One of the wildest, most spectacular decades in American history, the 1920s were a period of unprecedented growth and mass consumerism. In the New Era, people drank in speakeasies, danced to jazz, idolized gangsters, and bet their life savings on stocks.
Born and raised in a small Canadian town, Arthur Cutten went to Chicago in 1890 with ninety dollars to his name. Through utter ruthlessness, he amassed a fortune trading in grain futures and stocks. Cutten was heralded as the modern Midas, and his every move was followed by the masses, who believed they could get rich quick. But everything changed after the crash of 1929. The heroes of prosperity became the villains of the Great Depression. Determined to crack down on the “banksters,” the Roosevelt administration launched an all-out attack on those it blamed for the collapse – and Cutten was at the top of the list. A US Senate committee probed how he manipulated stock prices. The Grain Futures Administration moved to bar him from trading. And the Bureau of Internal Revenue indicted him for income tax evasion. But the wily operator won on every count: he emerged from the Senate investigation unscathed, maintained his grain trading privileges after a victory in the Supreme Court, and left almost nothing for the tax collectors upon his death.
To Make a Killing tells the tale of Cutten’s journey to fabulous wealth, the forces that propelled him, and the fascinating characters in his life.
Authors
- Published in
- Montreal, CA
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- TO MAKE A KILLING 2
- Title 4
- Copyright 5
- Dedication 6
- CONTENTS 8
- Figures 10
- Acknowledgments 16
- Prologue 20
- 1 A Strange Dream 22
- 2 The Apprentice 40
- 3 Of Foe and Friend 62
- 4 Sunny Acres, Movers and Shakers 74
- 5 Robbery and Retribution 83
- 6 Wheat King 94
- 7 Taking New York 106
- 8 Cutten Fields 143
- 9 Cheerleaders 150
- 10 Carnage 167
- 11 Holdup on the Gold Coast 175
- 12 At the Dawn of the Dirty Thirties 178
- 13 The Pecora Commission 190
- 14 The Last Laugh 209
- 15 Final Threads 221
- 16 The Measure of a Man 231
- Appendix: Cutten’s Way 234
- Chronology 238
- Notes 242
- Bibliography 254
- Index 262
