William C. Van Antwerp

“ Finally, let it be said that the Stock Exchange man is human. He knows the “rub of the green,” he suffers as all men suffer, but he does not complain, nor solicit odds. All he asks is fair play; a little patient study of what the Exchange stands for; a little better understanding of its usefulness in our commercial life; a little recognition of each man’s effort to uphold a high standard of business honor; a little of the cordial support which he himself, with stout optimism, extends to every worthy thing. ”

“ That newspaper criticism and attacks by social mentors should go to extreme lengths in deprecating stock speculation by crude, greedy, and unsophisticated people is perhaps, after all, a perfectly useful function, and if such critics err in going to great extremes, that too may be set down as right and proper, for it is perhaps better to go too far than not to go far enough. The interests of the Stock Exchange are the interests of the whole country; its welfare depends upon an intelligent and thrifty people; its aims are public-spirited and patriotic. ”

“ The intelligence of the people increases by leaps and bounds, and goes peering curiously into all the little nooks and crannies of the world for opportunities of gain—the apotheosis of speculative enterprise.
All forms of human endeavor in material things are, or were at their beginning, speculations. Every ship that goes to sea carries with it a speculation, and leaves another one behind it at Lloyds. Every man who insures his life or his house buys a speculation, and every company that insures him sells one. ”

“ THE DAY ON ’CHANGE, WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS The stockbroker’s praises are never sung; if he has good qualities, one seldom hears of them. Doctor Parker once defined the Stock Exchange as the “bottomless pit”: Doctor Johnson said a broker was “a low wretch”; politicians vie one with another in painting him a parasite and a social excrescence. Impatient idealists who would take a short cut to perfection assert that he is of no real economic value, and would enact laws to restrain him. ”

“ But by what stretch of the imagination can the Stock Exchange be credited with playing any part in this third cause of the panic? If temporary depression results from exposure of wrongdoing among railroad, industrial, or financial institutions, nowhere in the land is execration poured forth upon the evil-doers more vigorously than within its four walls. Far from complaining, the Stock Exchange and the whole investment community welcome such exposures, despite their effect on the market, for the precise reason that their own protection and benefit, if nothing else, is promoted by it. ”

“ Until something is done, the layman who distrusts the plan of a central bank and looks upon Wall Street with abhorrence, may find satisfaction in knowing that the average New York banker is the most worried and harassed man in American business life. With millions of other people’s money in his possession subject to withdrawal210 by check at sight, and with millions of the best security in the world in his vaults lying absolutely idle and worthless so far as raising currency is concerned, he stands between the devil and the deep-blue sea. ”

“ I can have a lively sympathy for the half-breed in the Canadian woods seeking information as best he may, but for the man in our populous and cultivated communities who is too lazy to turn to our great public libraries for light on the vexed and vexing economic problems of the day, contenting himself with the half-baked opinions of demagogues and quacks—for such a man it is difficult to say a good word. ”

“ A shrewd man, one of the old school of New York City wholesale merchants, who has nothing whatever to do with Wall Street or the Stock Exchange, yet whose trade arteries extend to many parts of the country, has long governed his business by the published reports of Stock Exchange transactions. If he sees there revealed a wholesome, normal, and conservative expansion in all lines of business and a money market that betrays no uneasiness as to the future, he presses on into new lines of endeavor, confident that the immediate future is serene. ”

“ If, therefore, an oil company or a coal company or any other enterprise whose ultimate success cannot fail to enrich the community seeks to market its wares—i. e., its securities—and thereby enable itself to do business, where else is it to turn save to the Stock Exchange, and how is it to fix an attractive market price at the outset save by what is termed manipulation? Nobody is compelled to buy; as for selling, any holder of 100 shares or any other number of shares can sell them at will, and no amount of manipulation can prevent him from a free exercise of this privilege. ”

“ And yet, ere we go too far afield in search of the shivers, the observer must bear in mind that this great credit system of which London is the banker and clearing house, in reality knits together in its international web all the great powers, and binds them so closely together as to guarantee, in some measure, the preservation of peace. That peace hath her victories, and that the creation of wealth through industrial pursuits may serve in this way to prevent armed strife—these are, after all, encouraging indications quite as strong as treaties. ”

“ In this splendid work of conquering a continent the Stock Exchange has kept pace with the march of industry. It has supplied the one great central market for the expression of the country’s progress as measured by the country’s securities, and it will continue to do so as long as an evergreen faith in America exists among its people. ”

“ As you pause in the day’s work to listen to these interesting people talking of their pet diversions, you see why it is that hobbies are so necessary to the modern mind, and particularly to the worried mind of the Stock Exchange man. You see that the man who has nothing to divert him in leisure hours is becoming a really rare type, whereas the man of curious, busy, and active brain, who must have a hobby to be happy, is becoming more and more common. ”

“ The more scientific the price, and the nicer and more accurate the making of it, the better the bargain for both buyer and seller and for trade generally, bearing in mind the distinction between prices, which are temporary and move rapidly—and values, which are intrinsic and move slowly. The price of a thing is what you can get for it; the value is its real worth to you, and hence it cannot be defined or measured, since a thousand considerations may enter into it, such as caprice, sentiment or association. ”

“ If a sub-committee of Congress retains as counsel a shrewd lawyer who by devious ex-parte methods reads into the record and thence into the newspapers only such biased and prejudiced information as will do harm to the Exchange, while rigidly excluding all that properly belongs there by way of refutation and explanation, energetic steps should be taken to remedy this obvious injustice by invoking that spirit of fair play which is essential to any judicial inquiry. ”