Wall Street

“ No one is taught that Wall Street is merely a central market for capital, just as Chicago is for wheat, Boston for wool, New Orleans for cotton, etc. How many appreciate the fact that Wall Street is as essential to the business life of the country as is the Legislature at Washington to our political life? How many realize that Wall Street is the primary nerve center of the American business world ”

“ The lure of Wall Street was drawing him more powerfully every day. He longed to plunge into the excitement with his old time zest, and to enjoy the thrill that came when success ended a financial battle. ”

“ The men of Wall Street have, therefore, become world-renowned for straightforward dealing, and have thus obtained the first position as leading spirits in the speculative affairs not only of their own country, but of the entire world. Wherever the speculative spirit of the age has obtained a foothold, there Wall Street is a household word, and Wall Street men are held in the highest esteem. ”

“ Both Wall Street and the outside public have lost the faith that they had in many of the stock-market leaders, the men who were once followed blindly in their schemes of inflation and regarded as omnipotent in their execution. The power and prestige of these leaders, for the present at least, have passed entirely away, and none are so poor as to do them reverence. ”

“ The air was almost unbreathable for the innumerable “tips” to buy or sell securities and insecurities of all kinds. The brokers, the customers, the clerks, the Exchange door-keepers, all Wall Street read the morning papers, not to ascertain the news, but to pick such items as would, should, or might, have some effect on stock values. There was no god but the ticker, and the brokers were its prophets! ”

“ And as time passed the grip of Wall Street on his soul grew stronger until it strangled all other aspirations. He could talk, think, dream of nothing but stocks. He could not read the newspapers without thinking how the market would “take” the news contained therein. ”

“ In passing thus briefly and rapidly over the years since Wall Street was the dividing line between the bears of the forest and the bulls of intruding civilization, neither its picturesque beginnings, its bewildering charms as the seat of fashion and of the national Government, nor its modern riches and financial renown, must lead us to forget that it is closely associated with historic events in every part of the Western hemisphere. ”

“ You know that every dollar of the billions lost in Wall Street means higher prices for steel rails, for lumber and cars, and that this means higher passenger and freight rates to the people. You know that when the manufacturer brings his wealth to Wall Street and is robbed of it, he will add something to the price of boots and shoes, cotton and woollen clothes, and other necessities that he makes and that he sells to the people. ”

“ The final resting-place of the statesman was chosen under the sycamore shades of the sacred inclosure at the head of Wall Street, but a step from where his achievements had been concentrated, and an amount of difficult and laborious service compressed into a short, busy life, affecting all the future of this great monetary center—such service as few men ever rendered to any nation in the longest term of human existence. ”

“ It'll happen just as quick's Wall Street wakes up to the way it's been gypped—and it's moaning and tossing in its sleep right now. Wall Street put up its good money because pictures made half-way on the level earned more and earned it quicker'n any other investment they could find. ”

“ We see it in the Old World, as well as the New World, but such rocket-like soarings, and such eccentric ups and downs as Wall Street has experienced from time to time, are peculiar to itself. It must, however, outgrow them, and the sooner it does so the better. ”

“ Now, men in the same sphere are proud of the distinction, both socially and financially. In fact Wall Street has become a necessity as a healthy stimulant to the rest of the business of the country. Everything looks to this centre as an index of its prosperity. It moves the money that controls the affairs of the world.
Take the Clearing House, for example, with its 50 billions of transactions annually. ”

“ A combination of buyers and sellers becomes the "system." The place where these buyers and sellers most do congregate and concentrate becomes "Wall Street"—a sort of anthropomorphic monster which seems to buy and sell the bodies and souls of men. ”

“ Every day in Wall Street is a completed day. It is a cash business. Your broker likes to talk about his trades over his after-dinner cigar, and to tell you, in the horsy, professional jargon of the Street, how he “pulled a thousand out of ‘Paul,’ and went home long of ‘little Atch.’”
He is, like all nervous people, a social animal. He is gregarious by instinct and interest. Accustomed all day long to his exciting pursuit and his club-parlor office, he seeks society for amusement and profit. He wishes to chat with his friends and to increase his following. ”

“ This serious, solid, fundamental character of Wall Street, performing amid its colossal setting, an important and essential office in the world’s work, must be conscientiously painted in and emphasized in any portrait, however gay and frolicsome, which attempts to depict its spirit. ”

“ But if, on the other hand, we repudiate such wholesale abuse of the place, and insist, for truth's sake, upon an acknowledgment of facts as they exist, then the South can well afford to be found in Wall Street, and if prominent there we may proudly salute her.
Wall Street is the throbbing heart of America's finance. It is a common nursery for an infinite variety of enterprises, all over our land. ”

“ In fine, the ultimate purpose in this regard of all the promotion machinery of Wall Street—the machinery that has been putting out billions of dollars' worth of securities to investors—is to place stock where it will "stay put," that is, not come out on the open market again to embarrass the interests that are behind the enterprise, and who for a long period are compelled to support the market. ”

“ The miner deep in the bowels of the earth and the crew on a swiftly moving railroad train, the track walker and the laborer are all exercising indirectly an influence. All the great railroads and industrial corporations come to Wall Street in their time of need, and if their object is worthy they do not leave with their wants unsupplied. Wall Street proper, as represented through the New York Stock Exchange, is the barometer of the country. Every man, woman or child who has a dollar invested or deposited in a savings bank is interested in the good or bad times which prevail in the Street. ”

