Evening star., 1923-07-18
INVESTORS FLEECED
OF UNTOLD MILLIONS
fcontinued from First PageD


tngs have revealed how most of these
failures were part of a giant bucket-
shop swindle. the greatest bucket shop
swindle, IN fact. of all time.
the public by some of these bucket
shops would be revealed by taking
the amount of money turned in to
these houses by customers over the
course of several years in which the
| bucket shops were operating and
separating from that amount simply
that comparatively small figure repre-
senting what the customers took out.
Held ms ..CapStal."
In other words, most of the stream
of public money that poured into the
bucket shops. especially during the
few years preceding the tremendous
collapse of bucket shops. was viewed
by the bucket shop operators simply
as capital for their own concerns.
Viewed on this basis, the thefts Of
the bucket-shop gentry, plus the thefts
of crooked promoters, big and little,
throughout the country, may easily
! have reached in the estimates of some
students of finance, above the hum
dred- million dollar mark.
But the losses extended far beyond
the amounts represented in the ac-
tual thefts alone. Tremendous dam
age was done In the way of retard-
eys poured into the bucket shop fra
ternity were intended by the public
for the financing Of the companies
represented by the stocks for which
purchasing orders were presented.
Taken From Business.
Had those moneys gone TO the
companies for which they were IN
tended, instead of being delivered by
the bucket-shop men into their own
pockets. the companies would have
been enabled to carry out expansion
programs that would nave meant
employment for thousands of men,
could have meant handsome increases
in the earnings Of those companies
and would have put American indus
tries in all the stronger position for
the tasks which lie before them.
The extent of such damage can, OF
course, never be gauged. The legiti-
mate industries which were seeking
financing for expansion of their op-
erations from the American invest
ment public, and suffered with the
latter when the mammoth thetts OF
the bucketeerS were perpetrated, nave
their own idea as to the extent of the
damage which was done their COM
panfes. So, too. have the thousands
of honest investment houses which
year after year have been turning
over hundreds of millions Or doliars
that has been going into the expan-
sion of American industry. Such IN
vestments having been one OF the
mightiest factors in making Ameri.
can manufacturers pre-emlnent
throughout the world.
Billion-Dollar SwindIe.
Call It a billiond dollar swfndle and
Won have something nearer the
truth in view of the damage which
has been done to thousands of iegiu-
mate American companies for years
to come" is the way legitimate
brokers who make up the big ma
jority of Wall streets handlers OF Sc
curities view the depredations done
over the past several years by the
bucketeers and the crooked promo
ters that have operated both In van
street and throughout the country:
And. as the billion dollar swindle,
the widest period of debauch with
the public's money promises to go
down in financial history.
How were these stupendous thefts
permitted to go on unchecked TOT
years? What was being done by
wall street authorities and public
why were they not stopped oeiore
the public has lost the greatest
amount of money poured into a SWIM
die in all history? Were the au-
thorities remiss. or were they no1. I'm IN
is to blame?
These are the questions whlcn the
public is asking today.
They have not been answered.
How can they be answered?
conditions on which lay the founda-
tions for the swindles, of how the
swindles developed and were op-
Grated.
It is the purpose of this series OF
articles to set forth those conditions.
The story is written with the pre-
sumption that the reader is faminar
with the stories which have Deen
published in the news columns Oh
the newspapers recently on develop
ments in the Investigations by the
public authorities of bucket shop ar
fairs, and no attempt Will be mace
to rehash such news, but rather 10
acquaint the reader with the condi-
tions which led to those deVelop-
mentS.
History in Cycles.
The history of the stock market
is a history in cycles
In the cycles there are occurrences
of boom periods for mining STOCKS
of boom periods for railroad ana IN =
dustrial stocks boom sp;nde perieds, 8, bir bG
upward movements In prices ior
stocks based mainly on speculative
buying and periods of upward move
ments in prices based mainly on In
vestment buying. boom periods for
bonds and other Investment issues.
Also there are cycles representing
the return again and again of periods
of depression, some of these periods
representing a discounting of busi-
ness depression and some of them
representing a correcting of specu-
lative abuses in the securities
markets.
Boom Time for Thieves.
Inasmuch as there are these cycles
governing the movement Of prices in
the securities markets 1t is not un-
natural that there should be cycles
representing boom periods for the
underworld operators in f1nance-for
the gentry who take advantage of
boom periods and prey on the cupid
fty OF the unwary or ignorant pur-
chaser Of securities. AS another link