Evening star., 1926-10-01
MEN AND MONEY
BY NJ. S. Rukeyser.
Copyright. 1929

Although the unprecedentedly large
foreign Industrial loans floated during
the first nine months of this year
stamp New York beyond question as
an outstanding world financial center.
Wall Street fianciers are as democratic
and unassuming as in pre-war days.
In the principal highways of finance
which interSect In lower New York
bankers who have become the world 8
chief money lenders look and act like
ordinary prosperous business mon.
They have no uniform or insignia /
watched q thousand of them file In for
luncheon at the Bankers Club the
other day, and was impressed by the
wide diversity in manner of dress.
Many wear soft collars and sport
suits. Fancy tweeds and colors are
as much in evidence as black or dark
blue suits. Panamas and straws con-
stitute the Summer headgear, which
has just been supplanted by soft felt
hats of varied hues.
To the Wall Street man this Jeffer.
sonian simplicity seems as natural as
the air he breathes.
/, however, have recently observed
banking customs in Lombard street
London, which before the war was the
undisputed world financial leader, and
which, now that the pound sterling
has returned to parity, is fighting to
regain It's primacy. In London there
is a stiff formality along money row
Members of the Stock Exchange wear
cutaways and silk hats as their bust
ness uniform. Thus you can always
tell Lombard Street financier by his
outward garb.
Dress Simply as Clerks.
In New York even the mightiest
bankers dress as simply as their
clerks although their suits NAV have
better cut and be made of goods of
a finer weave. The house of Speyer
4 Co. alone follows in modified form
the Old World tradition Of formal
dress. cutaway is the mark Of a
Speyer executive at meetings lunch
cons and other special occasions.
j. +. Morgan's leadership in the
matter of fashions has been effective
~ challenged. He wears an extraord-
inarily high black derby-an English
oowler-but the rank and file do not
follow him in this regard.
Wall Street executives are informal
in manners as well as in dress. Thev
do not insist that callers make formal
appointments far in advance. as the
London bankers do.
Moreover, the representative Wall
Street man has a sense of humor.
Each year the great and the near
great assemble under the auspices of
the Bond Club at the Sleepy Hollow
Country Club. On this occasion all
rules Of courtesy and reticence are
suspended. and no one is eMampt
from being joshed This wholesale
process OF poking fun at one another
is recorded in the Bawl Street
Journal, which in satirical manner
records the foibles and follles of Wall
Street. Robert Bould, the editor of
this once-a-year, privately circulated
publication. recently met death
through drowning, but his work will
be continued by testers who have
been associated with him
Rats I'm Wall Street
IL reporter told a cynical city
editor that there are rats in Wall
Street, he would assert that there
was no news in that information. At
any rate. there are, literally, rats in
Wall Street these days--running in
the shadow of the New York Stock
Exchange. They are honest to good
ness water rats which escaped from
their prisons when the Mills Building
on Broad street, next to J. p. Morgan
& Co, was recently torn down.
Streams ran under the site where the
office building was erected, and water
rats. which have now been liberated,
lived under the foundation. The Mills
Building gave way to new home of
the Equitable Trust Co, which will
soon spring up on the same site.
In these days Of instant communi-
cation and rapid transportation the
population is mobile and labor freely
flows into undercrowded vocations
which seem to offer exceptional op-
portunities. 1t Is more difficult than