The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-02-05

1 New York, February 4.-(Special.) Testifying in the congressional '1eak'' hearing last week, Bernard M. Baruch was asked by Cross-Examiner Whipple how much money he had made in the stock market between December 10 and 23, the period under investigation. Slowly tracing his long index finger down the last column on a two-foot sheet of paper closely covered with | figures, Baruch replied in a tone which might have been used in discussing a ! December weather report; This state ment shows a net profit of $476,16S.67." He was not affecting indifference. He admitted his December stock market operations were flair size,' but he added, also in reply to a direct ques- tion, that at other times he had traded 1 in larger amounts of stock. That Ba- ruch is the most successful stock mar ket operator in Wall street is well un derstood in the financial district. Ex- lactly how much money he has made no outsider can tell but he confessed this week to having added to his personal fortune in a little over 10 days nearly a half-million dollars. How does this wizard of Wall street make his money? And what is even more important, how
 
 does he keep it?
 Baruch's old Wall street friends re- alize that these questions were an swered by the operator himself, when this weeks testimony is patched up and analysed. But first it should be pointed out that Baruch is a man who makes friends and keeps them. Despite the fact that he has made every penny of his money, Baruch is as plain as an old shoe, and nothing give him quite as much pleasure as chat or a serious discussion with an old acquaintance. The subject might be golf or duck shooting or any phase of life, for, al though still on the sunny side of 50, Baruch is great philosopher. Or it might be politics, subject in which, as an onlooker, he is keenly interested; or it might be finance, either from a world viewpoint or from the narrower range of the stock market.
 Anyone who has had such talk with Baruch in his office overlooking Trinity church yard knows pretty well the way his mind works. In fact, in the whole of New York it would be hard to find a man more outspoken That is the char attention. Moreover, it is very doubtful whether there was a man in this week s crowded courtroom who did not feel as soon as Baruch took the stand and began to talk that he was telling the truth, a. characteristic which, unfortunately, con- trasted strongly with some of the pre- cedng witnesses.
 Whether on the witness stand or talk ing with friend Baruch is simple in his directness. He is probably the most direct man in all Wall street. That is one reason why he makes money in the stock market. With an impatient wave of his hand he brushed aside the sugges- tion of MT. Whipple that he acted on ru- mors of an impending peace note. T never pay any attention to Wall street he said, and then, in answer to the next question: continued to explain why he had gone short of the market on December F.
 He had been long of United States Steel common, he said. because he had believed that the war would go on indefinitely and that Steel common more than any other stock would profit by such conditions. Then he explained how he had been out of his office arranging to buy some se- curities when the Won Bethmann- Holl- veg message had been received, and published in Wall street; how he had hurried back to his own office and began first to sell out his long stocks and then to go short.
 Just why did you do that?' MT. Whip pie asked, cooking his head to one side. It was then that Baruch gave a good