Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1907-05-30


the different classes Of members who
will follow in my footsteps:
First. the In God We Trust'
schemer who is of the System type.
but who is outside the magic circle. A
man of this class will reason; 1 know
scores of men, who stand high on the
Street and in the social world, who
have tens of millions that they have
filched by System tricks, if not by
legal crimes. If I perform this trick
of Brownleys, the trick Of selling
short until a panic is produced, l shall
make millions and none will be the
wiser. For all I know, many of the
multi-millionaires whom 1 have seen
produce panics and who were applaud
ed by the Street and the press for
their ability and daring, and whose
standing, business and social, is now
the highest, were only doing this same
thing, and having been successful, they
have never been detected or suspected.
But even suppose l fail, which can
only be through some extraordinary
accident happening while I am en-
gagged in selling, | shall have COM
mitted no crime, and, in fact, shall
have done no one any great moral
wrong, for if fail to carry out my
contract to deliver the stock l have
sold in trying to produce a panic, the
men to whom 1 have sold will be no
worse off for not receiving what they
bought; in fact, they will stand just
where they stood before l attempted
to bring on a panic.
Second, II an exchange member for
any reason should find himself over
board and should realize that he must
publicly become bankrupt and lose all,
he surely would be a fool not to at
tempt to produce a panic, when its
production would enable him to recoup
his losses and prevent his failure, and
when if by accident he should fail in
his attempt to produce a panic, the
penalty would simply be his bank
ruptcy, which would have taken place
in any event.
The third class is that large one
that always will exist while there is
stock gambling, class Of honest,
g-play-the game fair ex-
change men who would take no unfair
advantage of their fellow-members un-
til they become awakened to the
knowledge that they are about to be
ruined by their fellow-members' trick
cry
Next, let us consider further wheth-
er it is possible for our exchange to
prevent my device from being worked,
now that it is known to all. Suppose
the governing committee was informed
in advance that the attempt to work
the trick was to be made. If, at any
session, after gong-strike, the govern
ing committee, or any exchange au-
thority could for any reason compel
member to cease operating, even for
the purpose of showing that his trans
actions were legitimate, the entire
structure of Safeguarding would fall.
Think it through: Suppose a man like
Barry Conant or myself, or any active
commission broker, begins the execu-
tion Of large order for a client, one,
say, who has advance information of a
receivership, a fire at a mine, the
death OF president, declaration OF
war, or any of the hundred and one
items of information that must be
acted upon instantly, where a delay OF
a minute would ruin the broker, or his
house, or its clients. II the governing
committee could thus call the broker
to account, the professional bear or
the schemer, who desired to prevent
him from selling, would have but to
pass the word 10 the president OF the
exchange that the broker in question
was about to work Brownley's discov-
cry and he could be taken from the
crowd and before he returned his
place could be taken by others and he
could be ruined
Men Of Wall street. It Is impossible
to prevent the repetition OF those acts
Nv which in Ave years / have accumu-