It is a simple matter for the querulous and discontented element of a community to reason along the lines of least resistance and demand the enactment of laws to right every fancied wrong. But the patient study of such matters, the nice balancing of probabilities, the penetrating investigation of similar experiments elsewhere and the analysis of their bearing on the larger affairs affected by them--all this requires critical judgment of a high order. When such an issue is evolved laymen stand aside for a while, until the evidence of experts has been submitted to minds competent to decide in accordance with evidence. Applying this principle to the ever-present menace of legislation in America directed against the Stock Exchange, we find each witness testifying to the fact that the German law of 1896, far from benefiting the public, injured it immeasurably. It put a premium on reckless speculation and offensive manipulation; it demoralized the money market; it choked the small banks and made virtual monopolies of the large ones; just in proportion as it stifled speculation it put an end to industrial undertakings that depend for their success upon the spirit of adventure and risk; it drove money and credit out of Germany and into London and Paris; it removed from the Berlin market the support of the bears, thus exposing the whole investment structure to violent collapse. The layman must consider this and the men who make our laws must look before they leap. Speculators in the region of criticism, whether of theology or economics, who find themselves face to face with a fact too stubborn to fit in with their opinions or conclusions, have but two courses open to them: either to reconsider in the light of testimony the conclusions they have reached, or to denounce and discredit the inconvenient witness. In this instance the inconvenient witness cannot be denounced; his name is legion. Every merchant in Germany will tell you the Bourse Law was a sad mistake and will deplore its enactment. Nor can such witnesses be discredited; therefore the advocate who believes that in legislation lies the remedy for what he conceives to be the evils of speculation must perforce choose the other horn of the dilemma; he must reconsider. It is a gratifying fact that in America, where law-makers are prone to enact a hodge-podge of laws on every conceivable subject, there has been no such serious mistake made by the Federal Government as that which occurred in Germany. In 1812, five years before the New York Stock Exchange was organized, an act was passed by the New York State Legislature entitled “An act to regulate sales at public auction and to prevent stock-jobbing,” its essential purpose being the prevention of short selling--the bête-noir of all the early amateurs in economics. This was the only anti-speculation act ever placed on the New York Statute books. The act read: