The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-08-15

III Iilc iltllt Uull ubArKeJ Wnlcn cracked up in the middle of July we learned that almost nothing had been learned from the great bull market which cracked up nearly four years ago. The specu- lative appetite was unimpaired. The efficiency of the Stock Ex- change in catering to it was un- chastened. We had the pools, the tips, the high pressure salesman ship, the indiscriminate margin accounts, and all the other ap- purtenances which have made the American capital market the most feverish market of its kind in the civilized world. The money chang CTS who on March 4, were indeed in the same temple, but on their knees praying, had been driven out and had resumed about where they had left off some years ago
 It is clear enough, I think, that the reversion to the old ways was due, in the first instance, to the Administration failure to exhib- it capacity and willingness to man. age the dollar. When men hope or fear that the currency is out of control, they are compelled to speculate, even though they have no other ambition than to con- serve their capital. But when all that can be said on this subject has been said, it was still startling to discover how little the exper- fence of the past few years had done to awaken a sense of public responsibility in those who are professionally responsible for the vast business of trading in securi- ties. Compared with the manifest evils and dangers of national gambling in securities, the reforms initiated by the governors of the Stock Exchange during the past three years can only be described as pitiably inadequate So slug gish were they to move that it had begun to appear that they would not institute real reforms except by compulsion from the outside. Men whose every instinct is to prefer self lf-regulation to new laws came to feel that the Stack Exchange and the brokerage bus mess would probably have to be treated to legislation as drastic as that with which the Federal au- securities act surrounds the un- derwriting and promotion of new issues.
 The cracK-up Tn the middle of July seems to have brought home to the governors of the Stock Ex- change a realization that they must bestir themselves. At any rate, they have at last come for ward with some reforms which have some point and some edge. They have made up their minds to regulate the building up of weak and dangerous margin accounts. They are proceeding to deprive the management or pools of the i'm munity of secrecy, and they rec ognize that they must begin to do something to deflate the high pres sure salesmanship by which the public is lured into the stock market.
 This is excellent Quite apart from the question as to whether these reforms are adequate, it is excellent because it dignifies radically new conception of the duty of the Stock Exchange. The orthodox theory has always been that the Stock Exchange is merely market place and that the bro kerage houses are merely agents through whom orders to buy and sell are executed. This, for exam pie, is the tenor of MT. Richard Whitney's testimony before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee in the spring of 1882. When he was asked about the
 Copyright, 1883, Nev