Wall Street Under Oath: The Story of Our Modern Money Changers.

PECORA, Ferdinand.

Item Number: 123862

New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc, 1939.

First edition of Pecora’s account of his role as chief counsel in the dramatic 1930s Senate hearings on Wall Street’s role in the 1929 Stock Market Crash. Octavo, original blue cloth, top edge red. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper in the year of publication to Justice Louis Brandeis, “To the Honorable Louis D. Brandeis- a distinguished jurist, a brilliant advocate and an intrepid leader- Who has always evoked my esteem and deep admiration. Ferdinand Pecora Dec. 23rd 1939.” The recipient, American lawyer and a leader of the Progressive Movement Louis Brandeis, was one of the most famous and influential figures ever to serve on the high court. His opinions were some of the “greatest defenses” of freedom of speech and the right to privacy ever written by a member of the Supreme Court. Dubbed the “People’s Lawyer” and “A Robin Hood of the Law”, he helped develop the “right to privacy” concept and, when his family’s finances became secure, he insisted on serving on cases without pay so that he would be free to address the wider issues involved. Among his notable early cases were actions fighting railroad monopolies, defending workplace and labor laws, helping create the Federal Reserve System, and presenting ideas for the new Federal Trade Commission. He achieved recognition by submitting a case brief, later called the “Brandeis Brief”, which relied on expert testimony from people in other professions to support his case, thereby setting a new precedent in evidence presentation. He was nominated by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to become a member of the Supreme Court and served from 1916 to 1939 and in 1914 published his classic anti-investment bank essay collection, Other People’s Money and How Banker’s Use It, which is paid tribute herein (pp. 75-6). Pecora, too, gained a reputation in New York City as an honest and talented prosecutor. He was appointed chief counsel to the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Banking and Currency in January 1933 and took the lead in the Senate committee hearings probing into the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, later referred to as the Pecora Commission. His investigation unearthed evidence of irregular practices in the financial markets that benefited the rich at the expense of ordinary investors, including exposure of Morgan’s “preferred list” by which the bank’s influential friends (including Calvin Coolidge, the former president, and Owen J. Roberts, a justice of Supreme Court of the United States) participated in stock offerings at steeply discounted rates. In near fine condition. An exceptional association copy, linking two of the most honest and progressive figures in the first half of twentieth century America. Scarce inscribed by Pecora, and even more so with such a significant association.

Ferdinand Pecora was appointed Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate's Committee on Banking and Currency in January 1933. The Senate committee hearings that Pecora led probed the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that launched a major reform of the American financial system. After Pecora closed his investigations, on July 2, 1934, President Roosevelt appointed Ferdinand Pecora a Commissioner of the newly formed U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 1939 Pecora wrote a book about the Senate investigations titled Wall Street Under Oath: The Story of Our Modern Money Changers. On January 21, 1935, Pecora resigned from the SEC and became a judge of the New York State Supreme Court, a position he held until 1950.