I found Rawhide Coalition stock listed on the Curb, and the market quiescent. Public interest in the East had been aroused to some degree, but the market was not absorbing stock. An effort to induce leading stock brokers to mention the issue favorably in their market letters failed. Those who were willing to give the stock some publicity exacted either a "call" on stock at a low price or an out-and-out reduction below the market quotation for such stock as they disposed of.
Such concessions were not to be thought of. It was the intention of Nat. C. Goodwin & Company to support a rising market for Rawhide Coalition. My Goldfield experience with mining-stock brokers convinced me that few might be expected to protect the shareholders' interest in such an enterprise. Commission mining-stock brokers of that period, who put their customers into a stock at, say, 30, were tempted to advise profit-taking when the price advanced to, say, 50, because by the operation they made another commission and often earned an additional, or third, commission by getting their customers out of the stock at a profit and into another one, levying a commission on each transaction.
Nat. C. Goodwin & Company decided to "try it on" direct with mining-stock speculators by appealing to them through the advertising columns of the newspapers, asking them to purchase the stock on the New York Curb through their own brokers. Also, Hayden, Stone & Company, the Boston and New York banking firm, were induced to agree to raise $1,000,000 for the company for railroad and mill purposes, if their engineer would report favorably.
Provided with money with which to buy advertising space and furnished with stock certificates to supply the market, Nat. C. Goodwin & Company inaugurated an active campaign on the New York Curb.
What happened will be found instructive to the reader in several particulars; among them these:
(1) The free-lance mining promoter does not always "get the money" when he succeeds in creating a buoyant market for his stock.
(2) Some stock brokers of seemingly high standing would just as soon "skin" a mining promoter of this order as they would an ordinary speculator. They play no favorites.
(3) Be a mine promoter ever so honest, without New York Stock Exchange affiliations his motives are bound to be misconstrued if he makes an error. The "big" fellows will sick on to him the newspapers or newspaper men whom they control or influence. Dust will be thrown into the eyes of the public so they'll buy the big fellow's wares, principally for sale on the New York Stock Exchange, and may forever be prejudiced against the little fellow's.