“ In this wonderful development of the industrial arts, Wall Street money, enterprise and speculation have played by far the most conspicuous and progressive part, thus enabling us, in little more than two decades, to outstrip the old nations that were so anxious to enslave us, in spite of the fact that they had centuries upon centuries the start of us. ”

“ Wall Street, instead of being the center, is simply one of the centers that reflects the general prosperity throughout the country. Farmers, merchants, mechanics, mill workers, and miners are all so intent on keeping pace with the progress in their own pursuits that they have no time to cast eyes our way. The same conditions that boom 745stocks may boom everything else in the country at an equal rate, so that we are in nowise deserving of special attention. ”

“ Meanwhile, those who were active in Wall Street during this eventful period of inflation and speculation must note, more than others, the vast change that has come over sentiment and opinion in Wall Street and everywhere else. ”

“ Even the most intelligent men I meet in other professions and walks of life have the most utterly crude and undefined notions about the methods of doing business at the Stock Exchange. Many good and pious clergymen are under the impression that Wall Street is a name for the sum total of all kinds of infamy, and solemnly exhort their devoted flocks not to touch the unclean thing. ”

“ He owed all he had to Wall Street, and his career illustrated, more than any other has ever done, how fertile a field for fortune making Wall Street may prove to a sagacious man, of untiring industry, who knows how to cultivate it, and can see and avail himself of its splendid opportunities. ”

“ This combination controls Wall Street almost absolutely. Many of the strongest financial institutions are at their service in supplying accommodations when needed. With such power and facilities it is scarcely conceivable what these men must be making, what they can do on either side of the market. So far, fortunately, their manipulations have all been one way, upwards, and in conjunction with the general prosperity it has resulted in making large sums of money for nearly everybody in the Street. ”

“ The bottom dropping out of the market! It means millions at a single coup, for, in spite of diplomatic quibbles, the market is like a cork. The Paris bourse is soaring. Wall Street will make a new record to-morrow. ”

“ And singularly enough, upon the very site of the edifice where the foundations were laid of our whole governmental scheme the marble structure has since been placed which guards the golden treasures of the Union, and Wall Street has been converted into the vital business center of the country, with its financial and commercial roots stretched to the remotest quarters of the globe. ”

“ Wall Street being not only a local but a national and international financial center, the whole world, not only the whole country, is tributary to it, and it is indispensable to the whole country. Yet it is made the target at present for all sorts of political abuse, and various schemes have been urged for suppressing trading in stocks, all of which are of course chimerical, for as long as we have securities, there must, in justice to the millions of holders, be a market for them. ”

“ Wall Street and the Stock Exchange are two different things. The men on the floor of the Exchange are the agents of others, executing the orders which they receive both from Wall Street and from other parts of the habitable globe. Some of them speculate on their own account, but the speculating members of the Exchange are divided into bulls and bears. ”

“ Wall Street had been doing business with pieces of paper; and now someone asked for a dollar, and it was discovered that the dollar had been mislaid. ”

“ But few gain sufficient experience in Wall Street to command success until they reach that period of life in which they have one foot in the grave. When this time comes these old veterans of the Street usually spend long intervals of repose at their comfortable homes, and in times of panic, which recur sometimes oftener than once a year, these old fellows will be seen in Wall Street, hobbling down on their canes to their brokers’ offices. ”

“ This over-extension of Wall Street capitalists, with their efforts to unduly inflate prices, had its counterpart elsewhere, 886for such over-trading was by no means confined to them, but extended to, and was conspicuously shown by, railway and industrial corporations in their efforts to keep up with the increasing demands upon them consequent on the country’s great prosperity and natural growth. ”

“ A man in a union hall put it simply: “When will our government care as much for Main Street Americans as Wall Street speculators?” As long as I am here, I will strive to make sure that the voices of Main Street are heard as loudly as the voices of Wall Street. ”

“ South, East, and West, have drawn their capital from Wall Street. The industrial progress and material development of our blessed Southland is being pushed forward vigorously to-day by the monetary backing of Wall Street. The vast fields of the fertile West, luxurious in the beauty and rich in the promise of tasselled corn and bearded grain, are tilled and harvested by helpful loans from Wall Street. ”

“ The speculative capitalists and large operators of Wall Street, not of course excepting many of the active Standard Oil magnates and James R. Keene, naturally availed themselves of this state of affairs to manipulate stocks on a grand scale. Having loaded up with them early at low prices, they boomed them with vigor; and we witnessed the beginning of a carnival of speculation, and an unexampled rush to form combinations of industrial and railroad interests, or trusts, and generally to capitalize the concerns taken in for many times the amount of their previous capital or real value. ”

“ This broker's shop was the resort of scores of people of small means, trades-folk, clerks, salaried dependents and some women, keen to acquire from the fluctuations of the speculative markets a few crumbs of the huge gains garnered by the magnates of Wall Street, of which they read emulously in the newspapers. To put up one's thirty dollars, and to have one's margin of venture or profit wiped out within twenty-four hours, was the normal experience, sooner or later, of ninety per cent. ”

“ It is an interesting fact, bearing on the popular superstition that Wall Street is peopled by unprincipled worshippers of the dollar who are incapable of those finer qualities of character which are confined exclusively to other walks of life, that there is no region in which a quicker response to the call of the needy can be obtained than on the floor of the Stock Exchange. ”

“ In those twelve eventful days investors might well shudder, for market values shrunk about three thousand millions of dollars, if we include all the stocks dealt in on the New York Stock Exchange measured by their lowest prices and total capitalization. But, of course, the actual losses sustained were comparatively small. Wall Street as soon forgets its sorrows as its joys, and looks ahead. ”