BETTER STOCK

Some weeks ago a New York debutante wrote up her bud's eye view of the changing times for the Associated Press. Among trivialities she managed to strike one very significant spark. In her opinion, fewer college men were entering brokerage houses on graduation. There is no question that 1929 and the evanescence of our post-war dreams has robbed the stock market of much of its former glamour. But there is a new force operating to send the money-lustful young man into more constructive fields. Legislation now before Congress for the control of the national exchanges will, in all probability, completely change the complexion of that once lucrative business.

What will be the effect of such regulation on the brokers themselves? In the first place, it will tend to cramp if not prohibit the speculative accounts which have been a major source of income to so many stock jobbers. By increasing the technicalities and narrowing the field and its allure, it will cause the business as a whole to simulate the present investment council houses. In other words, it means that the arrow-collar bond-salesman who carried his trade to Westchester weekends and Long Island country clubs has had his day. The brokers of tomorrow will be soberer, saner, sounder business men by necessity.