384 W. R. LAWSON 



minded Americans to find out how this gambling oligarchy 

 has arisen, and how in the public interest it is to be checked. 



The Wall street oligarchy has no counterpart in Europe. 

 Stock dealing is active enough in all conscience in every 

 European capital, but there is nothing Brobdingnagian about 

 it. There may be firms which turn over a few thousand 

 shares per day more than their neighbors, but the very largest 

 turnover in London, Paris, or Berlin would look small in New 

 York. European dealings are further distinguished by being 

 mainly personal. There may be some large operators who 

 work together or on the same speculative tack; there are 

 foreign banks who act for large clienteles; and there may be 

 casual combinations within the stock markets themselves. 

 These exceptions do not, however, materially affect the rule 

 that speculation in Europe is mainly personal. Another of 

 its peculiarities is that it is greatly subdivided among different 

 markets. In the London Stock exchange, for example, pro- 

 fessional dealers are supposed to restrict themselves to one 

 group of securities, be it consols, home railways, Americans, 

 or Kafirs. The area of individual speculation is consequently 

 limited. A man with $500,000 of stock open is a somebody, 

 whereas in Wall street he would be nobody. 



The great distinction between the old and the new worlds 

 from a speculative point of view is that European stock 

 markets have so-called " leaders." With them the crowd is 

 everything, and it sways hither and thither under a multi- 

 tude of ever changing impulses. There is no Keene or Harri- 

 man to take it in hand and work it up to reckless enthusiasm 

 in favor of a particular stock. Neither is there a Mr. Gates 

 lying low and buying hard till he gets unsuspecting sellers 

 into a trap and shuts it down on them. It is very doubtful 

 if either the Morgan or the Gates role could be played with 

 any success in Europe. Past experience has made the British 

 investor too skeptical about American booms suddenly sprung 

 on him. Even if he were easier caught the machinery to 

 catch him does not exist here to a twentieth part of the ex- 

 tent that it does in the United States. Neither is it worked 

 with a twentieth part of the energy that American stock- 

 brokers throw into it. 



