Shy Bull

In Chicago last week Newsman John Gunther (author, Golden Fleece, Harper's, 1929, $2.50; Eden jor One, Harper's, 1927, $2; Red Pavilion, Harper's, 1926, $2) of the Chicago Daily News went to interview Market Operator Arthur W. Cutten. His mission was apropos of nothing but Mr. Cutten's position as famed Bull. He found Mr. Cutten easy to talk to, difficult to interview.

Said Mr. Cutten: "I'd rather not give an interview."

Mr. Gunther said he really did not want a formal interview, just a personality sketch.

Said Mr. Cutten: "I'm not interesting enough."

Then Mr. Gunther said he was thinking of doing a number of prominent Chicagoans in a group of pen-sketches.

Said Mr. Cutten: "I'm not prominent enough."

Persevering, however, Interviewer Gunther was at least able to write a fresh description of Mr. Cutten's appearance and to quote him, in general terms, on the Market.

Thus Mr. Cutten, "smallish," lean, trim, stiff-jawed, with sparse, curly silver hair and half-moon rimless glasses, the lenses cut square at the bottom, looks out under the glasses, frequently says, "Don't you .know?" in a way that more slangy persons say "Get me?" He smokes157 cigarets, stands before his office in his shirtsleeves, nods to passing stenographers, messenger boys, friends. His office is a "tiny hideout," does not carry his name on its door.

"Cuttenisms" on the Market included:

"The stock market today is a fair game. Everybody has a chance. That is, everybody who isn't a fool. But a man can't expect to make money on a stock if he buys without any faintest notion-of what tha stock is--as so many fools do."

"The two things a man needs most to play on the market are nerve and vision."

"People say that the bull market of the last four years has caused an over valuation of all stocks. I don't think this is true. It was true in 1922 when industry was overinventoried. But in the closely knit organization of business today stock prices can't far overrun their real demonstrable value."

Mr. Cutten said he was in the Market now "mostly for the fun of it." But he was a little tired of it and wanted a rest (he is almost 60). "I've never even been in Europe," he said. "I've never played at all, never had a chance to do anything but work." He was asked about a reported remark to the effect that if he had a son he would keep him out of the market with a ten-foot pole and another observation that most brokers were just "broke." He said that he meant the grain, not the stock market. In the grain market all the cards were against you. It was just a selling market. Railroads, he observed, were coming into their own.

Except for his 800-acre farm in DuPage county, he has no hobbies. He never visits his clubs, has no social interests. Recently, however, he became a trustee of Northwestern University. Born in Canada, he was naturalized only a few years ago.