What is going on in the Transvaal or in Alaska, the latest outbreak in China, the areas of barometric pressure in the grain country, the ravages of the boll-weevil, the market in pig iron, the latest labor difficulty, the tendencies of Socialism, the cost of living, the outgivings of our law-makers--a knowledge of all these and many similar matters is a necessary part of the stockbroker’s trade, and serves to keep his mental activities considerably above the dull level of mediocrity. Naturally this sort of occupation gives a zest to life, and makes impossible the sedentary dry-rot which the impatient broker sometimes thinks is upon him. At any rate no Sherman Law can be invoked to prevent him from learning all there is to know about men and affairs; and just as he becomes trained in habits of inquiry, and proficient in using facts as stepping-stones to conclusions, so he becomes a valuable and useful member of the community. Critics in what may be termed the impressionist school--accustomed to a free, instantaneous, and often meaningless handling of their subject--are prone to condemn the Exchange because the action of the market when large reforms in business are impending seems to imply hostility to those reforms on the part of members. This may be typical modern impressionism, but it is all wrong. If the market declines when, for example, a large corporation finds itself at odds with the law, the downward tendency of the securities affected is the result of natural laws with which stockbrokers have nothing to do. They are but agents. Ten thousand owners of securities throughout the land may simultaneously become alarmed and sell--a familiar psychologic phenomenon which depresses prices--but to say that this result expresses the hostility of the Stock Exchange to the enforcement of the Anti-Trust Law is nothing less than an evidence of critical strabismus. The men for whom I presume to speak, far from being hostile or indifferent to the call of revitalized business morality, are quite as deeply imbued with the potent spirit of business reform as are the men who make the country’s laws. Careful, well-considered legislation that broadens and deepens the channels of American development, that provides adequate supervision and such publicity as will guard against selfish perversion, is welcomed with gratitude by the Stock Exchange. Any thinking man ought to see at a glance that the very object of the Exchange’s existence is benefited by such laws, and prospers with their enforcement. The Cordage Trust, the Salt Trust, the Bicycle combination and the Hocking Coal episode are still bitter memories on ’Change; any law that will prevent a recurrence of these and kindred calamities is a law that strengthens the hands of every member and gives him fresh courage.