Word: dicks
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This, plus a reviving stockmarket and occasional other loans from friends, tided Richard Whitney over until 1933. About that time, having taken fliers in a lot of such pip-squeak ventures as Florida fertilizer plants, Dick Whitney took the fatal flier of his life: He got into Distilled Liquors Corp. which bought a plant for making applejack. The public eagerly took the stock he offered, but did not take to the applejack. Needing funds to promote the company, Dick Whitney got large loans against his Distilled Liquors stock, which once sold as high as $45 a share. When the price...
...last year Dick Whitney again was scratching for pennies. Between May 19 and the end of the year he got a succession of bank loans-$50,000 from the Corn Exchange Bank, $75,000 from the Marine Midland, $75,000 from the National City, $100,000 from the Continental Bank & Trust, $80,000 from Public National-all against worthless stock in defunct companies. Apparently the Whitney front was so impressive that even these hard-boiled Manhattan banks never checked up on him at all. These loans he managed to repay...
...there were problems. As a trustee of the Stock Exchange Gratuity Fund, Dick Whitney in the summer of 1937 handled certain perfectly legal switchings of its portfolio. With the securities in his hands and creditors on every side, Broker Whitney seemingly could not resist the opportunity to hypothecate them for personal loans as he was also doing with the securities of other customers. When Governor Edward H. H. Simmons tried to get the securities back, Dick Whitney stalled for time. Finally Mr. Simmons, who had preceded Whitney as president of the Exchange, forced the issue, got some inkling...
Meanwhile, the stockmarket was falling faster than ever before. Dick Whitney got loans on his wife's securities, on those of the Yacht Club. He cadged loans as small as $15,000 from some Wall Street acquaintances, as big as $100,000 from others. He tried to peg Distilled Liquors at about $9 a share, thus eating away his cash. He had already mortgaged his 495-acre estate in Far Hills...
Then he was trapped, for the Exchange suddenly decided to require financial statements from all its member firms (as a firm having no margin accounts Richard Whitney & Co. had always avoided this). Dick Whitney tried to bluff his way through by submitting fake figures, but the Exchange sent accountants to his office. This time, Brother George was in Florida, so Dick ran to Morgan-Partner Bartow with the whole miserable tale and a request for $280,000 more. Banker Bartow went to Lawyer John W. Davis, who forbade any financial assistance as improper. Bartow then motored out to Long Island...