Friday, the Thirteenth: A Novel
into Wall Street. And yet, knowing all this, you never thought, with all
your wisdom and cynicism, that right here in this institution, which you
own and control, was the open sesame, for each or all of you, to those
great chests of gold that your clients, the ‘System,’ have filled to
bursting from the stores of the people. What, I ask, do you wise men think
of the situation as you now see it?”
There was an oppressive stillness on the floor. The great crowd, which now
contained nearly all the members of the Exchange, listened with bulging
eyes and open mouths to the revelations of their fellow member. From time
to time, as Bob Brownley poured forth his shot and shell of deadly logic,
from the vast mob that now surrounded the Exchange rose a hoarse bellow of
impatience, for few in that dense throng outside could understand the
silence of the gigantic human crusher, which between the hours of ten and
three was never before known to miss a revolution except while its
victims’ hearts and souls were being removed from its gears and meshes.
Bob Brownley paused and looked down into the faces of the breathless
gamblers with a contempt that was superb. He went on:
“Men of Wall Street, it is writ in the books of the ancients that every
evil contains within itself a cure or a destroyer. I do not pretend that
what I am revealing to you is to you a cure for this hideous evil, but I
do say that what I am giving you is a destroyer for it, and that while it
will be to the world a cure, it may leave you in a more fiery hell than
the one of which you now feel the flames. I do not care if it does. When I
am through, any member of the New York Stock Exchange who feels the iron
in his soul can get instant revenge and unlimited wealth. You who are
turning over in your minds the consideration that your great body can make
new rules to render my discovery inoperative, are dealing with a shadow.
There is no rule or device that can prevent its working. There are one
thousand seats in the New York Stock Exchange. They are worth to-day
$95,000 apiece, or $95,000,000 in all. Their value is due to the fact that
this Exchange deals in between one and three million shares a day. Were
any attempt made to prevent the operation of my invention, transactions
would because of such attempt drop to five or ten thousand shares per day,
or to such transactions as represent stock that will be actually delivered
and actually paid for. To make my invention useless it must be made
impossible to buy or sell the same share of stock more than once at one
session, and short selling, which is now, as you know, the foundation of
the modern stock-gambling structure, must likewise be made impossible. If
this could be done the $95,000,000 worth of seats in the Exchange would be
worth less than five millions, and, what is of far greater import to all
the people, the financial world would be revolutionised. Men of Wall
Street, do not fool yourselves. My invention is a sure destroyer of the
greatest curse in the world, stock-gambling.”
A sullen growl rose from the gamblers. Robert Brownley glared down his
defiance.
“Let me show you the impossibility of preventing in the future anyone’s
doing what I have done to you so many times during the past five years.
All the capital required to work my invention is nerve and desperation, or
nerve without desperation. It is well known to you that there are at all
times Exchange members who will commit any crime, barring perhaps murder,
to gain millions. Your members have from time to time shown nerve or
desperation enough to embezzle, raise certificates, give bogus checks,
counterfeit stocks and bonds, and this for gain of less than millions, and
when detection was probable. All these are criminal offences and their
detection is sure to bring disgrace and State prison. Yet members of this
Exchange desperate enough to take the chance, when confronted with loss of
fortune and open bankruptcy, have always been found with nerve enough to
attempt the crimes. I repeat that there are at all times Exchange members
who will commit any crime, barring perhaps murder, to gain millions. That
you may see that my successors will surely come from your midst from time
to time during the future existence of the Exchange, I will enumerate the
different classes of members who will follow in my footsteps:
“First, the ‘In Gold We Trust’ schemer who is of the ‘System’ type, but
who is outside the magic circle. A man of this class will reason: I know
scores of men, who stand high on ‘the Street’ and in the social world, who
have tens of millions that they have filched by ‘System’ tricks, if not by
legal crimes. If I perform this trick of Brownley’s, the trick of selling
short until a panic is produced, I shall make millions and none will be
the wiser. For all I know, many of the multi-millionaires whom I have seen
produce panics and who were applauded by ‘the Street’ and the press for
their ability and daring, and whose standing, business and social, is now
the highest, were only doing this same thing, and having been successful,
they have never been detected or suspected. But even suppose I fail, which
can only be through some extraordinary accident happening while I am
engaged in selling, I shall have committed no crime, and, in fact, shall
have done no one any great moral wrong, for if I fail to carry out my
contract to deliver the stock I have sold in trying to produce a panic,
the men to whom I have sold will be no worse off for not receiving what
they bought; in fact they will stand just where they stood before I
attempted to bring on a panic.
“Second, if an Exchange member for any reason should find himself
overboard and should realise that he must publicly become bankrupt and
lose all, he surely would be a fool not to attempt to produce a panic,
when its production would enable him to recoup his losses and prevent his
failure, and when if by accident he should fail in his attempt to produce
a panic, the penalty would simply be his bankruptcy, which would have
taken place in any event.
