The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-03-20
A BLOWATNEWY YORK STOCK
AIMED BY THE WAGNER BILL
Will Stop wash and Short Sales and by It's Publicity
Feature Aim Body Blow at Pools and Manipulation
of the Market by Corporation Syndicates.

The New York World says: The
two great evils OF the stock market
are:
First-"Short sales"
Second-The general secrecy under
which gamblers may manipulate the
market and attack any and all forms
OF securities, like a thief in the night.
The publicity which the Wagner bill
requires OF all stock transactions will
,effectually discourage short selling.
inasmuch as those who attack values
rarely care to be publicly known in
that connection. Stock gamblers, espe.
cially those who engineer the pools
and syndicate DEALS" cannot accom-
pl1sh their purpose except by sealth
Publicity kills their plots.
The greatest menace to the legiti.
mate stock market is the power over
the rate OF interest for money which
is welded by those who control the
great insurance and financial corpora
tons. This power is utilized to force
up the interest rate by withholding
money from Wall street whenever the
corporation syndicates wish to depress
the values of stocks. The general ten
dency of tight money, even when un-
attended by short-selling movement,
is to bear down stock quotations. Hav-
ing brought that to pass, the conspir-
ators in the big corporations shake
out the margin spectators and by
using the vast sums Of corporate
funds in their control. buy in enor-
nous quantities of stocks cheap Then
by supplying the banks with abundant
money for the brokers and specula-
tors, the corporation syndicates Gre
ate a rising market-and gradually
dispose of their lines of securities al
a tremendous profit.
Power of Publicity.
The Wagner bill. by requiring a
record of those who buy or sell stocks
on a margin, viii tend to prevent
these unfair syndicate operations,
some of the evils OF which formed the
most sensational chapters of the rev
Citations before the Armstrong commit
tee during the insurance investigaS
ton.
E.. H. Hartman could not carry on
his characteristic operations secretly
under the Wagner bill.
HENRY H. Rogers could not have en-
ginee7ed his notorious copper deal un'
der the Wagner bill.
An embeZzling bank official could
be quickly stopped at the beginning
of his criminal career before he had
ruined his institution by his stock
gambling operations.
Merchants and others who fall into
the temptation eff taking a flyer" n
Wall street would think twice, If the
Wagner bill were a law. before EN-
barking in the fatuous get-rich-quich
game They probably would not care
to be compelled to speculate publicly
IN their own name or in the name o.
an easily indentifiable dummy Gamb
ling Is not such an attractive PROPOSE
ton when 1t has TO be done openly
and under public and official control
BY reducing the temptation tt
gamble to a minimum the Wagner
bill would likewise work one oSheI
great reform; namely, the restriction
of the opportunity for purely specula
tive stock issues by inscriptions cor
porations> 1t is we'll known that man,
corporations. principally of the indus
trial class, but not few of them en-
gagged in finance Or transportation, pu
| forth issues OF stock ON some more o.
| less fimsy pretext Of assets behint
them simply for the purpose of ere
ating a speculative market for the Sc
curities in question. BY identifying u
a large extent those who sell and bu.
these speculative and largely fctitiou
stocks the Wagner bill would have {
pronounced influence toward deterrins
such stock issues.
Will Abolish Wash Sales.
Wash sales" for the same reasons
win be practically abolished. il is be
leved, by the Wagner bill. A wasi
sale is accomplished where one man
usuelly a broker, pretends to sell. ant
ar-ther man pretends to buy from
'tpl certain stock at certain price
, The purpose OF the transaction is Il
establish for exchange quotation pur
noses an absolutely fictitious price 70
the stock in question: price that il
| above the actual market price. Th'
Though the stock exchange has rule
prohibiting wash sales, it Is matte