Business & Finance: Return of the Broker

When the clamor on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange had been stilled to permit President Edward Henry Harriman Simmons to announce in hard, sharp accents that a member, found guilty of unethical conduct of his brokerage business, was expelled, the member in question, Herman W. Booth, was nowhere to be found (TIME, Oct. 3). The incident was soon drowned by the roar of hundreds of brokers resuming the hawking of securities about the 29 posts of the floor. No active trader had Mr. Booth been, with hundreds of clients to represent. Apparently his misconduct had been technical. But the penalty was heavy disgrace. He had vanished from his hotel, leaving no clue, only a note disposing of a nebulous estate in favor of his sister and brother; had written in a letter “in case anything should happen to me through accident or otherwise. . . .” Wall Street veterans shook their heads. It was not the first time a ruined broker had thus prepared to die.

Later, telephones rang often and insistently in the office which Edwards Herrick Childs, appointed receiver in charge of Mr. Booth’s affairs, had taken over. The inactive broker’s clients, who bobbed up to an amazing total of 100, were sending in claims for over $1,000,000 worth of securities & cash. No wonder Mr. Booth had planned to end it all. All day long frantic creditors surged into the office at No. 120 Broadway.

Then, one shining afternoon, a kindly, pink-cheeked gentleman strolled into the office, faultlessly dressed except for a coat pocket that broke the contour of his well tailored person by sticking out in unsightly bulge. Forthwith a sheriff, stationed in the office, pounced upon this benevolent oldster, searched him thoroughly. The bulge turned out to be a large, red apple. The kindly gentleman turned out to be Herman W. Booth. Straightway he was marched to gaol.

There he spoke with mild wonder of a short visit to Atlantic City calculated to lengthen, not abbreviate, his life; deplored the fact that his creditors had “come down so hard” on him, assured everyone that the embezzlement charges brought by a Mrs. Jennie C. H. Denton, who claimed $150,000, need not have been pushed so vigorously; promised: “If I can only get time to do it, I can make these debts good!”