the request once, as a personal favor, that
his name be not coupled with the hateful
word in the stock market paragraphs. Con
sidering that he never asked to be allowed
to suggest what those paragraphs should
contain. which. though useless. was COM
prehenSible, his request as to the one thing
/ he did not wish them to contain shows that
the greatest stock manipulation in the world
realized that an appearance of spontaneity
and naturalness Is indispensable to success
full and artistic manipulation. Since the
days of Mr.. Keene's pre-eminence there
have arisen a dozen men who have become
what the street mistakenly calls manipu-
lators merely because they are plungers.
but there is also no denying that the ticker
since 1897 has become an indispensable
niece of hauSnP office furniture The big
ger the banking house, the greater the
number of tickers. One of the great firms
of the street.-The third greatest-for years
refused to have such nasty, voluble little
machine in the office. They took no interest
in speculation. they always protested, not
even in the speculation in their own stocks.
Tickers were duly put in just as soon as
the boom showed ways of making money
that made the old-fashioned banking profit
resemble thirty cents. 1t is natural that
the ticker should be In offices like Kuhn,
Loeb & Co. or J. p. Morgan d Co, who
are sponsors for so many issues that re-
quire careful market nursing until they can
stand on their own feet, and learn to walk
unaided. But because of the odium that
attaches to the word NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
parable to what the average man thinks of
when he hears 'tpolitician'-none of the
high financiers relshes its use in connection
with a rise in one of his pet stocks any
more than Mr.. Keene does. If a personal
experience may be pardoned, | recall one
instance OF THIS hatre0. Ihere was reason
to suspect that a great banker was manip-
ulating a certain stock. / wrote as much
instead of saying that the price had risen
because a mighty host of discriminating
investors was willing to pay any old price
for that wonderful stock. He was angry
to the point of threatening dire things
against the paper, it's owners, editors and
office boys and Wall street man Under no
circumstances must the word manipulation
be used in connection with his firm ever
~, = tl,o%
the price declined because his firm was sell
ing. AS the advice to buy that stock con-
tinued to come in huge volumes from his
office | explained the decline by saying it
was due to bull tips by the great firm. The
implication of lie aroused no indignation
II was the word tips" 1t was even worse
than manipulation" 1 was summoned to
answer for the latest literary crime
we never, never give tips sir How
dare you say in your paper that we do?"
Never"
''Neyerr'
'fNever?'
Well, don't you use that word again.
And never say manipulation
TN never do it again, If you never again
manipulate
We'll, look here. my boy, say that inside
interests speak well of the stock or some
thing like that. But don't saw tins And
don't use manipulation. DIN it, call il
buying; but please. please don't call it
manipulation"
Naturally every stock has its natural
protectors, and whenever these men think
the time is ripe for appreciation in
prices they act accordingly And as these
men are in more or less close touch with
one another and equally well-informed on
general and special conditions by reason
OF their diversified financial interests, they
act not only at the same time but as a rule
they use much the same methods But there
are to be considered. in addition to men like
Mr.. Morgan, Mr.. Hartman, Mr.. Schiff
MIR. Speyer, Mr.. Reid and others. who are
heavily interested in certain groups of
stocks by reason of their active participa-
ton in the actual management and finances
OF great corporations. dozen men of the
John W. Gates class who. If they think
market conditions have changed for the
better. Will buy stocks in such quantities
and so obviously with the sole desire of
selling later at a profit that they are COM
PEELED by the magnitude of their Individual
operations to help ito make a market in
the stocks in which they are temporarily
interested. Hence their manipulation
And hence the reason why 1t has such an
unpleasant sound.