68 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE
of our railroads came to obtain the capital needed in laying the
vast and permanent steel highways of our inland transportation
system. To the Stock Exchange investors looked to give their
newly acquired railroad securities an instant negotiability. It
is little wonder, then, that until recent decades both the stock
and bond markets on the Board have been preeminently markets
for railroad securities.
Expansion of Stock Exchange Facilities.—The New
York Stock Exchange, in the constant effort to perfect its
facilities, kept pace with the latest scientific inventions. In
1867 the electric stock ticker was adopted to give speedier,
more reliable and more complete publicity to Stock Exchange
transactions ; gradually these stock tickers were introduced into
distant cities, and today they are available even in Florida,
California, and Canada.’ The rising volume of Stock Exchange
business after the Armistice led to successive improvements
in the ticker service; recently, a much more efficient ticker
instrument has been developed. No other stock exchange in
the world has such an instantaneous and far-reaching quotation
service.
In 1878 telephones were first installed on the Exchange
oor to allow of speedier communication between it and the
offices of its members. Similarly, the telegraph was speedily
adopted to connect members’ offices in Wall Street with their
branch or correspondents’ offices distant from New York, and
thus to extend the facilities of the Exchange market. No such
facilities for the instant execution of orders originating at
great distances from the Exchange have ever been regularly
established by the members of any other stock exchange; this
development has been particularly necessary in America because
of the great geographical distances of this country.
In 1869 the 533 members of the New York Stock and Ex-
change Board united with the 354 members of the “Open
Board of Brokers” (a competitive stock exchange formed in
~ & See Chapter VI, p. 168, and Appendix VId.
