ON 'CHANGE
In Wall Street, the most gigantic gambling Mecca the world knows, where
millions change hands every hour of the five of howling delirium that
constitute a stock-exchange day, the two parties, "bulls" and "bears,"
wage a financial war.
Each has its general, recognized leader as well as a dozen lesser ones,
who organize pools and cliques, manipulate news, issue statements that
are pure fiction, pay for items in the press that are fairy tales,
gather their moneyed forces into aggregation for practical robbery of
others, and bend all energies of brain, experience, and knowledge of
conditions to one focal point, and that either to depress or enhance the
value of securities. Each main army has its general method, controls its
banks, pays enormous tolls to telegraph companies, fixes rates of
interest at will, pays for and colors the daily utterances of its own
newspapers, and buys truth and falsehood with equal readiness at so much
per line.
This describes the two parties generally; yet the men who constitute
them are daily changing, and out of a thousand who may be among the
bears to-day, half might be found with the bulls a week hence. Some may
be on both sides at once, pushing one stock up and another down, a
kaleidoscopic jumble of half insane human beings, whose statements as to
value, conditions, and their own intentions bear no relation to the
truth and are not expected to do so. It is a contest of cunning, a war
of falsehood, a battle of deception. And those who fall by the wayside
excite no pity, receive no consideration, and if they rise not by their
own exertion, they are kicked out of the way.
Professionally speaking, lawyers have been called legal liars, but
compared to stock manipulators they are walking examples of truth and
veracity. A lawyer may lie and can if necessary, but a stock operator
lies all the time; from sheer force of habit. A lawyer might lie to
judge, jury, or his own client, but there is some chance that he may
tell the truth to a brother lawyer; while stock brokers will lie to each
other on all occasions, and if necessary swear to it.
And this is business in Wall Street!
A few other great cities have their lesser Wall streets, and where
Weston & Hill, like a deadly upas tree, flourished for a time, a mimic
Wall Street existed. It had its clique of bulls and bears, its _Market
News_, its leaders, large and small, its daily contest of lies and money
power, and though Weston & Hill were not among its members, their
broker, Simmons, was--an active and unscrupulous mouthpiece, ready to
fleece all fellow-brokers, or the firm he acted for, if necessary. He
had bought or sold Rockhaven stock, as its prime mover, Weston,
directed; circulated lies galore for three months; and by the occult
process of manipulation had slowly worked the price up from one to ten
dollars per share, and had so colored his lies and so managed the
deal--now selling a thousand shares quietly, then buying them back
ostentatiously--that, as the phrase goes, "the street was kept guessing
all the time."
Some believed it was a good investment; more felt sure it was a
"wildcat," and that soon or late the bubble would burst and the stock go
down to rise no more. Only Simmons and Weston knew what was to be the
outcome, but neither was likely to tell. More than that, they knew how
much stock was in actual circulation or held by the street, and beyond
that, a close approximation of how great a short interest had accrued.
Each day since Rockhaven had been quoted at all, Simmons had made entry
of all recorded sales, and knowing how much had been issued and how much
bought in by himself, endeavored to keep track of it. It was fallacious,
for the same stock might be bought and sold a hundred times, and the
long and short disparity remain the same. One thing he knew,--how much
had actually been sold, and out of this (a matter of thirty thousand)
fully twenty thousand, he believed, would never be heard of on the
street.
But he reckoned without Winn Hardy.
Rockhaven had been jeered and sneered at by the bear party; its backers,
Weston & Hill, were known to be sharpers; their broker, Simmons, bore
the same reputation; prediction that it was a wildcat and they unloading
it on to the street had been repeated a thousand times; the _Market
News_ items were considered unreliable, and on the strength of all this
hotbed of lies the knowing ones had sold the stock all the way up. Some
had covered it at a loss, and smarting from that had sold again at a
higher price, firmly believing it must fall some day; and when poor
duped Winn, unconscious of the situation, was steaming toward the
battleground, a dozen growling bears were selling Rockhaven at every
point advance. Only bears sold to bears, however; for those who held
what was out owned it at a lower price, and so long as it kept up they
parted with none. It had opened that morning at ten and one-half, by
noon rose to twelve and one-quarter, and at the delivery hour of two was
firm at fourteen. Simmons had bought a few hundred when it had dropped a
half point, just to cheer up the game, and knowing those who sold had
none to deliver. A few bulls who owned it at five and six started a
story that a corner had been engineered, and predicted that it would go
to thirty inside a week. And when the gong sounded that day, and the
market closed with Rockhaven at fifteen and one-quarter bid and sixteen
asked, a few of the fur-coated liars looked askance at one another and
went out and drank liberally to keep their courage up.
And that night Weston and Simmons held another conference. It was a
vital one; for before it closed some ten thousand shares of general
securities Weston & Hill either owned or held in trust passed into
Simmons's possession, and when the two conspirators separated, one was
richer by nearly two hundred thousand dollars, based on the market price
of these securities, and the other gloating over the prospective
robbery of his hated partner.
But a halt came the next day, for Simmons bid sixteen for a block of
Rockhaven, a few conservative bulls unloaded and the price dropped two
points, while the bears took courage.