The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-10-17
BY FORREST DAVIS
Times stan Writer

Aimes StaH writer
Copyright 1892. BY the New York World.
TELEGRAM corporationT
THE hot payes of Chicago's La
Il Sale street, which CORE
spends modestly to Wall Street as
a financial center, echoed in the
summer Of 1929 to the Joyous
steps of an easy money horde.
The great insult stock market
boom rocketed upward. There
was gold in that canyon, with
the grim Board-of Trade sky
scraper blocking the north end,
huge, black, blanketed figure of
Ceres-god of harvests-at the
pinnacle. brooding over the tide
Of hucksters beneath.
Within the space of fifty days,
from the beginning of July, the
paper value of insult common
stocks had appreciated by pre-
cisely $50, 305 ,080-more than
$4,000 a day, $1,000 a minute, 500
a second.
Millions more had been added
to the value of bonds and pre-
ferred issues. Never in the CEN
fury since Chicago began to push
inward from the lake shore and
flats had gold showered in such
profusion.
In New York, the New Era
stock market pursued a hesitant
course that midsummer, breaking
in August, rallying in September,
preparing-as now is clearly per-
ceived-for the colossal slump of
October.
But in Chicago, thanks to Sam
insults vanity, Cyrus Eaton's
ambition, and the zestfully &C
quisitive nature of man, the stock
market boiled irrepressibly up
ward.
There had been breaks. On
Aug. 4, Monday, wave of SELL
ing in the insult list-grown by
now to dominate the Chicago
Stock Exchanges limited offer
tngs-threatened a panic.
ATHEN insult Utility Invest
w ment, Inc, opened off 8M
under Saturdays close, with few
buyers, and sheaves of additional
shares in all the insult companies
were being hawked at startingly
diminishing prices, r. Arthur
Wood, president of the exchange,
suspended trading in insult Utility.
For three days insult stocks
Utility Investment, Common
wealth. Edison, Middle West Util-
tiles, National Electric Power "a"
Public Service of Northern Illi-
nois, North American Light and
Power, Central and Southwest
Utilities and others-stood up un-
der terrific hammering.
On that black Monday, Com
monwealth- Edison lost 81 points;
Central and Southwest, 80; insult
Utility, 10, and Middle West. 20.
The bears returned gieefully
next day. But what seemed to be
the markings of an uninterrupted
short-sellers' holiday vanished in
after noon trading.
insult Utility dropped % points,
rallied %. Commonwealth Edison
fell away 10 points, then shot up
"a, to close at 374.
BY Wednesday, the insult
phalanx had resumed its march to
highs, which, in the autumn,
would quote Commonwealth
Edison at $449; Middle West Util-
tiles at the astonishing price of
$50.
Middle West, as of today is
bought and sold in La Sale street
at three-eighths or half a dollar a
share.
The bears we're trapped. Who
had sprung the trap? The insults.
Sam, master of dynamos and
super-power transmission lines,
turned pool operator, trading
through a half dozen brokerage
accounts, watching the market as
closely as any irresponsible
operator who lives by his wits.
Sam and brother Martin.
THE insults, msnifestly, in
Il August, 1929, were up to
their necks in the quicksands of
stock market manipulation and
intrigue. Cyrus Eaton, the soft
spoken Cleveland plunger, had
pushed them off deep end into
La Sale street.
Chicagoans with coins to jingle
retired at night to dream of gran
deur. Was ever city so for
tunate in its patron and bene-
factor?
Widows sold government bonds,
bought by prudent spouses, and
dumped the whole proceeds into
investment trust common stocks,
which represented ownership
merely of common stocks in util-
ities-bought at Historically opti-
miStic figures.
In three years the investment"
shares would not be worth the
cost of engraving.
Contrast Sam Insults specula-
tive optimism in midsummer,
1929, with the warning he uttered
in August, 1925, against a buoy
ant market in utility securities.
There are no inventions in
sight that would tend to reduce
utility costs" he said in 1925. "A
given number of dollars invested
in the utility business with close
management will afford good
retilrf1 hut never. can i1lstifr The