Evening star., 1923-07-21
Bucketeers Imperiled Safety
!. Of u. S. Forces in World War
Output of Munitions Halted BY Stock
Market Raids, When Millions of
Dollars More We're Stolen.

$50 mark, from which level they
started on a fast spectacular advance
that had few Interruptions until they
were selling, within the space of a
few months, around $3.50 per share.
That sensational advance set the
curb market wild. A flood of buying
orders. began to pour in for the
stocks of various companies whose
operations were interviewer with
those of the Electric Boat Corpora
ton, and various other companies
which had large war orders Many
of the customers of the bucket shops
had huge paper profitsin the Electric
Boat shares The bucketeers used all
their wileS to encourage these custo
merS not to take these profits, but
TO make further commitments in the
new food of stocks which began to
appear.
Carried to Extremes.
Some of the bucket shops bucketed
not wisely but too well. AS an ex
ample. there was the story, which was
common gossip in the street at that
time. of one house which had an order
from a woman customer for a few
hundred shares of one of the Du Pont
powder stocks and bucketed the order
at figures similar to the low marks
for the Electric Boat shares, only to
see the stock go later to price of
several hundred dollars per share. The
woman gave an order for the sale of
her stock when it was at its high
marks. according to the story. She
should have had profit of few
hundred thousand dollars. That
amount. however. was far more than
the house then had. and the bucket
shop proprietor found it necessary to
confess to the woman customer that
the order had been bucketed.
Naturally, if the details of the story
are correct this was an open and
shut case that could have sent him
straight to the penitentiary. The
story adds that the woman was anX-
ious to send him there, but that his
lawyers pointed out to her and the
attorneys representing her that such
Il procedure would not get her her
money, and his attorneys suggested
that he be permitted to continue bust
ness, stating that. inaSmuch as the
market was entering a boom period.
he should be able to make enough to
pay her off in inStallments.
Scheme For Paying.
AS Wall street gossip had the mat
ter at the time, this arrangement was
permitted, and the buCketeer paid on
his debt in inStallmentS over a period
of a few years. During those few
HeaF hs tho houSs sountra h4a and Granen M
looked upon as one of the largest curb
houses in the street. Whether the
bucketing of orders of a new crop of
victims was simply used to pay off
the debt to the woman customer has,
of course. been a subject for con-
lecture.
In bucketshop circles it was re-
ported that this willy bucketeer was
accustomed to taking automobile trips
up the banks of the Hudson river.
and that when his car was passin <
= !, fh. of n
would doff his hat in mock reverence
to the walls of Sing Sing prison, and
chortle: We'll, you haven't got me
yet" His house tiourished until very
recently when, following run on it
by its customers, ii hit the bank
ruptcy trail blaZed by other bucket
shops a year ago
In the early stages of the war
shares boom the bucketshopS found
themselves in much danger of the
foregoing sort. Later. the boom de-
voloped the features so characteristic
Of an excessive speculation in that
violent advances We're followed by
violent declines. The bucket shops
then used the methods which they
had followed with so much success
with regard to mining stocks.
Customers Overextended.
They encouraged customers to oVNr-
extend themselves in purchases OIL
the advances, and found it therefore
all the easier to wipe them out on the
subsequent declines. Where the de-
clineS did not come quickly enough
to suit the bucketeers the latter used
their usual raiding tactics to depress
the stocks The fact that they might
be running markets for securities
whose successful fotation would
mean much for the successful prose-
cution of the war meant little to the
N
dollars and not patriotism.
While some of the bucketeerS are
seeking sympathy now and complain
ing that they are victims of sudden
wave of public indignation, let it be
remembered that the fore going We're
the tactics which they were playing
in the fateful days of the war period
The Army and Navy Were calling
madly for speeding up of produc-
ton. There came the foreboding time
when the future of democracy was
trembling in the balance. German
shells were falling in the city Of
Paris. Thousands of American fac
tories We're working night and day to
send the ammunition that would save
the armies Of the Allies. including our
own, from further disasters. Hun
dreds more factories were getting in
to production. Millions upon millions
of dollars were being poured by the
American public into the securities
panies cnotrolling these factories. To
the new companies, weak in their fl
nances, and just starting into pro-
duction. those funds would have
meant that the companies could have
reached capacity operations, increas-
ed their capacity and have been VAL
liable factors in shortening the war.
Grabbed or Millions.
1t was those companies whose
T,Iy- n-h fhn M -, <,f
dollars intended for them were grab
bed off by the bucketshop men for
themselves.
Naturally, inasmuch as the interests
sponsoring most of these new COM
panies We're anxious to use the money
reaching them-mainly on New York
Stock Exchange buying orders-for
the development of those companies
the amount of money that could be
put into support Of the markets for
the stocks was comparatively small.
These markets We're therefore ex-
tremely vulnerable to the bear raid
ing by the now-powerful bucketeers.
In those instances in which the
bucketing aggregatfons did find it diff
ficult to force down the prices of
of raiding, they APPARENTLY did not
hesitate to spread all sorts of bear
rumors intended to frighten people
into selling their holdings.
In other words, the buck eteers were
doing everything they could to pre-
vent these companies from making
good and this at the very time when
American boys were giving up their
, lives at the front and when millions
of hard-working Americans were
stinting themselves to buy liberty
! bonds.
Peril to U. S. Army.
In the light of later developments,
m iuo