New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-07-10
Membership in Ortho-
dox Curb Costs ST.
900; Dissenters. Haze
No Overhead but the
Sky. Orthodox Curb
Promises Control of
Trading; Dissenters
Won't Be CONTROLLER

change. Those that are dropped represent
tunes that are lost, sometimes overnight The
others represent the Curb successes. pros
pectus now being issued by the Curb Market
Association has a long list of such stocks that
of the failures-well, who wants such a list,
anyway?
Stocks that are highly speculative find
their market on the Curb. The oil or mining
prospect has home nowhere else Curb vet
Grams can reel off the names of dozens of
modest, unknown prospects of that sort and
also industriais which have been run into ire
mendous figures of profit But it is pointed
out that no such companies are allowed to
come in under false pretenses. An oil or min
ing company must make it clear whether it is
floating a prospect or a developed property.
But the Curb requirements with regard to
statements are not so strict as those of the
Stock Exchange. That is cited as the big rea-
son for the fact that Standard Oil Stocks for
years were dealt in on the Curb instead of be-
ing listed on the Stock Exchange. When the
public really wants the shares of a concern it
is of little moment to that concern just where
the shares are sold. But irksome restrictions re-
gardlng sale in one place may be avoided in
the atmosphere of another market.
In the old days, when there was open bet
ting in New York, the Curb was the bettor's
paradise. One could bet any amount on any
thing, from elections to prizefghts. Also you
could buy tickets to any sporting event by
bidding therefor In the days of the 1907
panic money was actually sold on the Curb
when the banks were refusing to pay out cash.
The tiny plot in Broad Street where the
Curb brokers have gathered is naturally rich
in tradition. The very atmosphere is satr-
rated with stories of quick gains that have
been made. These stories include the usual
recitals Of messenger boys who have run
shoestrings into fortunes, and down-and-out
brokers who have invested the last of their
cash and found fortune in day. Also there
are stories of INSCRIPTIONS individuals who
have collected funds that were trusted to them
for investment, and who have raked in the
resulting profits and engineered a hurried de-
fort for the rest of their days It is to be
recollected, however, that, so far as the men,
bership of the New York Curb Market Asso-
citation is concerned the Hughes investigat-
ing committee found that membership to be
honest.
When the Curb Market Association went
into its new quarters the sign language of the
street disappeared. There are 357 telephones
near the east entrance, and when an order
is received from a brokers' office word is
conveyed to the man on the floor by means of
boards that are built in the western wall and
the broker then gets in touch with the tele-
phone clerk and learns the nature of the
order
Meantime the members of the new trad
ing association that has camped on the out
door site of the old get out the souwesters
and the rubber boots-thereby preventing any
stock slump in those products-and announce
that the Curb has not died and is not going to
die, and that there is trading enough for all.
One of the stories of suddenly acquired pros
perity on the curb market relates 10 a broker
who, in the days of the oil boom of two years
ago, was down to his last $50. This SUN he
happened to put on the right stock at the
moment of the markets upturn. By series of
manipulations which only broker can UNDER
stand he ran his $50 into as many tens of
thousands. Then, with half a million to his
credit, did he retire to the farm about which
he probably had dreamed all his life? Or did
he reinvest his money and lose it all in the
downward sweep of stocks that once seemed
to have vitality without end? The 90 Henry
twist to this real life story is that the man
did not reinvest the curb, but did put his
money into lands, where he may lose 1t, but
hardly rapidly as one loses fortunes on
Broad Street.
Brokers who are familiar with curb history
say same things were happening back in the
era when artists drew their pictures ION the
spot and when railroad stocks and 5onds
were the chief things dealt in Those were the
days before America had any Industrial devel-
opment to speak of. Industry had to follow or
the heels of the railroad builders, but tbs
railroads themselves formed the basis Of many
exciting outdoor scenes in the financial distric;
when the curb spelled kerb and whef
the sign language and general lingo Of ths
street in their infancy.
To-day the curb market reflects the progress
of invention. When a new thing in industry
III c%a%