“The third class is that large one that always will exist while there is
stock-gambling, a class of honest, square-dealing-play-the-game-fair-Exchange
men who would take no unfair advantage of their fellow-members until they
become awakened to the knowledge that they are about to be ruined by their
fellow-members’ trickery.
“Next, let us consider further whether it is possible for our Exchange to
prevent my device from being worked, now that it is known to all. Suppose
the Governing Committee was informed in advance that the attempt to work
the trick was to be made. If, at any session, after gong-strike, the
Governing Committee, or any Exchange authority, could for any reason
compel a member to cease operating, even for the purpose of showing that
his transactions were legitimate, the entire structure of stock-gambling
would fall. Think it through: Suppose a man like Barry Conant or myself,
or any active commission broker, begins the execution of a large order for
a client, one, say, who has advance information of a receivership, a fire
at a mine, the death of a President, a declaration of war, or any of the
hundred and one items of information that must be acted upon instantly,
where a delay of a minute would ruin the broker, or his house, or its
clients. If the Governing Committee could thus call the broker to account,
the professional bear or the schemer, who desired to prevent him from
selling, would have but to pass the word to the president of the Exchange
that the broker in question was about to work Brownley’s discovery and he
could be taken from the crowd and before he returned his place could be
taken by others and he could be ruined.
“Men of Wall Street, it is impossible to prevent the repetition of those
acts by which in five years I have accumulated a billion dollars,
impossible so long as a short sale or a repurchase and resale, is allowed.
When short sales, and repurchases and resales, are made impossible, stock
speculation will be dead. When stock speculation is dead, the people can
no longer be robbed by the ‘System.’ In leaving you, the Exchange, and
stock-gambling forever, as I shall when I leave this platform, I will say
from the depth of a heart that has been broken, from the profoundity of a
soul that has been withered by the ‘System’s’ poison, with a full sense
of my responsibility to my fellow-man and to my God, that I advise every
one of you to do what I have done and to do it quickly, before the doing
of it by others shall have made it impossible, before the doing of it by
others shall have blown up the whole stock-gambling structure. In
accepting my advice you can quiet your conscience, those of you who have
any, with this argument: ‘If I start, I am sure of success. If I succeed,
no one will be the wiser. The millions I secure I will take from men who
took them from others, and who would take mine. The more I and others
take, the sooner will come the day when the stock-gambling structure will
fall.’
“The day on which the stock-gambling structure falls is the day for which
all honest men and women should pray.”
Bob Brownley paused and let his eyes sweep his dumfounded audience. There
was not a murmur. The crowd was speechless.
Again his eyes swept the room. Then he slowly raised his right hand with
fist clenched, as though about to deal a blow.
“Men of Wall Street”—his voice was now deep and solemn—“to show that
Robert Brownley knew what was fitting for the last day of his career, he
has revealed to you the trick—and more.
“Many of you are desperate. Many of you by to-morrow will be ruined. The
time of all times for such to put my trick in practice is now. The victim
of victims is ready for the experiment. I am he. I have a billion dollars.
With this billion dollars I am able to buy ten million shares of the
leading stocks and to pay for them, even though after I have bought they
fall a hundred dollars a share. Here is your chance to prevent your ruin,
your chance to retrieve your fortune, your chance to secure revenge upon
me, the one who has robbed you.”
He paused only long enough for his astounding advice to connect with his
listener’s now keenly sensitive nerve centres; then deep and clear rang
out, “Barry Conant.” The wiry form of Bob’s old antagonist leaped to the
rostrum.
“I authorise you to buy any part of ten million shares of the leading
stocks at any price up to fifty points above the present market. There is
my check-book signed in blank, and I authorise you to use it up to a
billion dollars, and I agree to have in bank to-morrow sufficient funds to
meet any checks you draw. You have failed to-day for seven millions, and,
therefore, cannot trade, but I herewith announce that I will pay all the
indebtedness of Barry Conant and his house. Therefore he is now in good
standing.” Bob had kept his eye on the great clock; as the last word
passed his lips, the President’s gavel descended.
With a mighty rush the gamblers leaped for the different poles. Barry
Conant with lightning rapidity gave his orders to twenty of his
assistants, who, when Bob Brownley called for Conant, had gathered around
their chief. In less than a minute the dollar-battle of the age was on, a
battle such as no man had ever seen before. It required no supernatural
wisdom for any man on the floor to see that Bob Brownley’s seed had fallen
in superheated soil, that his until now secret hellite was about to be
tested. It needed no expert in the mystic art of deciphering the wall
hieroglyphics of Old Hag Fate to see that the hands on the clock of the
“System” were approaching twelve. It needed no ear trained to hear human
heart and soul beats to detect the approaching sound of onrushing doom to