The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-10-24
yANDERBILrs DAY OF JUDGMENT.
What Tuesdays Stock Panic Probably
Meant.

From the Chicago Tribune Sept. 10Th.
Wall street yesterday was in a
state of excitement, owing to q
fresh tumble in stocks, which very
closely resembled another panic.
On the stock exchange matters
were painfully blue and quotations
fell even below the panic prices of
the past ten years. New York
Central dropped from 885 to S24,
which was taken as an indication
of Vanderbilt's inability to hold
it up any longer, whereupon the
whole Vanderbilt list went head
long. Western Union fell from
574 to 48, Lake Shore from 668 to
59s, and Northwestern Union Pa
cific followed suit. Various rea-
sons are assigned for the collapse,
among them Judge Blatchford's
modification of his injunction,
which released large amounts of
Lake Shore, Western Union and
other stock which had been held
by Blake Brothers as collateral;
the bankruptcy proceedings
against Kenyon, Cox & Co., in
Yolving Daniel Drew, one. of the
partners; the advance in the Bank
of England rate of discount to six
per cent, and the large sale of
stocks carried by the banks on
margins, the holders of which
could not put up any more collat-
erals. In addition to these causes
there was also a panicky feeling
among outsiders who sent in or
ders to sell large amounts, and this
in turn helped to precipitate the
avalanche. The suspensions of
the day were Burger, Hurlburt &
Livingston, sugar. house; Gillespie,
Trowbridge & Co., tea dealers;
VIM. Hoge & Co., bankers; VIM.
NJ. Whittemore, Wise & Cross, and
C.. II. Pierce, stock brokers. The
effect upon the money market was
to advance gold from 10S8 to 1909.
Money was close at 1-l6 to IA per
cent. a day; greeAbacks 3-8 to SIS
premium; foreign exchange firmer;
and governments higher and firm
er. .--.
1t is hardly possible to misin-
terpret this breakdown. It signi-
fies that Cornelius Vanderbilt's
day is past. This venerable cor
morant, who has been filing him
self and Wall street with his bogus
stocks these ten years, at the ex-
pense of the industrial and COM
mercial interests of the country,
is well nigh burst with his own
provender. Eighty per cent. of
water was poured into New York
Central at one dash. Hudson
river, Harlem and Lake Shore have
been diluted in the same way.
Union Pacific is all water. These
and many others in the list have
been carried to a point where the
first breath of hard times was sure
to expose their weakness and in
security. In order to be worth
the prices at which they stood,
q continued and increasing pros
perity was necessary. A re-
verse has come; the margin which
prudent financering should have
left to cover a period of adj
versity and of diminished re-
ceipts was long ago wiped out.
Vanderbilt and his imitators in
.stock-watering have been betting
their last dollar that there never
would be a time when the bust
ness of the country could not pay
interest on their fictitious values.
That time seems to have come at
last, and, if it shall sponge them
all out, and send the whole crew
to. everlasting smash, the country
will be ultimately benefited, though
the transition from the false to the
true may be painful to some inter
ests and classes that have not
shared in the wrong-doing.