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Show ' - Of the Highest Character Some people probably believe that the stock market is a dog-eat-dog operation in which the devil takes the hindmost and caveat emptor is the guiding rule. So it may have been in past times, but it certainly isn't any longer. Stringent rules have been established by the exchanges themselves, by state governments and by the federal government which are designed to assure, so far as that is humanly possible, the highest standard of honesty and reputable dealing. But all rules, like all laws, are subject to violation. Sharpies and crooks are always among us. A short time ago the Board of Governors of the New York Stock Exchange suspended a firm because ot was "in such financial condition that it could not be permitted to continue in business with safety to its creditors." Thereafter, charges of fraud were preferred against one of the firm's partners. The next step was to expel this partner from membership in the Exchange and to eliminate the firm itself as a member. But this was not the last step. The Exchange's Board took another very long one. Under a set of specific conditions it offered to put up the sum of approximately $690,000 to provide relief for customers "who dealt in good faith and at arm's length with the firm and who might otherwise sustain losses as the result of the misuse of their securities entrusted to the firm." A plan detailing how payments are to be made to aggrieved parties and specifying necessary conditions has been filed with a U. S. District Court. The Exchange has gone all out to reimburse investors from a fraud which was beyond its control no less than theirs. Here, certainly, is an outstanding example of business ethics of the highest character. |