There was a strong disinclination in Wall Street toward publishing the figures of the lotsses, for fear the publication might be destructive of public con¬ fidence in the Street’s financial condition. But the news was known in the underworld and drew to New York criminals from all parts of the country. For a time all efforts were fruitless; the losses continued and the mystery deepened.
Then, suddenly, in the early part of 1920, certain arrests were made and confessions obtained, which disclosed one of the most amazing criminal conspir¬ acies in the history of the United States.
There was proved the existence of a vast Jewish conspiracy to loot Wall Street. It was found that a band of astute Jewish criminals, many of them wealthy men, some of them ex-convicts, had created an organ¬ ization by which Wall Street financial houses were to be plundered.
Bands of young Jews, mostly of Russian origin and living on the East Side, had been shaped into being.
These lads, instructed by clever Jewish principals, applied to Wall Street messenger agencies for employ¬ ment in brokerage houses.' It was part of the plan for them to assume good, honest-sounding Anglo-* Saxon names. The “cover name”—how often we meet it!
These lads turned over their stolen stocks and bonds to the heads of their organizations, who in turn passed the securities on to the Jewish principals, who were for the most part members of the criminal band of “confidence men” in the White Light district—the “bank-roll men,” whose immunity from punishment has always been one of the standing puzzles of Gen¬ tiles residing in New York.
These Jewish criminals were aided by Jewish lawyers in their transactions. The stolen stocks and bonds were taken to Cleveland, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia and parts of Canada, where they were pledged as collateral for loans in an apparently legiti¬ mate course of business.