The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-04-12
"TAPE-IHS' The Great Wall Street Disease A Rather Striking View of it, Taken by A. E. Stilwell, K. R. Builder, Author
 and Economist

When we Americans start doing anything we often overdo it. and In business life this trait is no better H. lustrated than in the awful habit or tape-itis.'' So says Arthur E. Stll- we'll, president Kansas City. Mexlco Ss Orient Ky, and continues further:
 aTape-itis begins when the railroad man. banker, broker, manufacturer. or merchant starts to buy shares on margin. Up until that time he has been successful either as business: man or as an executive in some pow erful corporation. He has attended strictly to his business. although 1t took every hour of his time. and has reaped financial reward. Or he has been most useful to his company and earned a large salary by close atten- ton to the things he was hired for.
 "One day at his club he hears of a friend who has struck it rich in 10, ,0O0 shares of R. o. T. Railway stock, and his ears prick up. What's the use of my nose to the grindstone when riches come so quickly, he says to himself. In a few days he gets a choice tip to buy I. w. T. U. G-want to-unload) Common. He is told that he is sure to get a ten point advance. He walks into the office of a broker with whom he has been advised to deal, and for the first time becomes acquainted with ticker. He sees
 
 allowing a little piece of paper that issues from 1t to pass through their hands, and they seem to enjoy It. He watches the apparatus and the pleas ure 1t brings to the men gathered about and he gingerly steps up and touches 1t and finds it painless. The thing is all Greek to him, but faScin- atinG. and in time he learns its lan- guage. #:
 this first day in getting acquainted with the tape. As he is paid $1G0 per day for eight hours work, he has only used s15 worth of time. He ar rives next day at eleven stays until twelve-thirty; goes to lunch, and then spends half. an hour after lunch with his new playmate: MT. Tape; He has used s45 worth of time. And, having ing a realization of this waste of his own, or, rather, his employers time, he puts a time clock in his office to see that all the help at $500 per week arrive on time. Why Q why? "In a day or two the tip on R. O.. T. Railway does not work right. It rather bags at the: knees and shows signs of spavin. He rusheS wildly to his broker, but is assured it is only a trial run, and that R. O. T. will be first under the wire when the race is called. So, off and on he da1lies with the little white ribbon of paper, and at the end of the year it is all over with him. He is thoroughly inocu- lated with the dreadful habit. Here after he cannot tell you how he feels until 10 o'clock in the morning, when he has let the tape run through his hands. A good business man has thus succumbed to tape-itis.
 Some get tape-itis so badly that they have to have a ticker in their offices and they sit beside this charm CT by the hour. There seems to be no cure for it. And when the suf- ferers from tape-itis drop their wads and have no more money to put up as a margin, they still hang around the tape and duly think what they would make or. lose if they did in reality buy this 1000 shares or sell that 1000 shares.
 There are two incurable diseases sleeping sickness and tape-itis.''