Variety (December 1912)

; > VARIETY AWAY FROM BROADWAY. Iii.it narrow plot o! land on Man hatian l>land cast of lower Broadway and south of Fulton street, gcnerically known as "Wall Street." is about five miles away from Times Square in dis- tance, luit in associations inuch closer than is generally believed. One prom- inent stock broker on William street (not far from Beaver) enters bis sump- tuous mahogany-trimmed office at 9.30 and (piits at 4 p. in., a model of com- mercial sedateness. and takes it un- kindly of former acquaintances who re- mind him of the days when he was a soulful tenor in inconspicuous revivals of the (rilbert & Sullivan comic operas. On New street there is a customers' room manager for a commission firm with membership in "The Big Board" and several of the commodity exchang- es, who was a trouper in his younger days. 1 ht two men dodge old associations for different reasons. The William street broker holds membership in sev- eral of the exclusive clubs and aspires to position in the beau nionde. The other rinds his circle of friends in the bright light district an impedi- ment to his ease. For his business is making friends. He numbers specu- lators and investors by the score among his friends, and they have nom- inated him captain of all their person- ally conducted tours in Bohemia. Bo hernia and 9 a. in. responsibilities do not go well together. Besides, the of lice manager has a growing family which he likes to call upon once in a while. But he must hold his New- street friends, and their demands on '.is services as a "seeing-Broadway" guide are insistent. The success of these two men in the financial world seems to put a dent in the popular fallacy that the actor is a light-minded, frivolous creature, with a free and easy type of intellect, made up of about equal parts of childlike vanity and artistic temperament. Take it from one who has studied the play, the chase of the nimble dollar as it is played on Wall street requires the atten- tion of a regular active head. Kvery department of the commission business calls for mental agility. When a floor member goes on the stock ex- change, the cotton exchange, or even the curb, he has a list of orders to buy and sell at stated prices, stop loss or- ders to execute and innumerable de- tails to watch in a constantly shifting and changing scale of values. In the commodity markets it makes no differ- ence that he is dealing principally in myth-money, there comes the inevit- able "settling time." when he must turn in his "counters" and make good in legal tender. At the ten o'clock bell that starts the day the floor member plunges into the maelstrom carrying in his mind a maze of figures that would turn the head of i foreign exchange clerk crazy. The cotton broker deals in contracts for twelve separate months, each rcpn- M-nted by a different set of figures that change as often as the clock ticks The ^implications that can work ou- liiiiu a limitless \ariet\ o| possible i r.ni s;ici ions. i\cry moment chanmn l;. .Hid . i ■ I < U d to |iv ,t s( | t ,(u) , >| in \\ M i ders, can be imagined. One broker on the cotton exchange floor is said to have adapted a formula devised by a lightning calculator who played in vau- deville to apply to the orderly hand- ling of his huge volume of business. Several fellow bdokers have tried to use the system, but failed. The game is going in the broker's oltice quite as busily during the five hours of trading. It is practically an unbroken rule that the office manag- ers shall not advise a speculator. The attitude is much the same as that of a roulette spinner. In effect the invi- tation is this—"There's the game. Buy a stack and sit in if you like. W j don't invite you and you go on your northern Texas will be reflected in- stantly in an avalanche of selling or- ders or a roar of swiftly mounting bids, depending on the condition of the crop and the need for rain or sun- shine. All this data, together with the demand for cotton in Lancashire and New England, crop statistics, ship- ments from the southern primary mar- kets, shipment from cotton ports, stocks in warehouses all over the belt and demand for manufactured cloth in every section of the world is at the tip of the office manager's tongue. He pours it out in an unbroken stream of patter to the prospective speculator. The facts correspond pretty exactly with the "past performances" of the turf. The player is fed energetically with the facts and places his bets as he thinks best. LEONA STEPHENS. I„..n]ii'K nuulir. ; with Kddic Foy in "Aiionn the River" fur the kojiI.i p:irt i»r this swisnii Miss Sttph' n.x has, in ;i compare tlv< ly j»hort time iumpid Into promir.* ncr in thu uiuhIchI < onii dy Ili-lil. Souhrct for two Heasoim with I.effler & Ilnitton'n "I.i i (Seni-Rc I>o It' company, she lii<;im< n favorite In nil the popnhir prli ♦ d hnum n. I'laylng with tin same show In t he summer inn at th'- I'niinnhiii New York. MImk Stephen." waf» sel«ct«d l»y WVrha A.- I.uesche: for "Across tin It I \ • i ' and became ft* well llk»d In the Mr*! grade le^itim-Mc Iioumi'k own responsibility." But the manager or member of the firm will supply the speculator with "dope" as complete and comprehensive as the racing charts that hang in the pool room around the corner. The weather in the cotton belt is followed as anxiously as the pulse of a fever patient, (iovernment maps an* issued daily, showing air pressures in every section of the belt, and the play- ers hi the market study over them with bated breath. The official >tatt nioit that .in inch o| rainfall in central or The main principle is to keep tin- speculator (investor he is called b> courtesy) interested, for his purchase of cotton brings to the commission firm a fee of $15 on each 100 bales, a commission which represents about .1 per cent, oi the amount represented by the contracts bought or sold. O' course, the bulk ot the business is done on margin. The commodity enters in to the transaction only indirectly. The \\\\ York Exchange holds in store houses in the city what it calls its "certif- icated stock" of baled cotton, amounting to between 100,000 and 300,000 bales, and issues certificates against this, but the certificates change hands so aften and go through so many transfers, they are really only counters in the game. The transactions in the actual staple (called "spot sales") are so small as to be negligible. Money changes hands rapidly, and fortunes are made and lost with sen- sational speed. Theodore Price, who is known as one of the "Waldorf crowd," a coterie of plungers who live at that hotel and spend their time in Scales Alley (after the name of Eugene Scales, a sensational player), was a successful buyer for New England spinners, until he went into the gam- ble on his own account and piled up a big fortune, only to drop it in a hectic pool campaign that shook the trade. The market is alive with picturesque incidents. The name of McFadden is magic. He is the big representative of the Liverpool interests, and it is said swings the maket to suit himself. His Liverpool manager was in New York a week or two ago. "Just to get ac- quainted over here," he told the re- porters. One of the latter caught him in Delmonico's the second day after his arrival, and the pair spent the after- noon matching coins at the rate of $10 a throw. The reporter, one Ken- dall, went back to his office with $400 of the Englishman's money and a budget of "inside information." Jesse Livermore is a prominent fig- ure, making his headquarters with the New street brokerage firm of Mutton Bros. He is the tow-headed youngs- ter who gum-shoed into New York from Boston, where he had been a board boy in a broker's office and took down profits from cotton operations in thick wads. After the close of business one after- noon Livermore became involved in a discussion with one of the Hutton firm He said he could post quotations as rapidly as in his best days in Boston. To prove it the young millionaire tore off a yard of the ticker tape, had the broker call it off to him and, with the board boy's belt strapped about his waist did wonderful stunts of sleigh'. of hand in posting quotations. ARMSTRONG • 'nni'ill: "The ( 'uppei and t h Appi\ W S HKNNKSSN .\e\s York Rl>. .|n|| 1| ll|< o.nit 111 < 1K