An investment banker, Charles Merrill was an unlikely champion of the common man.
Yet he set in motion the democratisation of the stock markets and ended the closed shop of Wall Street.
Charles Merrill was born in Florida in 1885. Growing up, money was scarce and young Charles had to leave college through lack of funds.
Fortunately, Merrill’s legendary foresight was innate. He saw that Middle America – a huge, untapped market – was being excluded from the markets by traders.
Using Merrill Lynch and Co, the firm he founded in 1915, as his vehicle, Charles Merrill set about demystifying the market jargon that had hitherto excluded the masses. The firm published magazines and pamphlets explaining investing in layman terms. Merrill held seminars across the country ensuring – with typical inclusiveness – that childcare was provided. He even gave away stock in a competition. "No more mumbo-jumbo from Harvard men in panelled rooms,” wrote James Merrill, summing up his father’s ethos. A successful poet, James Merrill probably appreciated the improbably romantic notion of his father, the banker, helping the masses.
‘Good Time Charlie Merrill’ was indeed a romantic, never allowing success in work compromise his social life. He married three times, fathering three children.
In 1929, Merrill liquidated Merrill Lynch’s portfolio seven months before the Wall Street Crash that he had been the first major player to predict. His pleas for President Calvin Coolidge to condemn speculation were ignored. Merrill was also the first banker to anticipate the hegemony of the chain store.
By the time Merrill died in 1956, Merrill Lynch had become the biggest brokerage in the US. With half of Americans now investing in the markets, perhaps he would draw more satisfaction from knowing his goal of bringing “Wall Street to Main Street” has been achieved.
