The New York herald., 1922-02-09

! Grafton or all New York prosecuting
and the concerted aid of the big S
evil. The prevalence of the plunder-
| ing bucketeer is readily admitted by
both prosecuting officers and the
heads of stock exchanges, and the
evidence of the wholesale operations
is not hard to find.
! The financial district is virtually
honeycombed with bucketing brokers,
operating in every sort of style from
! that of the little fellow with desk
! space and telephone to elaborate
suites of offices employing thousands
of producers and telephone systems
that run up bills to thousands of dol
lars month.
Drastic Measures Tried.
Such inroads on the good name of
the big exchanges have these pirates
made that the exchanges have found
it necessary to adopt drastic measures,
not yet wholly successful, to root out
| the evil.
Eight months ago, for instapce, the
! New York Stock Exchange revised it's
rules to prevent it's members from CO.
operating in any way with bucket
shops The measure has proved of
great help. Last week Seymour Crom-
! WELL president of the exchange, made
public appeal for aid in accomplish
ing not only the ends aimed at in so
far as the Stock Exchange is-concerried
but also for nationwide cooperation to
! check oucketing. All the other ex-
| changes have pledged their help to the
District Attorney and asked for his aid
in return.
| Meanwhile the Office of the District
Attorney of New York county tells
an eloquent story of the bucket shop
ravages Without any aggressive cam
paign whatever the District Attorney
has been so swamped with complaints
/ from bucket shop victims that a con-
stant increase of the staff operating
under Jerome Simmons, Mr.. Banton's
assistant. hss been necessary. Com
plants have grown to an average of
fifty or more a week, and sometimes
the complainants amount to parade
of twenty day.
Mostly it is the same story-of the
broker who took the victims money
ostensibly to buy on margin; tech
nically bought, but in reality did not,
merely pocketing the customers"
money as blandly as a cat eating a
goldfish.
How woman Was FIeeced.
Here, for instance, is one of yester-
days stories from the District Attor-
| neys office:
Irving =. Nettler of 1915 Seventh
avenue, formerly a stock broker under
the style of /. y. Nettler & Co., at so
Broad street, was arrested at the in
stance of James j. Wilson, Assistant
District Attorney, who handles bucket
shop cases in the First District Magis-
trate's Court, and held in $4,000 bail
for the Grand Jury.
At the hearing Miss Florence B. Will
son of 125 West Sixteenth street pro-
prietor of a tea room, testified that she
bought some stock through Nettler's
concern. She had no reason to doubt
the integrity of the house. 1t was a
member of the Consolidated Exchange
She said she was called on to put up
margin until she finally protested.
Then Nettler suggested she put up two
City Service bonds, valued at S1.SO0, as
collateral IT was shown that Nettler
sold the bonds almost the moment he
received them. That was in Septem-
ber, and to hide the sale of the bonds,
according to the testimony the broker
paid the dividends on them through
October, November and December.
The reason apparently why this
broker did not continue the alleged
deception by further dividend pay
ment was that last January 16 he
went into bankruptcy. The bank
ruptcy cour. brings us to another and
eloquent chapter concerning the wide
spread operations of the New York
bucketshops.
Failures Reveal victims.
In the last half a dozen months
brokerage failure has followed failure
like string Of flrecrackers. After
each explosion the procession of vic
Tins who got burnt has trailed to tho
District Attorneys office with tales
of woe.
The failure of Nettler was only one
OF tho smaller ones. His liabilities
were estimated at $4,000 and his as
sets at 10000 Here are some of the
others worth looking at.
r.. ID. DER e. Co., failed for $4,000
900. with assets probiematical: Il. w.
Wagner & Co, with liabilities OF
s7,500,000 and assets of $4,000 ,000
f.. Il. Kohn & Co, whose liabilities are
estimated Mt s5Oo,O00 and whose as
sets are considered negligible: j. ID.
Continued on Page Six.