CHAPTER XI
A Fight to the Death
In professional quarters the Scheftels corporation was regarded as an interloper from the day it set foot in the financial district.
Its first offense was to reduce its commission rates. This move set the whole Curb against the enterprise. But as the play progressed it proved to have been unimportant in comparison to the unspeakable crime of telling the truth about other people's mining propositions that were candidates for public money. The Scheftels corporation had laid it down as a set rule that an established reputation for accuracy of statement was a great asset for any promoter or broker to have. To gain such prestige the principle was followed in the nation-wide publicity which emanated from the house that, no matter whom the truth hurt or favored, it must be told always, when publishing information regarding the value of any listed or unlisted security. Space in the Scheftels Market Letter or the news columns of the Mining Financial News was unpurchasable.
The enforcement of this rule was a wide departure from prevailing methods. But that didn't make us hesitate. Having felt the speculative pulse for years, I knew its throb. The public, after losing billions of dollars, were becoming "educated." The rank and file of mining promoters—high and low—in Wall Street still believed that "one is born every minute and none dies." But I and my associates didn't. An uneducated public had been unmercifully "trimmed" in scores of enterprises backed by great and respected names. Speculators were ravenous for the truth. We decided to give it to them. We gave it to them straight.
This publicity system brought about the ruin of the Scheftels corporation through the powerful enemies it made. The policy was right all the same. Persisted in, nothing was or is better calculated to strengthen the demand for all descriptions of meritorious securities. The Scheftels corporation was the pioneer in the exploitation of this principle as a fundamental and underlying basis of brokerage and promotion. In pioneering this policy, however, the Scheftels company was sacrificed to the prejudices and wrath of the old school of promoters.
THE FIRING OF THE FIRST GUNS
Before the Scheftels corporation was on the Street three months it almost came a cropper. On the strength of excellent mine news it purchased nearly 300,000 shares of Rawhide Coalition in the open market, up to 71 cents per share. A determined drive was made against the stock by mining-stock brokerage firms which had sold it short. Bales of borrowed stock were thrown on the market by the crowd operating for the decline. The Scheftels company took it all in. Letters and telegrams were sent broadcast by market enemies urging stockholders to sell. A powerful clique had been losing big sums on the rise.
The Scheftels company published advertisements calling upon margin traders to demand delivery of their certificates. This expedient proved of small utility. The brokers continued to hold off deliveries to customers and sold and delivered to us all the stocks that they could borrow or lay hands on. The continued selling finally made inroads on the Scheftels corporation's cash-reserve to a point that forced it one day to stand aside and leave the market to the sharpshooters. That day, in a few hours, approximately half a million shares of Rawhide Coalition changed hands out of a capitalization of 3,000,000 shares. The corporation's loans were called. This forced it to throw large blocks of stock on the market. A sharp break ensued. That was just what was wanted by the interests which were gunning for us. They covered their short sales at great profit.
In the midst of the mêlée the Scheftels company tendered a Stock Exchange house of great prominence, which had loaned it for the account of a Salt Lake firm of brokers $12,500 on 50,000 shares of Rawhide Coalition, the money to take up the loan. A representative of the Stock Exchange house sheepishly stated that his firm had loaned part of the pledged stock to out-of-town brokers. He asked for time. Under threat of dire consequences the Stock Exchange firm bought stock back from us in the open market that afternoon to supply the deficiency, and then made delivery of this stock back to us in lieu of that which they had parted with. It had been specifically stipulated by the Scheftels company when the loan was made that the certificates must be held intact and that the stock must not be loaned out or sold while the money loan was in force.
This experience was repeated frequently during the Scheftels career on the Curb. It cost B. H. Scheftels & Company more than one million dollars, during the nineteen months of its existence, in giving loyal market support, in times of "professional" attack, to the stocks it had fathered or promoted and felt moral responsibility for.