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The Commoner
'JANUARY, 1914
29
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Use of Mails by Stock Exchanges
Among a- mimber of bills intro
duced in. congress to regulate stock
exchanges, and to prevent gambling
in farm products, stocks, bonds, and
other securities, is H. R. 10076, a bill
to prevent gambling upon the stock
exchange, introduced in the houso
December 8, 1913, by Congressman
"VVm. H. Murray of Oklahoma. In ex
planation of the provisions and pur
poses of this bill Congressman Mur
ray issued a statement for publication-
in substance as follows:
"When you recall the fact that the
report of the Pujo committee shows
.that the stock exchange in New York
is limited to 1,100 members and that
no other person can become a mem
ber until one of these die or sells his
seat, and that investigation showed
that memberships had been sold as
high as $97,000 a seat, and that the
average value is $48,000, a bit of
calculation would convince you that
the aggregate value of the exchange
seats is $55,000,000.00. Reason
would teach us that they could well
afford to contribute ten per .cent of
that value to defeat any stock ex
change bill, especially one that covers
all classes of gambling, and therefore
if they could defeat any ope man who
earnestly urged it, knowing the
others were luke-warm, they could
throw into his district a million dol
lars fpr his defeat, then you will
realize what this fight has been and
what it means. I want to call your
attention to the fate of the late
Congressman Hatch, of Missouri,
who was the author of the Hatch
bill for farm demonstration work,
and after he had completed that for
the farmers he introduced a stock ex
change bill, and as soon as it was
discovered that he- was in dead
earnest the exchanges threw opposi
tion into his district, sending men
secretly to travel from house to
house, telling all kinds of things
about Hatch. So much so. that the
farmers whom he was trying to serve
were so poisoned against him when
he returned home that he was over
whelmingly defeated by them. The
old man died of a broken heart be
cause of this ingratitude. My pur
pose therefore shall be to push this
bill to passage in the next ninety
days ahead of opposition which is
surely to be organized against it, but
this cannot be done until the coun
try, and especially the farmers are
aroused.
"This bill is but an amendment to
the Louisiana lottery law, which has
stood the test in all the courts, and
the sections down to section 4 are a
repetition of the Louisiana lottery
law, with the addition of such
language as. will incjude stock ex
changes. Beginning at section 4 new
provisions are added, providing that
every stock exchange shall adopt cer
tain rules governing itself, and fur
ther on providing that every stock
exchange shall be incorporated under
the laws of the state, and that they
must keep a record of their trans
actions, which they do not now do,
as a precedent for the privilege of
using the mails. Under section 4,
paragraph E, the word "security" as
used in the act shall "include farm
products, shares in any corporation,
joint stock company or association,
bonds, coupons, scrip, rights, ctioses
An Extra Club Offer
For a short time only, we will send
you Harper's Weekly, McClure's
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Neb.
in action, and any and all other evi
dences of debt or property and trans
actions for the purchase or sale
thereof." It will be clear that this
definition gets all of them Also in
the latter sections is a provision pro
hibiting restriction against any pub
lishing company. This because the
stock exchanges now will not receive
papers or any forms or blanks except
they be printed by a concern of their
own.
"It will be apparent under the pro
posed bill that this does not destroy
the stock exchanges but destroys
only gambling features such as
'hedging,' 'futures,' 'long and short
sales,' and indeed all kinds of
'washed' or fictitious sales where no
delivery is intended to be made, but
leaves the stock exchange in opera
tion to sell actual stocks just as the
farmer sells his corn, wheat or cot
ton. In other words, it leaves the
stock exchange as a 'common market
place for the sale and purchase of
bonds, stocks, securities, and farm
products,' but will not permit it, as
disclosed in the Pujo report, to sell
twenty-five times more stock than
was listed for sale. In other words,
whatever is sold must be owned by
the. individual or, if he is acting as
the agent, by his principal. The law
of your state and mine would send
us to the penitentiary if we sold a
horse we did not own. We are try
ing to apply to the stock exchange
the same principle of compelling
them to sell what they own. Of
course this Is predicated upon, the
theory that for 'a common market'
place a stock exchange Is a good
thing, and that is true. It is the!
greatest business concern we have in
our ecbnomic life. Not a flood, or
drouth, a pestilence or crop failure,
not a treaty of peace or a declaration
Qf war, not the production of a
bushel of wheat or a bale of cotton,
not a fire or a flood in all the world
but what is told by the pulse of the
stock exchange called tho 'ticker';
not a man in all the civilized or un
civilized earth but w"hat is affected
by it, and .yet today it is but a 'pri
vate club,' not subject to regulation
or control, with nothing to require
that its transactions shall be record
ed or known, and the only way we
can do that is to force them to take
out a charter as a corporation in the
state in which it operates before it
gets in the mail, and in addition
when it takes out the charter it will
adopt rules and regulations and obey
the rules laid down in the law that
will prohibit gambling. So it must
be agreed that this bill will meet the
situation and reach, the end sought.
The trouble heretofore has been that
we have failed to reach converts by
reason of therfact (so largely due to
lack of informaton) that we ought
entirely to destroy the stock ex
change. To destroy it entirely would
mean to destroy our market. We
want to preserve the market fea
ture, to leave it as a common mar
ket, but we want to destroy that
part that has any phase of gambling
and leave it just where the criminal
laws leave you and me, compelling
us to sell nothing except that which
belongs to us.
"With this simple explanation of
the bill I shall conclude this article
and to those who are interested I
shall gladly follow it from time to
time covering the question of the
necessity for a stock exchange and
the evils of the gambling feature, its
evil effects upon the farmer, the de
struction of his prices, and I think I
shall be enabled to show clearly why
under the etock exchange gambling
feature the fanner reaches the situa
tion where he la fighting the bears
and the bulls, and the manufacturer
is unconcerned with tho markots,
and under our financial Bystom tho
banks are compelled to aid the bears
and bulls, wherein every timo tho
farmer gets 'licked.' Since this bill
leaves tho market place in tho stock
exchange, and affects not only farm
products, but all othor features of
gambling in all other classes of prop
erty and securities, surely not only
the farmers but every merchant will
be interested in it. I know that
many of them in the cast will bo,
and it occurs to mo that every man
in the south and west should urge its
enactment.
"Eighty per cent of tho members
of congress are anxious to do what
their constituents desire of them.
The best means of informing them
of your desire Is to drop them a letter
or card immediately telling them to
support 'Murrey's stock exchange
bill, H. R. 10076.' You may rest as
sured that every opponent to this
bill, whether in Wall street or your
homo town, will in less than thirty
days bo induced to write letters and
telegrams to your congressmenurg
ing upon them the defeat of this bill.
If wo can not win now we may never
win. Tho financial jugglers and
gainblers, by reason of recent de
velopments in the passage of the
banking b'll, tho Mulhall investiga
tion and tho Pujo report, are so de
moralized that their defeat will be
easy upon this bill if tho people will
make it plain to their congressmen
that they desire its passage.'
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