In January we received from our London friends confidential
information of the arrangement with the syndicate.

Its enormous holdings were, so far as possible, to be unloaded on
American buyers. This was for us to accomplish. The spot stock had
to be sold against for future delivery and held until maturity of
the sales. Of course, the sales were made at a discount from the
spot price, and as time went on this increased. When the buyers at
one level were filled up, the price was lowered until a new level,
that would tempt further buyers, was reached, and so it went on.

The trade conceived the idea that our London friends and ourselves
were selling the market short. They never dreamed that we were
unloading for the syndicate, which was daily bidding (pounds)167 for spot,
while we were selling futures far below that figure. They did not
know that at four o'clock London time, when the official market
closed on the thirtieth day of April, the syndicate would cease
buying and that a collapse would then be inevitable. It was not
our business to enlighten them, and strange to relate, not one man
asked us our opinion of the market. They bought of us day after
day and apparently believed that when the time for delivery came
we would be unable to make it and would have to settle with them
at their own figure.

A great many of our sales were made on the Exchange. On this
business we could and did call margins, but there were some weak
people whom we could not avoid selling and in such a market there
were sure to be failures among that class.