The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-06-12

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 He is William o. Douglas, corn- missioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the reason Wall Street fears him is because he is the only member of the SEC who has had the nerve to stand put against the bulls and bears in these days when it is so easy to join in the hallelujah chorus of: Prosperity is here again; don't rock the boat"
 Just at present Wall Street is suffering doubly acute paroxysrns of fear because within the next two weeks the SEC picks a new chairman and Douglas stands head and shoulders above anyone else on the commission.
 Sheer EffrOntery
 Last spring the -Four Hundred" of Wall Street who can boast membership in the elite Bond Club, held out the olive branch to Bill Douglas by inviting him to lunch.
 It was quite an important Oc- casion. About 450 guests were present. Douglas was to deliver the speech of the day and it was presumed that he would talk about the importance of coopera- tion between the SEC and the "Street" as his colleague, Chair man James Landis, has done so delightfully."- that he is now considered hest friend of the broker.
 But Douglas didn't. Instead of using soft soap, he took of the gloves and told the moneyed boys exactly what he considered wrong with them.
 It left them gasping. Never before had such bare-fisted language been used on them es- pecially in the sacred temple of the Bond club.
 When Douglas first rose to speak he received a tremendous ovation. When he sat down, just four people in the audience of 45O applauded. And only one came up to shake hands after wards.
 From that time on cold shivers have run up and down Wall street at the thought that Bill Doug las might become chairman of the SEC.
 Small Town Boy
 If anyone ever lifted himself by his own bootstraps, it is this 38- year old bete noir of Wall Street.
 Douglas put himself through Whitman College in Wala Walla, Washington, by living in 8 tent and washing his own clothes in ; nearby stream.
 After graduating, he went east via the freight car route, arr arrived in New York with 36 cents in his pocket and applied for a small loan to enter Colum- bia Law School. He got the loan, and sold papers on the streets of Manhattan to make it go further.
 Even with this help however, he could not make both ends meet, and in desperate financial straits, finally dropped in to get the ad- vice of Harlan Fiske Stone, then dean of the Columbia law school, now justice of the Supreme Court.
 Stone told how when working his way through Amherst, he had been in the same situation and finally dropped out of school for a while to recoup financially. So Douglas decided to follow Stones example, and was able to get a job teaching at Plainfield, N. J. Just before taking up his new du- ties, however, he dropped in at the Columbia Employment Bu- reau as matter of routine. He had inquired there hundreds of times before, always without suc- cess. But this time there was an application for a ghost writer to write a book on law.
 Douglas gave up the teach ing job, wrote the book and was paid $500. It permitted him to finish his law course without interruption. A few years later he was making S18,0OO at Yale.
 the highest paid law professor in the country.
 NOTE-Douglas recently was offered $25,0oo to join the Uni versity of Chicago law faculty but turned it down in favor of the $10,0o0 he gets as commissioner of the SEC.
 Intense Worker
 At the SEC, Douglas is a 16-hour a-day man. His power of con- centration is tremendous. When he is working hard he has no idea of what goes on around him. much to the discomfort of his more mundane associates.
 He will keep plugging at a jot past 1 p. rn., past 1:S0, past ? ATzTS THE nENnDn