Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-06-20
BOOK 1.-THE ROOT.
CHAPTER vi.
The Storm Breaks.

gray clouds that chung In rings ABOUT
the street lamps like a damp fog of
typical February thaw, yet it was the
last day Of October. Such weather
was uncanny. 1t added to the strange
feeling of impending calamity which
had been hanging over the business
world during the summer and lad
broken at last into the fierce storms
of disaster Of the past two weeks.
Men who usually rose at o'clock were
up at dawn. Some of them hadn't
slept at all.
The more optimistic traders on the
Stock Exchange expected today a
change in the market. Stock had de-
clined for two weeks with appalling
swiftness and fatality. Every hour
had marked the ruin of men hitherto
bulwarks of solidity. Experienced men
reasoned and reasoned from expert
ence that there must be a turn some
where. The bottom surely had been
reached. The time for a rally had
come. Nine men out of every ten in
the market at its close the night be-
fore expected the rally to begin at the
stroke of the gong the next morning.
The men who bought stocks In the
closing hour were sure of this.
They rose to curse the weather. For
the weather always affects speculation.
Wall street is superstitious. The proud
intellect that struts the floor of the
Exchange and scorns the powers Of his
feebler fellow-men carries secretly a
horse chestnut in his pocket for luck.
Without an exception all these great
men believe in signs and wonders, in
witches, palmists, spells and hoodoos.
Weather always gets on their nerves.
Half the fluctuations Of stocks under
normal conditions of trade are purely
the results of the mental states of the
men who buy and sell.
The doctor rose early with a new
hope filling his heart which no cloud
could obscure. He watched Harriet
pour his coffee at breakfast with his
old-time smile of good cheer playing
about his fine mouth.
Stuart was sleeping late. He was
peculiarly venomous attack on his in
tegrity which a morning paper had
printed. The writer had boldly ac-
cused him of being the hired tool of
the group of financial cut-throats who
were coming millions out of the ruin
of others in the destruction of pub
lie faith.
His reply was simple and his con-
Guiding paragraph was unanswerable,
except by an epithet.
My business is the enforcement of
justice. / am the servant CT the peo-
pie. If Wall street can not stand the
enforcement of law, so much the worse
Tor the street. It's no affair of mine
l didn't make the laws of the state
any more than 1 made the law Of
gravitation Nor did write the Ten
Commandments, but I have an abid-
ing faith that they will stand when
the last stone in the Stock Exchange
building shall have crumbled into
dust / refuse to believe that the only
way to save Wall street is by a sworn
felony"
The doctor hurried down town to
the Office of a friend on Pine street,
an old fashioned banker and broker
whose name had always stood for hon.
esty and fair dealing and conservative
business. 1t was half an hour before
the Stock Exchange opened but the
dingy little office was packed with an
excited crowd of customers. They all
talked in low tones as If fearing the
spirits of the air that hovered near.
An eager group leaned over the bull
letin from the London market. Lon
don was up half point. The cred
ulous were pleased. 1T was a good
omen. The pessimists scoffed.
Rugged from New York." sneered a
fat German the office boy had nick
named the Judge"
The doctor was struck with the Gu
riously notified crowd that jostled one
another waiting for the first cry of
the opening quotations. Every walk
and profession of life had it's repre-
sentative there-merchants, lawyers,
doctors. clerks, clergymen, BARRIERS,
bootblacks, retired capitalists and cap
italists about to retire permanently.
The saddest group of all was in the
adjoining room reserved for ladies'.
An opening through the partition wall
allowed them to see the quotations as
they were placed on the board around
which the throng of jostling, smoking,
perspiring men moved and stood Most
of these pale excited women with their
hats awry and their hair disordered
were the wives of solid business and
professional men who wouldn't allow
their husbands to know of their little
venture into stocks for the world.
They peeped through the opening oc-
casionally and turned their backs
quickly to avoid the gaze of the men.
But the most ominous figures were
two or three "vultures" who stood
grim and silent on the outer fringe Of
the moving crowd. Only one or two
of the older ones recognized them.
The Judge" saw them first.
"Ach, GOtt, look at dem" he eX-
claimed. They never come except
for carrion; they've scented the dead.
It's all over with us, poys!"
One of the most curious things in
the history of Wall street is the ap-
pearance of these vultures in a panic.
They scent the final death struggle
with unerrng accuracy. They never
buy stocks except in those awful mo-
ments of ruin. They hold them grimly
until the next tidal-wave of prosperity,
sell out at the top, and wait patiently
for the next killing. They are the
only outsiders who ever make a dollar
i'm Wall street
The doctor followed old DugrO. the
head of the firm, into his private office
and asked his advice. He got it-sharp,