Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-01-26
THE REyEL OF rae wREckERs,
Sounding the Alarm 10 Business
men-sOmething for the Wise TO
COnsider-Fasal Operations In FI.
nance Now


raen to take pause and calmly view the
revel of the wreckers, now on daily ex-
hibition Ia our centres of money and
trade. In all the insane initiation OF war
times, the tide of reckless and unhealthy
speculation never surged so defantl7
against the legitimate business and pros
perity of the country; and there is the
graver cause for alarm in the fact that it
seems to startle no one. All know that
such O revel of the wreckers must bring
a certain and fearful reckoning, and
that the wilder the reyel, the
speedier and more overwhelming
must be the revulsion. Since the
revival in legitimate industry and
trade, our great money centres seem to
have welcomed the reckless gambler
rather than aid the gradual and enduring
prosperity that can come only from
actual values, actual capital and actual
profits. Our stock boards in the leading
cities have become mRlstroms in which
luckless speculative ventures are engulf.
ed daily, and fancy stocks of every shade,
from the utterly valueless to those of
dimly prospective worth, have been in.
fated to double, treble and quadruple
the price they could command on a
healthy market Reliable and reasona-
bly, certain dividend paying shares like
the Pennsylvania and the Lehigh Valley,
rate at about their trinsic value
They are uninviting feasts for
wreckers to revel in, and they are
allowed to s and upon their merits; but
there are hundreds of thousands of
shares sold every day in New York and
Philadelphia, which are not intrinsically
worth as many cents as they command
dollars on the market, and every dealer
possessing the faintest ray of common
sense knows the fraud the vreckers are
playing upon the public. The end will
come at no distant day; it will come only
the sooner if the present hood-tide shall
continue; and when it does come, who
will be able to stand before the destruc-
tive returning ebb?
Jay Gould, VIM. III. Vanderbilt and
their associates in the grand revel of the
wreckers of New York, watered the
stock of two corporations not less than
thirty millions on Wednesday last, and
the multitude move on without so much
ers are inviting. They wrecked Western
Union down to 70; bought it as they
were wrecking it; united the Western
Union with its competing lines by
stroke of the pen; put the stock up from
70 to 1923; wateTed it and its consolidated
companies some twenty millions; pocket
ed the profits and now expect the bust
ness and progress Of the country to
submit TO exorbitant taxation on tele-
graphy TO pay the wreckers for stealing
twenty millions and wrecking innocent
dupes out of millions more. But the
reckless theft of twenty millions from the
legitimate business of the country did not
content the chief wreckers tor one day,
and they renewed their revel in the
Union Pacific Railway. They have al
ready filched tens OF millions from the
government. and extorted other tens of
millions from the trans continental trade,
but time and tide favor another ten mil
lion stimulsnt, and the capital stock
of the company is increased ten mil
lions by a dash of the wreckers'
pen. 1t goes pro rata to the holders;
the wreckers are the present hold.
ers, and they not ouly take the new
watered stock at par, with probably no
actual investment, but their old stock at
once bounded up from 119 to 124, giving
them profit Of five per cent, on fifty
millions and twenty four per cent. on
ten millions. They assume that on the
present tide of speculative insanity the
more they water stocks and the more
improbable they make future dividends,
the more their shares will command on
the market, and when the market will
respond TO their thtOry, why should
they not revel as huge wreckers only can
revel in other mems money
1t was believed a year or more ago
that the speculative fever had run its
course; that in the collapse and years of
distress which followed, it was eradi-
Gated from our business system, and that
the recovery would restore the country
to substantial and lasting prosperity but
as soon as legitimate business and trade
revived, the fever was renewed, and it is
now tossing business in the violent
throes of delirium. It is great harvest
for the Vanderbilts and Goulds, who
furnish the stimulants to give the sem
blance of health and yigor, while they
wreck the whole anatomy and
vitals of trade; but when the
revel of the wreckers shall be
halted, and business and values shall
obey the memorable laws which make all
things reach their level, who shall
answer in the reckoning? 1t will not be
the Vanderbilts, the GOulds and their as.
sociate wreckers. When the revel shall
chill upon them, its first warning breath
will make them flee from the long en-
joyed feast; leave the simpletons who
danced about in their shadows to meet
the retributive stroke, while they gamble
in the wrecks they have strewn in the
wreckers' path.
Is it not time that the legitimate bust
ness interests of the country should take
some note of the revel of the wreckers
in our midsti They who take note and
heed in season will be safe; they who
dance as the wreckers revel, are simple
partners in the dance of death!
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