Stock Exchange Member

The machinery of the New York Stock Exchange last week clamped down on the soul of a boy three years out of high school. Seymour N. Sears Jr., 22, of Grantwood, N. J., "floor" telephone clerk for Miller, Hewitt & Dodge, brokers, became a partner of that firm and at the same time a member of the Exchange (the youngest so distinguished). Seats on the Exchange are currently worth $395,000. Young men who "buy" them at such prices raise the money by bonding themselves and insuring their lives in favor of their creditors, and give private noi.es for the sum. Since a pronouncement by the Exchange management last week, under certain conditions they can also mortgage their membership. To pay back the purchase money takes the member 15 to 20 years.

A few very rich men are among the 1,100 Stock Exchange members. But they are not active traders. The work is too mechanical for them to dissipate their wits on. They consider floor brokers as only high grade machines, who merely buy and sell securities upon orders. The real thinking is done at their offices, in smoky "customers' rooms," over the cocktails of big speculators. Some day machines activated by perforated and notched discs may do the trading on stock exchanges.

Meanwhile young men, like Mr. Sears, with strong legs and loud voices, trade three and four million shares a day on the New York Exchange.