New-York tribune., 1908-10-21
HOW MORSE BAN POOLS
USED SCORES OF BROKERS.
matched Orders Cost Up5c0rd Of
$1,000. 900 an Commissions.

How .he mice of a stock may be advanced
,,non The New York Stock Exchange by the
one-ations Of a powerfully backed pool. managed
hv q master market manipulation, was brought
ont Yesterday with striking clearness IN the
Morse Curtis trial before Judge Hough In the
United States District Court, when the day-to-
5av market dealings Of Charles w Morses TWO
famous ice pools were slowly and laoor1ously
,,nfolded bv United States Attorney Henry l.
Stimson for the prosecution. OF the many inter
estinV disclosures. not the least was the fact
that ..,,a+ched orders" were daily resorted TO by
the pool brokers.
II was also brought out that Mr.. Morse made
use of fifty-nine prominent brokerage houses
with which he carried III separate accounts
while he was manipulating the two ice pools
from June. 1903. to october, 1907. Among the
best known of the New York Stock Exchange
houses which carried the lice pool accounts
were John Wallace & Co, the specialists in
American Ice Securities Company stock; Al
bert Loeb & Co, Raymond, Pynchon & Co,
Charles G. Gates & Co. Rogers & Could brokers
for the late Charls T. Barney; Hornblower &
Weeks Tefft, Wallace & Co, Shearson Hammin
& Co. and Charles H. De Witt & Co. Mr.. Morse
as pool manager. carried anywhere from one to
Ten separate accounts with each Of the pool
brokers.
From the testimony il was estimated that the
pools naid out in commissions 10 the various
pool brokers upward Of S1,O000O0 in a little
over two years. The pool accounts had various
names sucIl as &C. W. Morse account &C. w.
Morse special account -. F. Carroll account,
guaranteed by c. W. Morse; &C. w. Morse
personal account" &C. ". Morse Ice account"
George W. Wilder account, guaranteed by c.
" Morse: g. w. Morse and c. T. Barney &C
count No 194 joint account. Morse, Barney
end Schwab." etc
Transcripts of the books Of all the pool bro
kers were offered in evidence by the prosecution
together with numerous carefully compiled
tables Of pool operations, the avowed purpose or
which, according to Mr. Strnson, was to show
that while the two pools were in operation the
market in American Ice Securities Company
stock was. absolutely controlled by MI Morse
Indeed the records showed that when the pool
brokers were not buying selling the stock the
transactions recorded were only uihing. The
mere 71hvsical work Of offering this mass OF
records in evidence consumed nearly two hours.
Toward the close OF the morning session MI
Stimson discovered that some Of his tabula-
tions were not complete. so Judge Hough ad-
journed court at noon to allow the prosecution
10 finish its tables.
STOCK EXCHANGE RECORDS USED
The prosecution also had ready the Stock Ex-
change records Of all the dealings in ice stock"
over the period covered by the pool operations,
and il was shown that for certain months, when
the pool n1aniDulatiOnS were most aCuNe. Ile
total number OF shares traded IN, according TO
the official records OF the exchange, did not
equal the shares bought and sold by the pool
These discrepancies were, however, on no oc-
casion large. and may easily have resulted from
different methods Of compiling the transactions.
E,dzvarI P. Moxey, the special investigator Of
the Department Of Justice, who had prepared
the records Of the pool operations was placed
the witness stand by Mr.. Stmson to read TO the
jury tho daily purchase and sales sheets of the
roofs. The witness also gave the monthly
uals and made constant comparisons with the
o.icial sales and purchases Of the Stock Ex-
change records
The tCtals for November and December. 1865,
showed that the sales averaged about so per
cent of TIE purchases. the latter or two
occasions running up high six thousand
and seven thousand shares daily, with sales on
those days Of nearly five thousand shares. In
January. 1906. there was an evident attempt
upon the part OF AIr. Morse TO get rid Of some Of
the pool holdings. the daily sales were fire.
quently greater than the purchases Mr..
Moxey's figures showed that for January, 1896,
there had been purchased for Mr.. Morse's ac-
count 50 800 shares, as against sales Of 1860.