Note 14 — Chapter I · THE FUNCTIONS OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE

Suppose for a moment that the stock markets of the world were closed, that it was no longer possible to learn what railways were paying dividends, what their stocks were worth, how industrial enterprises were faring—whether they were loaded up with surplus goods or had orders ahead. Suppose that the information afforded by public quotations on the stock and produce exchanges were wiped from the slate of human knowledge. How would the average man, how even would a man with the intelligence and foresight of a Pierpont Morgan, determine how new capital should be invested? He would have no guides except the most isolated facts gathered here and there at great trouble and expense. A greater misdirection of capital and energy would result than has been possible since the organization of modern economic machinery. “Wall Street and the Country,” by Charles A. Conant, pp. 92–93.—G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1904.