Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

The men of Wall Street have, therefore, become world-renowned for straightforward dealing, and have thus obtained the first position as leading spirits in the speculative affairs not only of their own country, but of the entire world. Wherever the speculative spirit of the age has obtained a foothold, there Wall Street is a household word, and Wall Street men are held in the highest esteem. It has become a term familiar to the ears of those even who know nothing about the business which has made its name almost universal.

“What is that Wall Street?” said an English curate to a friend of mine who recently visited Liverpool. “What a queer place,” he continued, “for Mr. Talmage to have his Tabernacle.”

The English divine, evidently only having “caught on” to isolated sketches of the Brooklyn preacher’s calumnious invectives, thought they were actually delivered among the bulls and bears, and that Talmage had the boldness to beard these ferocious animals in their den.

It is true the honor of Wall Street is sometimes slightly tarnished, especially in the eyes of those who reside at a great distance, owing to the occasional delinquencies of dishonorable men, who consider Wall Street men and Wall Street money fair game for swindling operations. These are for the most part outsiders, who pounce upon the Street as their illegitimate prey, after probably making a show of doing business there.

There is no place, of course, where confidence men have the opportunity of reaping such a rich harvest when they can succeed in establishing the confidential relations that help them to secure their swag. But Wall Street proper is not any more responsible for such men than the Church, whose sacred precincts are used and abused by the same social pariahs in a similar manner. The Street is the victim of these adventurers, and has no more to do with nurturing and aiding them than the Church has.

What should be said of a financier who would have the temerity to assert that the Church was an asylum for swindlers, and that thence they issued forth to commit their lawless depredations on society? He would be tabooed by all intelligent people. Yet there would be about as much truth in such a statement as in most of the eloquent anathemas and objurations launched from the pulpit every Sunday against Wall Street.

There is no place on this earth where adventurous thieves have fewer sympathizers than in Wall Street, except perhaps in Pinkerton’s and Byrnes’ detective bureaux.

There is another popular delusion with regard to those who don’t succeed in Wall Street. Their failure is frequently attributed to sharp practice on the part of the old habitues of the Street. People forget that the business of speculation requires special training, and every fool who has got a few hundred dollars cannot begin to deal in stocks and make a fortune. The men who don’t succeed are usually those who have spent their early life elsewhere, and whose habits have been formed in other grooves of thought.

The business of Wall Street requires long and close training in financial affairs, so that the mind may attain a flexible facility with the various ins and outs of speculative methods. If this training is from youth upward, all the better. It is among this class that many of our most successful men are to be found, though there are some eminent examples of success among those who began late in life. It will be found, however, that the latter must have a special genius for the business, and genius, of course, discounts all the usual conditions and auxiliaries; but among ordinary intellects early training is generally indispensable to financial success.

It seldom happens, moreover, that the early trained man from youth up does any great wrong.