To Make a Killing: Arthur Cutten, the Man Who Ruled the Markets

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.

Figures ix
Acknowledgments xv
Prologue 3
1 A Strange Dream 5
2 The Apprentice 23
3 Of Foe and Friend 45
4 Sunny Acres, Movers and Shakers 57
5 Robbery and Retribution 66
6 Wheat King 77
7 Taking New York 89
8 Cutten Fields 126
9 Cheerleaders 133
10 Carnage 150
11 Holdup on the Gold Coast 158
12 At the Dawn of the Dirty Thirties 161
13 The Pecora Commission 173
14 The Last Laugh 192
15 Final Threads 204
16 The Measure of a Man 214
Appendix: Cutten’s Way 217
Chronology 221
Notes 225
Bibliography 237