No. 2 for the Curb

Not till 1939 did the New York Curb Exchange hire its first paid president. Three years later, trading had fallen into such doldrums (average daily volume: 79,400 shares) that it could no longer afford this luxury. But business has improved so much since then (daily volume is up to 516,700 shares) that Curb members decided last week to try again. Their choice (at $40,000 a year) : Francis Adams Truslow,* one of Wall Street's most knowing securities lawyers and the Curb's own counsel since 1942.

When Francis Truslow takes over, March i, he will run the second largest securities market in the U.S.--and an eminently respectable institution. It was not always thus. The Curb's founders, small-fry brokers, began informal trading about 100 years ago on the curbstones of Manhattan's financial district. By 1900, the outdoor market had settled down in Broad Street. There, no matter what the weather, traders gathered daily to trade securities in a bedlam of shouting and sharp dealing. Nobody needed a license--only stout lungs, a fur-lined coat.

As Curb traders grew richer (many made fortunes during World War I), they built, a building in 1921 on Trinity Place, got rid of "bucket-shop" brokers, and became a respectable proving ground for new securities. Though the same security cannot be listed on the Curb and the Stock Exchange at the same time, many a security proved its worth on the "Little Board" of the Curb before it moved on to the "Big Board." And many a small business finds the less exacting requirements of the Curb better adapted to its needs.

The Curb's prime need now is for a boss who knows 1) the ins & outs of Government securities regulations and 2) his way around Washington. Francis Truslow knows both. A Yale graduate who later studied law at Harvard, Truslow worked for two Wall Street legal firms, helped develop regulations under the Securities Exchange Act, headed the Government's Rubber Development Corp. No new-broom wielder, Truslow plans "to do a great deal of listening . . . before indulging in any perceptible amount of talking."

* Not to be confused with Boston Philanthropist Charles Francis Adams, no kin, or Historian James Truslow Adams, a first cousin.

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