Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-09-19
Aanrdster f,ltelIgencer.
MONDAY EVENING, SEPT. 10, 1881.
An Inflated Stock

MONDAY EVENING. SEPT. 10. 1881.
An Inflated Stock.
The Western Union telegraph COM
pany, after having swallowed up other
telegraph companies innumerable, and
having just finished very big meal
of the latest and greatest addition to its
alliances, is once more confronted with a
rival company about being formed,
which is said to be the very biggest OF
all. Indeed its style is such and the
Western Unions present distention so
great that nobody can see how it is ever
going to manage to swallow the new con-
cern, be it ever SO willing. Consequently
everyone is looking to sea the Western
Union burst. But just yet there are no
signs of it apparent. Its market price
stands at about ninety, for some eighty
millions of capital, and the fact that all
its property and franchises can be
duplicated for about quarter of
this sum does not seem to affect the
value of the stock whit in the opinion
of its holders. The reason probably is
that they hold 80 much of it that they
dare not let it depreciate, though the
only other alternative they have is to
buy more at the quotations they sustain.
Jay Gould happens to be the man who is
loaded with the inflated stock. lie went
into little operation with Mr.. Wander
= bilt at the time Of the last big meal of
the company, i'm which Il great deal of
money was apparently made 10y the
schemers. Mr.. Vanderbilt secured his
share Of the booty by selling out to his
friend Gould, and the latter has been
awaiting a good opportunity ever since
to get his by unloading on the public.
But the times have not been propitious.
Stock values generally have been dis
turbed, and Western Union particularly
has been made heavy burden by the
organization of the great rival company
which probably has Vanderbilt among
its promoters, as well as Keene and other
capitalists who are not sorry to pounce
upon Mr.. Gould.
And while things are in this position
the New York Herald suddenly steps
in with an exposure of the manifestly
precariOus value of the Western Union
stock. 1t says nothing new, it is true,
and everyone who deals i'm stocks ought
to know all that it tells him.
But from the commotion that the
Herald makes by its assault it would
seem that the people who buy stocks are
supposed to know very little of the
values they are dealing in. Anyone of the
slightest intelligence, one would think,
would see that company so greatly
0verstocked as is the Western Union,
and which is threatened with a strong
rival, is not safe to buy into at anything
like present quotations. And Jay Gould
in relying upon the public to relieve him
of his load of the stock, certainly would
appear to exhibit very rash confidence
in their stupidity. But his successes
have been so great in acting upon
a confidence in the Stiffness of stock
operators that he may be eXcusable
for thinking that there is no limit ia
it. And if the Herald interference was
really necessary to save the lambs of the
stock market in this case, their natural
folly was not greatly Overestimated. AS
Mr.. Gould owns two of the daily news
papers of New York and uses them free
ly to sustain his schemes, lie cannot
complain of the Herald that it takes a
hand i'm the game though it is SO un.
usual for it to interfere with Wall street
bubbles that its present attitude eXcites
comment. Some people say that the
Herald owner is prompted in debating
its course by Mr.. GOuld's motives and is
pecuniarily interested in depressing the
Western Union stock.
But the reputation of the Herald and
of Mr.. Bennett gainsay this judgment
whatever his faults he has never been
known as stock gambler, and his paper
has not been welded for any such base
use. As his personal organ it now and
then gets into very undignified and un.
worthy positions; but as it has provided
its owner with all the money he wanted
to spend, he has never been in a pecu-
mary scrape which required the debase-
ment of his great newspaper for his ex.
trication. Whatever the motive which
inspires the Herald in its Exposure of the
Western Union bubble, its denunciatiOn
is in the public interest. If the press
would use its power to expose all such
rotten concerns, the occupation of the
country's great and respectable thieves
would not be so richly rewarded.
THE New York Times, The leading
Republican newspaper Of the country,
deserves great credit for the searching
ond narsisf ent manner in which IL con-