The Stock Exchange from Within

 Every now and then some one who has not given much thought to the matter asks the questions, “Of what real use is the Stock Exchange?” “What does it accomplish?” “Is it a necessary and useful part of our economic life, or is it merely a means of promoting speculation and gambling?” These are fair questions, and they are asked in good faith. To be sure they have been answered many times by writers on economic subjects, but the trouble is that in our hurried American life we do not read the economists, preferring to get our impressions from the hasty utterances of some one who knows no more about it than we do.