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Senator Couzens: How did the operation come out? Mr. Bragg: I lost $400,000. Others may have lost more. Senator Couzens: What representations were held out to get people to join? Mr. Bragg: Possible profit. Counsel Gray: Wasn't that pool formed because of the ability of this group to manipulate the market? Mr. Bragg: I don't think there was any manipulation. Counsel Gray: Oh, be a little frank with this committee. You didn't just take $32,000,000 into the market and then sit down and wait. Tell us some truth. Senator Glass: I protest against bully ragging the witness that way.
Bear Smith told the committee : "People do call me one of the big operators, but nobody has ever called me a big bear raider to my face." Mr. Gray tried but failed to get him to admit that the floor specialist in a stock would give to pools information as to buying and selling orders on his books.
Counsel Gray: But take the radio pool. Meehan, the exchange specialist, was a member. Mr. Smith: Mr. Meehan has never been a member of any pool. The pool account has always been in his wife's name.
While the committee was debating whether to call Messrs. Raskob, Fisher and Kenny, Mr. Raskob was waiting patiently in Washington, had even dropped into the hearing one day to see how things were going. Broker Meehan hastened from New York to testify; William H. Danforth of Boston arrived from Florida. Meanwhile Counsel Gray and his assistant David Stock were reading hundreds of anonymous letters giving tips about specific operations and operators. With so much material on hand and so many witnesses waiting to testify, the committee decided to send special investigators to New York, voted to make a full investigation of the stockmarket if it took all summer.
*Witness Brush was, of course, speaking figuratively. His mind was dimly echoing a name once famed in Chicago, "Heinie Keboobler." That was the name of two famed oldtime saloons —one on Quincy Street, one on South State. Both were full of practical-joking devices—stairways which suddenly folded under you, telephones that spit in your eye, rubber pretzels, dribble glasses, electric wiring to give a shock with your change at the bar or to the unwary in the lavatory.