STOCK SPECULATION—DANGERS AND BENEFITS 151 
and daring when the industrial clouds gather and business men 
fear for the darkening future. 
So long, therefore, as the pioneer spirit is strong in our 
people, so long as new business enterprises are attempted or 
old enterprises entail risk, we will have the speculator with 
us. And, if we are to maintain our amazing rate of industrial 
progress, we will need the speculator to bring forth the in- 
ventor’s dream and the scientist's discovery out of the work- 
shed and the laboratory and place them at the practical service 
»f mankind. 
Speculation Necessary to Improved Marketing Methods. 
—Finally, there is another economic service performed for 
society as a whole in which speculation plays a prominent and 
essential part—that of assisting in the creation and main- 
tenance of the exchanges. The several signal economic bene- 
fits rendered by these organized markets have been noted with 
some detail in an earlier chapter.?® All but a few of these 
services rendered by organized markets depend directly and 
fundamentally upon speculation. Listed securities, both stocks 
and bonds, are in a practical way rendered negotiable by the 
Exchange, because speculators there will usually sell on a slight 
advance and purchase on a slight recession. Without this 
continuous stream of speculative bids and offers coming into 
the stock market, the investor would not regularly and quickly 
be able to buy or sell, because he would not be able to find a 
seller or buyer with whom to strike his bargain. The superior 
collateral value of listed securities is also basically due to specu- 
lation, because it is based upon their instant negotiability, It is 
likewise true that the capital made available for industry 
through the Stock Exchange, as well as the direction given 
to this capital into one rather than another industry, comes in 
the first instance from speculators.® 
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