Yankee speculation in securities is not a marker to speculation in London, where the day to day trading vastly exceeds ours, and where the “Kaffir Circus” of 1894–5 and the “Rubber Boom” of 1909–10 exceeded any similar outburst ever known in America. France is the most prudent and thrifty of nations, yet the Panama mania which collapsed in 1894, although followed by a period of the utmost repentance and conservatism, found a parallel in the crazy French speculation in Russian industrials which crashed in 1912. There was an extraordinary speculation in Egyptian land and financial companies in Cairo in 1905–6, which, in proportion to the number of participants, greatly exceeded any boom in New York. China awakens slowly, but, once its political reforms are effected, a field of extraordinary speculation will open there without a parallel in history. The Chinaman is not only a shrewd and competent business man, but he is, Mr. Hirst tells us, “a confirmed and incurable” speculator. “From time to time,” says this writer, “the Shanghai Stock Exchange becomes a scene of the wildest speculation, and it is safe to predict that, when a new China is evolved, Stock Exchanges will spring up in all the large towns. Of this, a foretaste was afforded in the spring and summer of 1910, when Shanghai caught the rubber infection from London. All classes and races took part, but the native Chinaman plunged deepest. When the break in prices came, one Chinese operator was so heavily involved that, on his failure, many of the native banks had to suspend payment, with the result that for months the trade and credit of this great shipping and business centre were disorganized.”26
I mention these incidents to show that speculation is not confined to geographical limits. It is all a part of the “divine unrest” inherent in each of us, and it develops and grows intense just in proportion with the march of the civilization it serves to benefit. In new countries, as in China, it may often go too far; sometimes in old countries it oversteps the bounds of prudence, but any student of these phenomena knows that, as economic processes become understood by the masses, the intervals of time between the panics that result from over-speculation grow wider and wider.
Another mistake of those sections of the country that do not understand the Stock Exchange results from the indiscriminate blending of that institution with Wall Street. Let us hear from Mr. Horace White on this point. He was the chairman of the last committee that investigated the Stock Exchange; he is one of our foremost economists, and he may be assumed to understand his subject:
“There is a widespread belief that Wall Street and the Stock Exchange are one and the same thing, and that all the fluctuations on the Exchange are caused by Wall Street. This is an error as glaring as it would be to suppose that all the water in the Mississippi River comes from the adjacent banks, ignoring the innumerable streams and rills that contribute their quota from countless unseen sources. 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. They do not all push in the same direction at any one time. They simply aim to anticipate, each for himself, the drift of financial public opinion in order to take advantage of it.
“This is what Wall Street outside of the Exchange does; and the only advantage which speculators in Wall Street have over those in other parts of the country is derived from larger capital, more direct and ample sources of information, and greater skill and promptness in the use of it. Wall Street speculators are likewise divided into bulls and bears pushing against each other; and all their advantages do not save them from making mistakes, which often result in losses proportioned to the magnitude of their operations. The ‘rich men’s panic’ of 1903 was such an instance. The panic of 1907 was another. It is sometimes said that Wall Street can put prices on the Stock Exchange up or down at its own pleasure. This is a delusion.”27
Members and friends of the New York Stock Exchange view with apprehension the periodic attacks upon their great institution made by those who, for reasons not to be discussed here, wish to attract popular attention. But there is no reason why these matters should excite alarm. The Exchange purified itself long ago of the old abuses, new ones as they occur meet with severe disciplinary measures, and it has a certificate of good character in the report made to the sovereign State of New York by the Hughes Commission. This commission has stated explicitly that margin trading is a matter of contract guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. It is not conceivable that any legislature can ignore such a report, by such a commission, nor is it possible that, in such event, any court could be found to uphold legislation directed at random against an institution that bears the endorsement of all students of economics.
One has but to read the decisions of the courts to see that the matter of non-interference with the great Exchanges, on technical grounds, has become a fixture in our jurisprudence. “The Exchanges,” said Judge Grosscup of the United States Circuit Court, “balance like the governor of an engine the otherwise erratic course of prices. They focus intelligence from all lands, and the prospects for the whole year, by bringing together minds trained to weigh such intelligence and to forecast the prospects. They tend to steady the markets more nearly to their right level than if left to chance or unhindered manipulation.”28 In somewhat similar vein Justice Holmes of the United States Supreme Court, said: “Speculation … is the self-adjustment of society to the probable. Its value is well known as a means of avoiding or mitigating catastrophes, equalizing prices, and providing for periods of want. It is true that the success of the strong induces imitation by the weak, and that incompetent persons bring themselves to ruin by undertaking to speculate in their turn. But legislatures and courts generally have recognized that the natural evolutions of a complex society are to be touched only with a very cautious hand, and that such coarse attempts at a remedy for the waste incident to every social function as a simple prohibition and laws to stop its being, are harmful and vain.”29
With these opinions before them, so long as the governors of the Stock Exchange continue their policy of a wise and dignified administration in the interest of the public they serve, there is nothing to fear. Corrections, remedies, improvements, and reforms will be found to be necessary from time to time—some of them are necessary at this moment, and the governors are hard at work on the task. To accuse them of indifference or neglect of duty is to deny them that form of intelligence which enables a man to protect his property. Their splendid institution has grown to its present importance and power through economic development that could not have been foreseen nor prevented. Speculation on a large scale has accompanied its growth, and contributed to it; and speculation, as we have seen, is a highly desirable and useful part of all business. This speculation numbers among its adherents people in all parts of the world who have a perfect right to speculate, and who do vastly more good than harm in their operations.
It has also attracted a great many people who have no business to speculate, and who would be prevented from doing so if it were possible. The ignorance and cupidity of these people is so great, and the pitfalls provided them by unscrupulous, methods outside the Exchange are so many and various that something has to be done to protect them. The Stock Exchange does not encourage them, but it recognizes that they have legal if not moral rights, and it stands ready to help them. It gives to such people the same information that it gives to the richest investor in the land. The securities in which it deals are known to be free from taint; all forms of crookedness are prohibited; every transaction within its walls is made openly, as a result of free competitive bidding, and published broadcast to the world. What more, and what less, can be done? Has there ever been a time in the world’s history when property and trade were so secure, and when speculation, which makes property and trade, was so jealously safeguarded?30
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