The Arena, Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897

The Arena, Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897

The twenty-seven respectable citizens of New York who, in 1792, met under a buttonwood tree in front of the premises now known as Number 60 Wall Street, and formed an association for the purchase and sale of public stocks at a fixed and unvarying commission, with a proviso of mutual help and preference, committed themselves to an enterprise of whose moment and influence in the future they could have formed no adequate conception. At that date Wall Street was a banking district, small indeed when compared with its present condition, but important in its relations to the commerce of the nation. This transaction of the twenty-sevenamong whom we find the honored names of Barclay, Bleecker, Winthrop, Lawrence, which in themselves and their descendants were, and are, creditably identified with the growth of the communityadded the prestige and power of the stock exchange to those of the banks, and fixed for an indefinitely long period the destinies of the financial centre of the Union. During the earlier part of this century the banking interests of Wall Street quite overshadowed those of the stock market. The growth of railway securities was not fairly under way until the opening of the fifth decade. Elderly men can recall the date when the New York Central existed only as a series of connecting links between Buffalo and Albany, under half-a-dozen different names of incorporation; and passenger cars were slowly and laboriously hoisted by chain power over the divide between the latter city and Schenectady. Since there were but few railways in the entire country, there were few opportunities2 for speculative dealings in their shares. These shares, too, were as a rule locally held, and were more frequently transferred by executors under court orders than by brokers on the stock exchange. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 30081
Author: Various
Release Date: Sep 25, 2009
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900