been reported at the recent American Bankers' Association meeting that that body last year spent about $200,000, much of it for missionary work, presumably for a private central bank. Since the insurance investigation "yellow dog funds" have been under the ban of the law. Is the Albany "house of mirth" now to be moved to Washington? Are the banks of the country to join Wall Street in financing their corrupt and criminal orgies that will make the Albany exploits that so shocked the whole country mere Sundayschool picnics in comparison? We soon will know. But beware! The people sometime will have their "inning." There will follow public congressional investigation that will lay bare the entire conspiracy and every corrupt or criminal act, even if every denizen of Wall Street and every American banker is summoned and on oath forced to reveal to the committee or to a grand jury "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.' It is passing strange what some big men will do for money—for a little more money that they do not need! "Mene, mene, Tekel; Upharsin." (Daniel 5-25.) CHAPTER XI. WALL STREET STOCK "MARKET." A "Fixed" Monte Carlo. The Game in Detail Exposed. United States Attorney General's Strange Opinion. A banking or currency reform plan that does not take into account the constantly daily monetary, financial and banking practices of Wall Street will be ineffective and useless. There conditions constantly prevail that decisively influence the supply and flow of currency and credit, the rates of interest on both time and call loans, the making and calling of bank loans in vast volume, the international ebb and flow of the tides of gold that now measure all values, and the quotation prices of twenty to thirty billion dollars of listed securities, a total three times the value of all annual crops of the soil and eight times all the money of the United States. If these forces were moved only by natural causes"natural supply and demand"-values would be relatively accurate and stable, fluctuations and changes comparatively moderate and harmless, monetary conditions would be sound and financial institutions safe; and Wall Street as a barometer of the nation's prosperity and a "governor" on the financial engine moving the wheels of all American activities would be an accurate and useful indicator and regulator of steady and inestimable value to the entire country and all of its inhabitants. There would be no dangerous extremes and consequently no possibility of panics. But, unfortunately, in Wall Street everything is artificial. Nothing is natural or logical; therefore the unexpected always is happening. Every effect is the result of a planned and purposeful cause. Whatever is done usually was intended, procured. If prices soar to the swallows' nests, they were put up there. If they slump to the coal cellar, they were dumped there. And only the few big inside operators know which will be done on any particular day. Consequently every FOUND IN EVERY WALL ST. BANK THE LOSS RUINED THOUSANDS AND IT WAS A CROOKED DEAL body else in the United States who either speculates or invests in "listed" securities is merely gambling blindly, recklessly, without the slightest knowledge or chance of knowledge. A mere guess as to whether that day the masters of the machine will decide to lift the lever up or push it down. And he will not and can not know, or have the slightest idea or inkling until after, figuratively, he has dropped his money in the slot, made his bet, heard the whirl of the unseen wheel behind the impenetrable curtain, and the attendant, "the broker," opens the little peek-hole and, as usual, calls out: "You lose! Try your luck again.” The fact is the putting up or down of the price of a given stock or bond is simple and easy. The shares of the company are limited. It is not like speculating in wheat or corn against every bushel in the world. A large portion of a corporation's shares of stock never change hands, howevermuch the price may fluctuate. The proportion of shares "on the market" usually is relatively small. It is only necessary to organize a syndicate or "pool" with sufficient available means or borrowing power to put up as a margin a sum equal to 10 per cent of the quotation price of whatever shares of that particular stock may be offered. Usually but 10 per cent to 25 per cent of the stock of the smallest or largest railroads or trusts will appear on the market, even if prices are forced far above conceded value. Most holders want steady investments, dividends, not to gamble on stimulated changes in prices. And the manipulators must furnish only 10 per cent of the value of the relatively small amount offered. Another 10 per cent is furnished by the brokers and the balance 80 per cent by the banks, loaned on the securities as collateral. Thus the banks are the chief factor in every stock-market manipulation. While the great Wall Street insurance companies, controlling in their reserves hundreds of millions of the accumulated savings held for "the widows and orphans," are prohibited by law from investing in stocks, the law does not say that they can not, to help out their stock-market masters, deposit a hundred million of money in the banks and thus enable such banks during a great market manipulating campaign to loan to inside operators four hundred million dollars additional credit to aid them in running the gamble against the public, the living fathers, husbands and brothers of such future "widows and orphans." Whatever the amount, they certainly deposit many millions in the big banks. Such a pool always is formed and operates in absolute secrecy. Often its members do not know the plays to be made from day to day with the common funds for mutual benefit. That is a "blind pool," only the manager, usually one of the pool members, knows the moves made or to be made. A pool of that character has the price of that stock, the welfare of the corporation, its stockholders, officers, employees, and the public absolutely at its mercy, and yet no one outside of the pool itself even can know of that fact. Sometimes it is a long, exhausting, wearing, heartbreaking, strangling struggle. Often it is just a quick, deep stab in the dark, always from behind, and all is over. The guilty never are caught or detected or even suspected, for the stock exchange is created and operates to hide the identity and completely screen the actions of the bandits of high finance. Very often the different pools manipulating the various stock and bond issues of the many trusts, railroads and other corporations quietly put their heads together and coöperate, or conspire. The whole list of price quotations goes up, a "bull" movement, or down, a "bear" movement, according as has been predetermined. The public that owns most of the securities but does not know until too late which way prices are to be put is, of course, always fleeced, the profits going to the insiders. In fact, it is the regular practice of the manipulators to put out hints and "tips" through the daily press and otherwise to cleverly induce the uninformed public always to take the wrong side of the market, and lose. Sometimes dividends are increased and decreased for the purpose of manipulating quotations for the speculative profit of "insiders." An honest, legitimate trading market for securities would be a useful national blessing. But the Wall Street Monte Carlo, in its practice and results, is the most colossal, crooked and financially dangerous den of gamblers and robbers the world ever has seen or dreamed of. Quotation prices sometimes are pushed up or down 10 to 50 per cent. The overwhelming consequences of these fluctuations can be realized from the fact that an average fall of but 10 per cent means a total loss to holders of the nearly $30,000,000,000 of securities amounting to $3,000,000,000, a sum exceeding all the money in actual circulation |