Commodities & Gold

President Richard Whitney of the New York Stock Exchange did not go to work at No. 18 Broad St. one morning last week but continued on down the street to No. 81. There the head of Manhattan's oldest exchange turned in to help the head of Manhattan's youngest exchange open its new quarters.

Brokers in linen jackets milled curiously around the four brand new rings of the Commodity Exchange--rubber, silk, hides, metals (copper, silver and tin). They eyed the clock nervously but President Jerome Lewine cut short the fanfare at 10 a. m. sharp, clanged the gong. A mighty roar went up from the silver post. To Broker Edwin Troetchell went the honor of first sale: 25,000 oz. of silver to Broker Clarence Lovatt at 37.75-c- an ounce.

A Texan who went to Manhattan from Waco at 14, President Lewine was a happy man. Not only did last week's opening mark the completion of plans on which he and his friends have worked for years, but, more important, his Commodity Exchange, with its 1,031 members, was being auspiciously launched upon a rising tide of prices which promised to lead on to fortune. Seats on the Commodity Exchange, which for the merger of the old Rubber, Silk, Hides and Metals Exchanges, were valued at $900. have shot to $4,000.

But President Lewine is not yet satisfied with his exchange. He wants to see another post at the metals ring labeled GOLD. He is a member of the Committee for the Establishment of a Free Gold Market in the U. S. of which Jerome Chester Cuppia, the precise, waxed-mustachioed vice president of the exchange, is chairman.

Not since a wild Friday in September 1869 when Jay Gould's attempt to corner the LT. S. market ran the price up to $162 and left behind a trail of ruin and corruption has gold been an active speculative medium in the U. S. Desultory trading continued to 1879 when gold payments were resumed. But from then until last April with the U. S. Government firmly tied to gold there was no incentive to speculate. With the U. S. now off the gold standard, gold miners, lacking a free supply & demand market and confronted with rising costs, are still forced to sell their product to the Government at the pre-inflation rate of $20.67 Per oz. President Roosevelt is being urged to revise his regulations on the grounds that a free gold market at No. 81 Broad St. would 1) do much to lift U. S. gold mining out of the doldrums and set it booming; 2) be a much more effective method of bringing gold out of hoarding than criminal prosecution.

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