Arizona republican., 1912-12-14
Manipulations and Short Sales Form Basis of the Day's Hearing Before e Money Trust Committee of the House
SEVERAL SAY
 PLAN IS FAIR
Admission is Made That Method is Likely to De ceive Public and That it is One Form of Gambling on Exchange
ASSOCIATED PRESS DIsPArcHl


 WASHINGTON. Dec 13 - The 'manfpuIation" of short sales. the New York stock market as a means of gambling and the methods of stock exchange brokers formed the basis of today's hearing before the money trust committee of the house. Frank K. Sturgis and Rudolph Kep- pier, governors of the New York stock exchange. Harry Content, sam uel F. Streitt and J. P. Grier, were the brokers examined today.
 After they had been questioned Samuel Untermyer, consel for tn" committee took up the relations be- tween the stock exchange and the New York Bank Note company, which cannot secure q listing on the exchange for stock certificates or bonds. which they engraved. This testimony was adduced to show that engraving is monopolized by the American Bank Note company.
 Untermyer in his examination of the stock exchange representatives, tried in vain to get a description of the methods of manipulation employed to advance or depress the price of stocks and each witness denied he had ever been a party to pool arrangement for manipulation. Stur- gis and Keppler, however had their opinion that the same operations on the exchange. including the manipu- lation on short selling was of gam bling nature" and both agreed that these matters could not be regu- lated by he exchange as body. short selling is matter which every individual must settle ac- cording to his conscience" said Stur- gis.
 Samuel F. Streit. of the arbitration clearing house committee of the stock exchange, old the committee that he exchange maintains a securities clear ing house where the transactions of the floor are cleared between the | brokers. Untermyer suggested that the clearing house might insist on having the brokers deliver the mem 1 bers certificates of the stock in which they traded to the clearing and thus prevent the dealings in stock which was not owned. Streit was not in favor of the suggestion and said he could tell nothing of l the effect of such a regulation of short sales.
 Harry Content said he never man. aged a pool for manipulating a line of stock and said the idea of forming q pool was an old one, no longer em- pIoved A number of the big opera tors worked it individually he said. Why is that?" Untermyer asked. "They find it safer to have no partners" replied Content.
 Pool members used to sell each other out Content said he believed that cross order sales and purchases of the same stock was legitimate. He did not think that manipulation to raise or depress prices of stocp deceived the public.
 George A. Field, vicepresident of the New York Bank Note company testified that the exchange had ruled the work of his company off the stock list and the bulk of the eX- change stock was done by the Amer ican Bank Note company. He pro-
 duced voluminous correspondence
 charging the American company with
 mOnopolizing the engraving of stocks
 and bonds with the aid of the stock l exchange.
 A similar charge in the report of
 the Hughes commission was placed in the record at this phase of the
 inquiry, and Untermyer said it was
 introduced at the request of Mayor Gaynor of New York and Governoz
 for New York City and for the state Pothier of Rhode Island. The bonds
 engraved by the New York company
 of Rhode Island Field testified, had
 been refused a listing on the eX-
 change.