Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1907-04-27
BY THOMAS w. LAWSON
Author ~ NEraD1iad EinanooV

A minute before the gong struck,
there were 300 men jammed around
the sugar-pole; men with set, deter
mined faces; men with their coats
buttoned tight and shoulders thrown
back for the rush to which, by COM
parison, that of a football team is
child's play. Every man in that
crowd was a picked man, picked for
what was coming. Each felt that
upon his individual powers to keep a
clear head, to shout loudest, to forget
nothing, to keep his feet, and to stay
as near the center of the crowd as pos
sible, depended his floor honor" per.
haps his fortune, or, what was more
to him, his clients fortune. Nearly
every man of them was a college
graduate who had won his spurs at
athletics or a seasoned floor man
whose training had been even more
severe than that of the college camp
us. When it was known before the
opening of the exchange that there are
to be things doing" in a certain
stock, it is the rule to send only the
picked floor men into the crowd.
There may be a fortune to make or to
lose in minute or a silver of a min
ute. For instance, the man who that
morning was able to snatch the first
5000 shares sold at 140 could have
resold them a few minutes afterward
at 152 and secured 100000 profit. And
the man who was sent into the crowd
by his client to sell 5000 shares at the
opening" and who got but 40, when
the price would be 1862 by the time he
reported to his customer, was a man
to oe pitied Again, the trader who
the night before had decided that
sugar had gone up too fast, and who
had "shorted" Chat is, sold what he
did not have, with the intention of re-
purchasing at a lower price than he
sold II for) 5000 shares at 40 and
who, finding himself in that surging
mob with sugar selling at 1862, could
only get out by taking a loss OF $780,.
600, or by taking another chance of
later paying 162-such a trader was
also to be pitied.
No one who scanned the crowd that
morning would have believed that the
calm, set face on that erect Indian
figure, occupying the very center of
that horde Of gamblers who were only
awaiting the ringing clang of the gong
to hurl themselves like madmen at
each other, was the hysterical man
who the night before was wildly pray
ing for this moment Nearly every
man in that crowd was calm, but Bob
BROMLEY was the calmest of them all.
It's the exchange code that at any cost
OF heart or nerve-tear a man must re-
tain good form until the gong strikes
Then, that he must be as near the un-
Gagged tiger as human mind and body
can be made. Only | realized what !
volcano ragged inside my chum' bosom |
II any other man of the crowd had (
known, Bobs chances Of success would |
have been on par with a Canadian I
canoeist short-cutting Niagara for Buff |
falo. Nine tenths of the stock ex- |
change game is not letting your left |
brain lobe know what race your right |
is in until the winning numbers and
the also-rans are on the board. If one
Of those 300 chain-lightning thinkers
OF any of their 10000 alert associates
knew in advance the intentions of a
fellow broker, the word would sweep
through that crowd with the sureness
of uncorked ether, and the other 299.
at gong strike, would be at each 9th.
ers' throats for his vitals, and before
he knew the game had started would
have his bones picked to a vulture.
finish cleanness.
Suddenly. as ! watched the scene,
there rang through the great hall the /
first sharp stroke OF the gong. There
were no echoes heard that morning.
The metallic voice was yet shaping its |
command to "at EN-, you fends" when
from 800 threats burst the wild sound |
OF the stock exchange yell. No other
sound in any Of the open or hidden !
places OF all nature duplicates the
yell Of a great stock exchange at an