The Washington herald., 1914-04-05

6CiOuSs thdl company PiOhHotNA
who would attempt to soak the public
with any such device would be laughed
at if he were not arrested by the police
Again, this critic overloeks the very i'm
portant fact that Wall Street and the
stock exchange are by no means iden-
teal, and that swindling company pro-
moters in Wall Street who contrive tc
evade the law have no more to do with
the stock exchange than Trinity Churcf,
at one end of the thoroughfare has to
do with sailors gin mill at the other
end. And then, when we come to think
it over, If critics can be found today to
denounce as ill-gotten gains the fortunes
made IN speculation, .one might reply
that. perhaps these critics would not be
averse to having try at it themselves.
At any rate. there is no use getting
maudlin about it.
More CreduIity Than MalIce.
There isn't much malice in the pre-
vailing criticism of the stock exchange
most of it is the result of sponge-like
credulity which believes what it hears
without investigation. A former Sena-
tor of the United States who halls from
a southwestern State recently supplied
a group of stock brokers with a sur
prising illustration of this fact He said
he felt under many obligations to the
stock exchange because through sue
cesSful speculation and investment in
southwestern rails and industrials he
and his family had acquired fortune
But" he added, with evident relish,
you should hear me on the stump
around election time | tell my con-
stituents that Wall Street and the stock
exchange are rotten to the core; that
all our troubles have their origin there,
and that you gold barons, with your
monstrous deviltry, will ultimately ruin
the country"
But we protested, how can you
say such things when you know they
are not true?"
why" he replied, "the farmers love
it; it gets their votes every time and
nobody's hurt"
Even in New York City. where peo-
pie might be supposed to know something
tbout the stock exchange. there are fire.
quent evidences of similar credulity.
The Exchange the scnpeEoat.
A gay young bank clerk, on $4,000 a
year, with a wife and children living
in. Bayonne, N. J., takes to entertaining
angels unawares with the banks funds
along the Great White Way. He is ar
rested. When they ask him what be-
came of the money, nine times out of
ten he says he lost it speculating on the
stock exchange, and instantly an anvil
chorus of outraged people write letters
to the editor announcing another in
dictment of sinful Wall Street, although
everybody ought to know that stock
brokers keep a set of books in which
the facts, if there are any, may easily
be revealed. They ought to know, too,
that members of the exchange are rig
orously forbidden, under the rules, from
having any business relationships with
clerks or employees of banks. The last
broker who violated that rule is still
''on his vacation" and l fancy nobody
else wants to follow him.
That's the way the stock exchange is
managed by its governors. If man
does not obey the rules they throw him
out and he has no redress. What other
business can say as much? None. Yet
people who would scorn to believe in
the swan maidens and the banshee and
the souls of the dead that ride on the
night wind accept with relish every
word they hear against this great market
place. The average stock broker says,
and with good reason, that this is unfair
and un-American.
1t probably will surprise many people
% know that the stock exchange does
40 business whatever. 1t merely pro-
rides meeting place for its members,
who are the brokers or agents of others,
md who often speculate for themselves.
The exchange owns no property save
he building in which its members meet.
md the quotations which result from
he execution of their orders. The ex-
;hange does not make prices, nor does
I control them. If stocks are watered,
hey are not watered there The ex-
;hange creates no securities; it buys
nothing and sells nothing. In so far
Is the law of the land will permit, it |
a supervision over the Sc
;urities in which its members deal, and
I controls with an iron hand the con-
luct of its members in those dealings. |
is members influence prices only in the !
ense that price-making through this |
gency is an automatic reflection of con-
litions all over the world. Prices are
actually made in the worlds fields, for
;sts, workshops and laboratories and in