In 1922, Wall Street picked the wrong grocery man to mess with.
His name was Clarence Saunders.
You've probably never heard of him...
But you've walked through his invention every time you've pushed a cart down a grocery aisle, grabbed a basket at the door, or checked out at a register.
Before Saunders, you didn't browse a store.
You handed a clerk your shopping list and waited while they fetched everything for you.
Clarence changed that.
On September 6, 1916, he opened the first self-service grocery store in Memphis, Tennessee.
A place he called Piggly Wiggly.
Nobody knew why he named it that.
When asked, he'd say: "So people like you would ask me that question."
Within six years, there were 1,267 Piggly Wiggly stores across the country.
The man had built something real.
Then Wall Street noticed.
The Bear Raid
In late 1922, some Piggly Wiggly franchises in the northeast started closing, and Wall Street traders smelled blood.
They began shorting Piggly Wiggly stock while spreading rumors that the whole company was in trouble.
Within a week, the price dropped from $50 to $40 a share.
They weren't betting on a failing business.
They were creating one.
Spreading rumors.
Tanking the stock.
Profiting off the wreckage of something a man had spent his life building.
(Like a proto-Gamestop)
When Clarence found out, he didn't call a lawyer.
He called his bank.
He took out a $10 million loan, stuffed a suitcase with cash, and boarded a train to New York City.
Energy & Capital Newspapers reported he arrived with four armed guards.
He told reporters he was there to "break Wall Street."
Bad. Fucking. Ass.
The Squeeze
Over the next few months, Saunders did something nobody had ever done alone.
He bought.
And bought.
And bought.
By March 1923, Saunders controlled more than 198,000 shares — 99 percent of all Piggly Wiggly stock in existence.
The short sellers were trapped.
They'd borrowed shares that Clarence now owned.
And to return them, they'd have to buy them back (from him) at whatever price he named.
On March 20, 1923, Saunders sprung the trap.
He called for the delivery of all his shares at once.
Piggly Wiggly opened at $75 and kept ripping upward.
The shorts were forced to buy at $90... $100... $105.
By noon, the price hit $124.
He had them.
Then the Rules Changed
Here's where the story gets ugly.
As losses mounted among powerful Wall Street firms, they appealed to the New York Stock Exchange for relief.
On March 27, 1923, the exchange made a controversial decision, it declared a postponement of delivery for Piggly Wiggly shares, giving short sellers extra time to locate shares and avoid paying Saunders' prices.
They moved the goalposts.
Mid-game.
For the people losing.
Saunders called them "welchers" and the "worst menace in America."
He took out full-page newspaper ads.
He threatened lawsuits.
It didn't matter.
Burdened by debt and unable to liquidate his holdings without crashing the price, Saunders relinquished his stock, his cars, and even the "Pink Palace," the enormous mansion he'd been building in Memphis to his creditors.
He filed for bankruptcy shortly after.
The man who invented the modern supermarket got screwed.
What Clarence Got Right
Here's the thing nobody tells you about this story.
Clarence Saunders wasn't wrong.
He wasn't reckless.
He built something brilliant, watched powerful people try to destroy it with rumors and borrowed shares, and he fought back.
He just fought with borrowed money against people who controlled the rules.
That's the lesson.
You can be completely right about the fight and still lose if you go into debt to win it.
Spite is powerful.
Anger is fuel.
But debt borrowed to beat an enemy can become a weapon pointed at yourself.
Clarence knew who his enemy was.
He just needed a better weapon.
Yours is a budget.
A debt payoff plan.
Patience.
Less dramatic than a suitcase full of cash on a train to New York.
But it actually works.
And if you need help, check it out here.
Taquitos,
Caleb "Piggly Wiggly" Hammer
P.S. Clarence eventually came back.
He started over, built a new chain from scratch, and kept innovating until the day he died.
That part of the story doesn't get told enough.
Your comeback doesn't require winning every battle...
Just refusing to stay down.
[Start yours here.]
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