“If a market had not been provided for it under those conditions,” said the governors, “the loan could not have been placed. Then, again, there is the short selling of stock against which different and new securities are to be issued; the vendor knowing that he is to receive certain securities at a distant date, but desiring to realize upon them _at this time_. Beyond this, there is the regular selling of short stock, either by parties who do so to hedge a dangerous position upon the long side of the market, or the sale purely and simply with the intention of rebuying at a profit, should circumstances favor it.” Finally, there is the investor with stock in his strong-box actually paid for and owned outright. He may wish to sell in a strong market with the hope of repurchasing at lower prices, but for reasons of his own he may borrow the stock for delivery rather than deliver the securities bearing his own name. Technically he is short; he is a bear. But in his case, as in that of the others here cited, how can this perfectly proper method of doing business be “regulated” or interfered with in any way? I do not think it necessary to pursue so palpable an absurdity. It has been said that the bears often resort to unfair methods to bring about declines in prices, circulating rumors designed to alarm timid owners of securities and thus frighten them into selling. That this is done every now and then is undeniable, but the opportunity of the bear in these matters is very limited, and may be easily and speedily investigated, whereas similar practices, by the bulls in inflating values by all sorts of grotesque assertions and promises are by no means so easily run to earth, and do incalculably more harm. The bear who drags a red-herring across the trail now and then interrupts the chase, but he cannot stop it; the genial optimist who has a doubtful concern on his hands, with a pack of enthusiastic buyers in full cry at his heels, is a much more serious matter. Good times and bull markets engender many questionable practices of this sort. “All people are most credulous when they are most happy,” says Walter Bagehot; “and when much money has just been made, when some people are really making it, when most people think they are making it, there is a happy opportunity for ingenious mendacity. Almost everything will be believed for a little while, and long before discovery the worst and most adroit deceivers are geographically or legally beyond the reach of punishment. But the harm they have done diffuses harm, for it weakens credit still further.”[37]