(3 of 4)
New Yorkers smiled, remembered colorful Mr. Brush's reputation for giving a party every night, for sending birthday telegrams to hundreds of people. He has a passion for elephants, owns 1,100 elephant figures in gold, ivory, wood, silver. Once he had a live one hoisted to the roof of a hotel where he was giving a party.
A far different witness was baldish Percy Rockefeller. Shy and beady-eyed, looking to the camera much like his cousin's friend Soul Surgeon Frank Buchman (see p. 22), he was prodded unmercifully by Counsel Gray. He said he could not remember what stocks he had sold last January (12,000 shares), although he had covered them only five or six weeks ago. Mr. Gray could get no substantiation of stories that Mr. Rockefeller, sitting on bank boards, would learn what stocks would be forced on the market at certain figures, after which the bears would force prices down below the level at which the banks would continue loans, enabling the bears to cover at big profits. Mr. Rockefeller denied he had any knowledge of when banks would call loans.
Q. There has been a rumor that you broke with President Hoover and became a short seller to depress prices. Is that rumor correct? A. Now what object would I have in doing a thing like that?
Q. Perhaps to hurt Mr. Hoover's chance for reelection. A. Oh. no! I am a Republican.
Q. Senator Walsh just said he believes international bankers have smashed the market to force the United States into a position where we must cancel War Debts. Do you think he is correct in that belief? A. All those stones are ridiculous, it seems to me. Mr. Rockefeller told the committee he met Ben Smith when Smith sold him one of his first automobiles, some 20 years ago. His own losses, he said, had been "terrible."
Senator Couzens: How much is "terrible?" Mr. Rockefeller: A good many millions.
Finally, he told the committee he had not sold short in the last five weeks. Senator Copeland of New York (who had just dropped in to listen) got up and walked out. Said he: "They are conducting this like a police court."
Next in line came Bernard E. Smith and Thomas E. Bragg. Bear Bragg estimated he had been short as much as 50,000 shares at one time, "but right now my short accounts are between 12,000 and 15,000 shares." But far more interesting to the committee than his short operations was his story of a $32,000,000 bull pool in Anaconda Copper just before the 1929 crash.
Q. How much did you put in? A. About $500,000. I think Mr. Smith put in a half million and Mr. Rockefeller $120.000.
Q. Go ahead and name the others. Mr. Bragg named John Jacob Raskob. chairman of the Democratic National Committee ; William F. Kenny, contractor friend of Alfred Emanuel Smith; William Crapo Durant, onetime president of General Motors Corp.; General Motorsman Frederic John Fisher, and Michael J. Meehan, theatre ticket seller who rose to Wall Street power by riding Radio from $25 a share to $549.