ADMINISTRATION OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 463 
borrowings on security collateral in New York. The effects of 
this collection and publication of “Stock Exchange loans” have 
been already reviewed.3* 
Past Criticism of the Stock Exchange—Question of In- 
corporation.—The Stock Exchange has by no means escaped 
criticism and even governmental investigation in the past, both 
with respect to the nature of the services which it daily renders, 
and to the manner in which its business is conducted and ad- 
ministered. On the whole, the Exchange is today undoubtedly 
the gainer by this searching criticism; it has adopted in toto 
several practical and constructive suggestions made to it, and 
has successfully adapted others to improve its methods in a 
practical way. But unfortunately, during the course of the 
Hughes Committee investigation of 1909, the so-called Con- 
gressional “Money Trust” investigation of 1913, and the hear- 
ings on the proposed Bill S. 3895 before the Banking and Cur- 
rency Committee of the United States Senate in 1914, many 
inaccurate criticisms of the Exchange were uttered and given 
widespread publicity. Fanciful remedies for fancied grievances 
also were not merely proposed, but urged with insistence. Some 
of these have already been dealt with in the preceding pages. 
It remains necessary here to examine the proposal to force the 
Stock Exchange to incorporate. 
The mystical benefits of incorporation have been vehem- 
ently urged with a rhythmical recurrence which is analogous to 
the tidal swings of the stock market, and which has perhaps 
been occasioned by them. For every bear market results in 
financial losses and indignation on the part of speculators, who, 
being unable to retaliate upon the intangible laws of economics, 
vent their feelings upon the tangible Stock Exchange. Some- 
one, as by a stroke of inspiration, cries “Incorporate the Stock 
Exchange,” and again it becomes necessary to point out the 
fallacy of this alleged method of inaugurating Utopia. : 
The Stock Exchange is regulated by law to the extent of 
34 See Chapter XI, pn. 279.