472 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE
the trouble was, he declared that “the Indian monsoon was not
blowing well.” When his interviewer failed to see the connec-
tion between the climate in India and the banker’s business in
securities he was told, “If the monsoon fails, there will be a
drought in India, and the bazaars will be forced to sell silver.
If oriental silver comes on the market, it will depreciate the
oriental exchanges, which are founded on silver. This will in
turn temporarily ruin the market there for cheap British tex-
tiles, because it will decrease the buying power of the pur-
chaser’s money. If the Lancashire district in England slows
down, it will not buy textile machinery, and I am vitally inter-
ested in the stock of an American company making textile ma-
chinery.” Far-fetched as this chain of hypotheses may seem,
nevertheless almost exactly this sequence of events actually
occurred some months afterwards. It is consequently natural
that a leading tenet in the philosophy of Wall Street men is the
old adage of the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, to the effect
that “all things flow,” and that the only changeless feature of
life is the principle of change itself.
The Wall Street Point of View.—From one standpoint
the vision of Wall Street, and of the business men all over the
country who do extensive business there, is as wide as the
world, as deep as the deepest mineshaft, and as high as the
loftiest soaring aeroplane. And yet, because its inhabitants
and its customers are human beings, its viewpoint is in many
ways limited and parochial, too. The intense stress and strain
under which most men live there has made them only too apt
to credit glib assertions and superficial deductions, and to have
a highly specialized yet hazy and limited conception of the
vast economic forces which converge upon the narrow Stock
Exchange floor. Men who year after year are cliff dwellers
in the great gray canyons of the New York financial district
are through force of circumstances often unable to look fur-
ther into the future than the prices on the stock ticker. This
often amounts to seeing into the future some three to six
