The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-06-23
PUBLIC SHAKEN RY
 B|G FAILURES IN STREET THIS WEEK
Financial Expert Says No Real Significance Is At-
 tached To Them
By WALTER F. BROWN tEditOr New York Commercially heased Wire to The AEe-HeraId.)

tieHSeu wire to Ihe AGc-HeFaIu.b NEW YORK, June 22-This has been hectic week in the stock mar lSet, even if the general business community has not been particularly disturbed by it. Following the fail- ures of the bucket shops, came the collapse of two old Stock Exchange houses, and the public at first was not able to see much distinction be- : tween the two. As a matter of fact their coming all at one time was a matter of coincidence; the collapse of some stock exchange houses be- cause they were primarily German houses and had suffered from the loss of German business Their ven- lures in other directions to retrieve these losses eventually led to their undoing. Both housese were held in high esteem in pre-war days and there is no charge against them thus far of improper practices. They have simply been overtaken by the mis- fortunes of the times.
 The failure of Knauth, Nachod & Kuhne after being in business for more than seventy years, occasioned largely sentimental regret because 1t was known that the concern had been In a shaky condition for some months It gave the rumor mongers chance until almost every house on , the street was under suspicion In order to set these rumors at rest President Cromwell of the stock ex- change, issued statement declaring there were no stock exchange houses under investigation and that the ru- mors were baseless. Right on top of this came the Zimmerman &, Forshay failure, a house about forty-siX years old. It is quite possible that had 1t not been for these rumors and whis- perings this concern might have pulled through. President Cromwell explained that Zimmerman & For , shay were known to be In weak . ened condition, but that all they needed were additional loans. These were under negotiation and might have been put through. But the whis- perers had started.
 The time to buy stocks Is when everyone else is selling them. Shrewd investors know this and they are taking advantage of the present sit uation. When steel common sells al most ten points off something Is rad ically wrong with the business situa- tion or else with the stock market, and the evidence at present seem to be against the stock market. IL has been subjected to pounding through a vicious propaganda that is analaaous to the experience or some months ago when Mexican pe- troleum was the storm petrel. It IS hardly possible to escape the con clusion that there has been some sinister direction of all this effort to depress prices. for one has only to re- call the turmoil into which the mar ket was thrown few weeks ago by the flood of fraudulent orders that struck the market all at once as :, result of a definite plot.
 One need only recall also how the field has been prepared by the con tinued talk of imitation, of the prop ahi1itv of an advance In the redis- count rate and the alarmist reports generally until there was pretty good case of hysteria worked up. { Whoever has been directing this E campaign has played on one string E after another with the result of fore ing prices down to the low point or the year, and, in some instances, con siderably further. Secretary Mellon deemed 1t advisable on Thursday to issue statement to the effect that these figures bore no relation to the economic condition of the country, which remains sound.