And that is just what happened. Before the Scheftels company was six months old the fifteen men in its accounting department were compelled to work day and night—time and again throughout the night until 6 A.M.—to catch up with their work.
If the Scheftels news service was as nearly perfect as money and brains could make it, its facilities for the execution of orders on the New York Curb, the Boston Curb, San Francisco Stock Exchange, Salt Lake Stock Exchange, Toronto Stock Exchange, and other mining markets were unsurpassed. Its New York and Boston offices were connected with branch offices in Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee and Providence by exclusive private wires, and the service to out-of-town offices was almost instantaneous.
The New York offices were located right in front of the Curb market on Broad Street on the ground floor of the big Wall Street Journal building, 50 feet by 200 feet deep—occupying about 10,000 square feet of floor space. The Boston office, occupying two floors, was located within 100 feet of the Curb market in that city. The public wires of the telegraph companies gave quick service between San Francisco, Salt Lake and Toronto, where business was transacted through members of the mining-stock exchanges of those cities. The private wires of the Scheftels company were constantly flooded with rapid quotations and market, mine and company news during every trading hour. In New York the Curb brokers in the Scheftels employ, some on salary and some on commission, rarely numbered less than ten and at one period exceeded twenty.
The correspondence department was presided over for a long period by two of the best posted mining-market men that could be employed for money. From this department were usually graduated the managers of out-of-town offices. In the cashier's cage six men were engaged at an average salary of above $100 a week, registering stocks, receiving stocks, paying money and drawing checks. The payroll of the mailing department, which was operated in conjunction with the Mining Financial News, was comparatively small. Money-saving machinery for the handling of the large output of market letters and newspapers gave excellent and economic service. About ten stenographers were regularly employed in the correspondence department. Occasionally, when a special effort was being made to interest the public in some security in which the corporation was particularly concerned, a force of forty additional typists was pressed into service for short periods.
THE SCHEFTELS PRINCIPLES
When the corporation of B. H. Scheftels & Company opened its doors in New York it had no affiliations with any other Wall Street interests. It had no axes to grind except its own. It was practically a free-lance. It cracked up its own wares, careful always to keep within the facts, and never minced words about the quality of the goods of its contemporaries. The principle of both the Scheftels corporation and the Mining Financial News was to be always right in their market forecasts. The general order to mine and market news-gatherers and market prognosticators was to GIVE THE FACTS.
The law laid down was this: If the news is bad and is likely to injure the interests of our best friends, tell it in the interests of the investor. If it is good and the backers of the stock affected happen to be our worst enemies, tell it. No matter on what side of the market you think B. H. Scheftels & Company is committed in any of its own speculations, give the customer all the news. Put the cause of the mining-stock trader in front of you as the one to further always. Never exaggerate. Eventually, this policy must redound to our credit and profit.
Eventually, this policy resulted in our ruin. Our truth-telling policy was directly responsible for the loss of millions to competing promoters, and they banded together to destroy us.
The publicity, promotion and brokerage activities of the corporation were of such magnitude, and withal so simple, that they at once challenged the attention of the Street. Before the Scheftels corporation was half a year old veterans of the financial game began to opine that some big interest was behind the concern. Its dashing market methods, its mighty publicity measures and its unbridled assurance attracted much notice. From every quarter expert views reached the Scheftels company that its manner of doing things was convincing on the point that it knew the business. But the general opinion of the talent seemed to be that the new corporation was spending too much money and that it could not win out unless a big boom in mining shares ensued.
The market tactics adopted by the Scheftels company in its promotion enterprises were as old as the hills. On the New York Stock Exchange they had been employed in a thousand instances before. The method will probably survive all time. The corporation sought to distribute the stocks of which it became sponsor in turn—first Rawhide Coalition, then Ely Central, later Bovard Consolidated and finally Jumbo Extension—by the approved Wall Street system of establishing public interest and inquiry and causing an active market. The aim was to establish higher prices for the securities, always within the bounds of intrinsic and reasonable speculative value. All efforts were directed this way.