The Washington herald., 1914-04-05


change can do through its members is
TO bring buyers and sellers together with
a maximum OF efficiency; all that spec
ulators can do is to endeavor to esti-
mate what is likely to happen as re-
suit of this price-making process. Brok-
ers and spectators can no more control
the huctuation of prices than passen-
gers on ship can control the barome-
ter. By their competition and bargain
ing with each other they limit those
wide fluctuations which everybody de-
plores, and thereby give stability to a
market which, without their presence
under one roof, would be dangerously
wide" and erratic, if not downright
crooked.
a Cash Business.
This statement is worth consideration.
If you agree to buy a house, for ex-
ample, you must pay dollar to make
the agreement binding, and obtain a
receipt for it. If you sign a will you
must secure two witnesses to sign it
with you and give their addresses. But
here on change a nod or a word or a
tap OF the hand or finger held up above
the crowd, and millions change hands
with no writing and, no witnesses to
make it binding. Reputation is un-
known. Moreover. there is no discount
for cash; no thirty-day bills; no de-
ferred payments: no extension of time.
Every transaction within these four
walls is paid for in full in cash within
twenty-four hours and no man would
think of making a trade on any other
basis. Ii is the most perfect machinery
in the great workship of trade.
The visitor who looks down from the
gallery when the market is active gath
ers the impression that disorder and con-
fusion are characteristics Of the scene.
and he comes away persuaded that if
all this tumult stands for business it is
transactions are fakes. But there is no
disorder and no confusion and every
trade made is one that involves an
actual delivery OF goods (securities)
and an actual transfer of cash. In all
this seeming tumult there is an efficient
organization performing rapidly and
with great accuracy task of worldwide
significance. Each sound in this Babel
of voices means something; each nerv-
Gus gesture is a force that contributes
to the shafts and driving belts of those
forms of human endeavor that are rep
resented here by twenty-seven billion
dollars worth of American securities.
When we come to think it over from
this angle, the stock exchange seems to
compare pretty favorably with other
lines of business, and the comparison be-
comes more illuminating when we re-
fleet upon the iron-clad code of business
morality under which these stock brok-
ers do their work.
The governing board upstairs" not
only enforces this code with Draconian
severity, but it infiicts severe punish
ments, which, to an outsider, seems al
together out of proportion to the offense.
1t is an unincorporated body like club.
and that is why ANY act contrary to just
and equitable principles of trade" as its
constitution reads, can be stretched to
cover multitude of sins. No statute OF
limitations and no appeal to the law,
with its interminable delays, can be in
voked to save a man from the conse-
quences of his actions. Neither the
common law of the land, nor the ia
nous code of ethics of the bar, nor
the all-embracing provisions OF the
Sherman act can compare with this
wide extension of an authority that is |
alike unquestioned and unduestioning.
fancy this affords of itself a reason why
the occupation is so congenial and at
tractive to those who enter it.
If the rules are rigid and inelastic the /
business itself is just the reverse, for
its very elasticity explains its charm.
1t also explains its growth and develop
ment. How can you kill a thing that
adapts itself with unvarying equanimity
to everything that comes along, even be-
fore the event actually occurs? How
are you going to suppress or interfere
with chameleon-like affair that changes
its color and shape constantly?
a Business Barometer.
Whatever one may say or think OF
the stock exchange, the fact is that it
foresees or measures these changes and
reflects them as no other machinery de-
signed by man has ever been able to
10. BY foreseeing them it puts every
body on guard, and so long as progress
S measured by material things like
wealth, industry, and creative activities,
men will turn to this barometer to see
what weather is brewing. Barometer is
The, right word. just as that delicate
Instrument receives its impressions from
pressure and records those
Impressions in the way of warnings and
signals, so the sensitive and changeful