134 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE
its floor would, of course, be impossible to maintain. These
orders from the public at large can enter the securities market
on the Stock Exchange only through the commission house.
For this reason the commission broker is the principal if not
the only representative of the Stock Exchange with whom the
average man comes into personal contact. Usually, too, he is
a partner or employee of a member of the Exchange, rather
‘han a member himself.
Present and Former Scope of the Stock Market.—In the
earlier years of its history, it was inevitable that the facilities
of the Stock Exchange should have been employed locally
rather than nationally. Even apart from the invention of the
telegraph, the economic growth of the United States did not
until the past few decades really demand its services in extend-
ing the scope and availability of the organized security market
in New York. For, while our Great West was still hewing
down the primeval forest, laying road beds, and establishing
those villages which were destined in after years to experience
so remarkable a growth, its inhabitants, still pioneers, were
naturally possessed of no surplus to invest in stocks and bonds.
But with the steady westward thrust of population and
wealth into our southern and western states, the demand for
stock market facilities has led to a similar extension of the
Stock Exchange system igto practically all parts of the nation,
through the rise of the “wire house” type of Stock Exchange
commission firm. The first sign of this coming development
was shown in 1873, when a prominent Wall Street firm estab-
lished a private telegraph line to its uptown office at 23rd Street
—a great convenience at a time before the elevated railroad or
telephone system, when it took over an hour to communicate
between the two offices. The obvious advantages of such
speedy means of communication soon bore more extensive
results. In 1879 private wires were obtained by various Wall
Street firms to their offices in the neighboring centers of Boston
and Philadelphia. A similar connection with Chicago was
