Evening star., 1923-07-21
By r.. II. TREVOR.

The war shares boom of 1915-1916
proved a veritable rainfall of wealth
for the curb market bucketeers. BY
the time that boom came along the
curb bucketshops We're getting most
of the buying orders for curb Securi-
ties other than those placed through
New York Stock Exchange houses.
The latter houses in some cases had
their own representatives on the curb.
In other cases they turned the or
ders they received over to such curb
houses as they considered reliable.
The business placed direct with curb
houses by the public went mainly to
bucketshops because it was the latter
institutions which. among houses spe-
cializing in curb securities, were
making themselves best known to
the public through the medium of
sending out weekly market letters on
securities conditions. of advertising
in those of the newspapers which
would accept their advertisements,
etc.
Curb House Hard Hit.
With their stolen funds the curb
bucketshopS were able to place so
much money into such campaigns that
the curb houses which sought to CON
duct a legitimate business found IL
almost impossible to compete with
them.
The boom in war shares started on
the New York Stock Exchange. FL
nalIy. il reached the curb market. 1t
was to the curb market that many of
the new munitions companies turned
for their financing. When the public
began buying the latter stocks, II was
bucketshops therefore which got most
of the orders.
The operation of wholesale
I'm K in N not
only meant the loss of thousands OF
dollars to the people patronlzns
those houses, but it meant the steal
ing of millions of dollars that were
intended for the manufacture of mu-
nitions to aid the United States in
winning the war. a large portion OF
the money thus stolen by the buck
eteers went into riotous living.
Here are the events leading TO
those developments:
Panic Prices in 1914.
In the summer of 1914. when the
world war broke. prices on the New
York Stock Exchange fell to panic
levels. With all Europe seeking TO
unload securities the New York
market as the one place in the world
in which Europeans could convert
some of their properties into ready
cash, the governors of the New York
Stock Exchange prevented further
decentralization by closing the eX-
change.
The New York Stock Exchange re-
opened a few months later. Within a
few months after that there was to
start the famous war market boom
of 1915-1916. That boom was due IL
the enormous orders for munitions
placed with American manufacturers
by the allies 1t was one of the
greatest speculative boomS which the
American securities markets have
ever seen.
The old common stock of the Beth
1ehem Steel Corporation. which had
been selling around $50 per share
scared to levels above $500 per share
in the trading on the New York Stock
Exchange. The cid common stock OF
the General Motors Corporation.
starting around similarly low levels.
moved up past the 500 mark. The
fires of tremendous speculative
blaze We're lighted in early stages of
those advances. The old-style buck
bishops. specializing in New York
Stock Exchange securities, had, as
has already been noted, been vir-
tually driven out of business. But
the new-style bucketeers. specializing
in curb securities, saw enormous busi-
ness ahead for themselves once the
speculative enthusiasm should reach
the curb
Start With Boat stock.
The boom in curb stocks was start
ed by Il remarkable advance in the
old common and participating pre-
ferred shares of the Electric Boat
Corporation, which has since become
the Submarine Boat Corporation.
Those shares had been kicking around
the curb market for long time
around SIS per share. Suddenly, the
entire outlook on their value was
changed when, through the work of
Charles NJ. Schwab, orders We're
quietly obtained for the conStruc-
ton of a fleet of submarines
under patents controlled by the
Electric Boat Corporation. The
shares moved ahead somewhat easily
until they We're past the $50 mark,
and then on upward easily past the