“There is a widespread belief that Wall Street and the Stock Exchange are one and the same thing, and that all the fluctuations on the Exchange are caused by Wall Street. This is an error as glaring as it would be to suppose that all the water in the Mississippi River comes from the adjacent banks, ignoring the innumerable streams and rills that contribute their quota from countless unseen sources. Wall Street and the Stock Exchange are two different things. The men on the floor of the Exchange are the agents of others, executing the orders which they receive both from Wall Street and from other parts of the habitable globe. Some of them speculate on their own account, but the speculating members of the Exchange are divided into bulls and bears. They do not all push in the same direction at any one time. They simply aim to anticipate, each for himself, the drift of financial public opinion in order to take advantage of it. “This is what Wall Street outside of the Exchange does; and the only advantage which speculators in Wall Street have over those in other parts of the country is derived from larger capital, more direct and ample sources of information, and greater skill and promptness in the use of it. Wall Street speculators are likewise divided into bulls and bears pushing against each other; and all their advantages do not save them from making mistakes, which often result in losses proportioned to the magnitude of their operations. The ‘rich men’s panic’ of 1903 was such an instance. The panic of 1907 was another. It is sometimes said that Wall Street can put prices on the Stock Exchange up or down at its own pleasure. This is a delusion.”[27] Members and friends of the New York Stock Exchange view with apprehension the periodic attacks upon their great institution made by those who, for reasons not to be discussed here, wish to attract popular attention. But there is no reason why these matters should excite alarm. The Exchange purified itself long ago of the old abuses, new ones as they occur meet with severe disciplinary measures, and it has a certificate of good character in the report made to the sovereign State of New York by the Hughes Commission. This commission has stated explicitly that margin trading is a matter of contract guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. It is not conceivable that any legislature can ignore such a report, by such a commission, nor is it possible that, in such event, any court could be found to uphold legislation directed at random against an institution that bears the endorsement of all students of economics.