ion here, for he was at
this time a distinguished Wall Street character and one of the ablest
practitioners of finance in the country. During the last fifteen years
of his life, John Moore was party to more confidential financial jobs
and deals than all other contemporaneous financiers, and he handled them
with great skill and high art. Big, jolly, generous, a royal eater and
drinker, an associate of the rich, the friend of the poor, a many-times
millionaire, who a few years before had been logging it on the rivers of
Maine, his native State, John Moore well deserved his "Street" name,
"Prince John." His firm, Moore & Schley, transacted an immense brokerage
business, and numbered among its clients great capitalists and bankers
all over the country. Especially were Moore & Schley famed for their
discretion, and the highest proof of confidence reposed in the firm was
the fact that it did the bulk of the stock speculating for what is known
as "the Washington contingent." This is, perhaps, the most peculiar and
delicate business that comes to "the Street." A big Wall Street house
opens a Washington office and organizes an elaborate system of special
wires, wires from which there can be no possibility of leakage. It is
then ready for the patronage of members of Congress, United States
Senators and national officials, whose honorable positions make them the
custodians of national secrets of great commercial value. If, for
instance, a new law is to be passed which must favorably affect a given
stock, legislators who are on "the inside" often buy thousands of shares
in order to reap the profit of the rise in value incidental to its
passage. Or perhaps there is in prospect a law which will interfere with
the special privilege of some other stock and reduce its price. Those in
possession of advance information "go short" of that stock (sell for
future delivery) to profit by the drop. There are many other
opportunities the Washington "insider" of speculative turn may use to
advantage. For instance, if a high official of the Government were about
to issue a proclamation against a foreign nation, and should desire
secretly to make a million or so out of the panic he knew must follow
the announcement, he would cast about him for a broker who would
preserve this sacred confidence. It would invariably be through the
Moore firm that his secretary or confidential man would do the short
selling. There are also the operations of lobbyists wh