Market Marketed

To advertise or not to advertise: that question has disturbed the inner calm of the New York Stock Exchange ever since the nation's first market place began to feel the Depression impact of public hostility. Even after a revolt of the membership boosted Charles R. Gay into presidency of the Exchange on what was supposed to be a New Deal platform, the idea of advertising remained unpalatable to the Governors. It was quite proper that President Gay should stump from coast-to-coast in an effort to "educate" the public. But to do it with the written word, bought & paid for, seemed to many an oldster on the Floor to be no less shocking than the idea of an advertising campaign in behalf of the Union Club.

Nevertheless, the drive for advertising continued under the leadership of Maurice L. Farrell, senior partner of F. S. Smithers & Co. and chairman of the Exchange's committee on public relations. An old-time newshawk who was once managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, Broker Farrell last week won a heroic victory. For the first time in 144 years, except for a brief period during the War when it unbent as a patriotic duty to participate in prompting the sale of Liberty Bonds, the New York Stock Exchange published paid advertisements.*

Neither the campaign nor the copy was precisely breathtaking. It was not a campaign to resell Wall Street to the public along the lines of the National Association of Manufacturers' current effort to resell "The American Way" (TIME, Sept. 28). It was not a campaign to drum up business for its members, not even an institutional campaign. In modest little two-column insertions in dailies in the Northeast it was announced that a booklet called The New York Stock Exchange, Its Functions and Operations would be sent free upon request. In the New York Times and Herald Tribune the Exchange got preferred positions on the second or third pages along with the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Knox Hats, Reuben's and the Brass Rail restaurants.

In the next few weeks the advertisement will run in other sections of the U. S., will appear just once in some 400 newspapers. Magazines may be included later. Meantime the first insertions brought a "gratifying" number of requests for the booklet, a 40-page primer of Stock Exchange history, policy and practice illustrated with scenes from the Floor and service departments. The booklet was prepared to be passed out to visitors and to satisfy unsolicited demands for simple explanations of the stockmarket's how & why. Most illuminating fact: each of the Pilgrim Fathers (arriving on the Mayflower in 1620) owned at least one share of a subsidiary of Plymouth Co., then active on the London stockmarket. Each Pilgrim Father also had the right to buy additional Plymouth shares at -L-10 per share.

* In financial columns and market quotations the Exchange gets more free publicity than any business institution in the U. S.

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