The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1883-01-10
KEENE.
He Predicts Serious Times for
the COHntFy.


ing as the result of an interview
with James r. Keene. Referring
to the near financial future, Keene
said: 1--WE have everything marked
up too high. The capacity of the
country to produce and manufac-
ture is altogether beyond its capac-
ity to sell. Unless l am greatly
mistaken the hard hand of necessity
will shake the water out of some of
these bubbles, and when they begin
to shrink some of them will burst"
l was a bull until the spring of 81,
when l found my views in an oppo-
site direction, but had nothing like
the amount of information / now
possess to confirm them. Look over
this cityiand you will find hardly
any merchants, manufacturers or
commission merchants making any
thing. Go around these New York
hotels and enquire as to their per-
centages as compared with two
years ago; they will tell they are not
making money as they were and
that the consumer and visitor are
retrenching. Go in store just now,
after the holidays, and see now
many tell you they had prosperous
customers. Mercantile establish
ments in this city and throughout
the country are crammed with
goods. Factories cannot dispose of
what they make, nor merchants of
what they hold. Gointo Wall street
among the 1,1e0 brokers there and
ask how many Of them are making
any money. Stocks are kept up to
their visionary Yaluesiby manipula-
ton. Iron mills are shutting down,
all scheming is without its reward !;
no more money can be borrowed in
this market for new enterprises and
with difficulty can money be OBJ
tanned for the most rational of those
long under way and not
yet completed. The supply Of
money has practically ceased.
| From Europe the indications are
too plain not to be interpreted that
we are standing on an unsound
foundation. l believe we are stand
ing on a hollow abyss. | base this
upon the expansion of every enter
Prise, with few exceptions, that i
can put my hand on. There are
about $4,000, 100000 worth Of securi-
ties listed on the stock exchange +;
of these, only about $7,000,000,0 700
pay dividends, high or low. When
you select individual corporations,
you can see where that $4,000, 000,-
900 has come from. Take the Mil
Waukee and St. Paul Railroad for
example: between two and three
years ago it had about 1,7G0 miles
of road, $4O,000,000 of bonds, $12,-
100000 of preferred stocks, and
| $50, 100000 of common stock. Now
| the increase in all these elements is
appalling. Other roads in the
northwest are the same. A small
crop would make almost a panic
and the country would not recover
| in FIVE years. We have been won
derfully blessed lately. Europe has
had short crops; we had
large ones. He believed that
| the stories that Vanderbilt had been
selling heavy n. Y. Central, Van.
deIbilt is able, sagacious, and is
getting out as fast as is safe, and
shows his wisdom in holding large
amounts of low interest govern.
ments. He pays a high compli-
ment to the Pennsylvania and Ill
inois Central management. New
England has done less eXtraVagant
work than any other part of the
country, New Jersey is quoted at
10 and isn't worth SIS share. We
Z ought to have the cheapest coal in
!; the world, considering the amounts
81 It. We have competing lines OF
;. transportation to bring it away from
! the mines and it is accessible, as
long as coal is, high it is vain to talk
about undertaking England il
manufacturers. l regard higI
tariff and the coal pool as two o
the greatest foes of. business seeu
rity of the United States. We art
: living under an extremely falls,
7 system when nothing is left tt
5 competition and everything is ad
y iusted with artificial scales of tarif
on one side and the coal pool on tn,
:, other. With cheap coal these thou
| SduQS VI lul1lo COuIL~ NC Olll ftG a VOL
great reduction and that woulC
J come out of the price of the pro
: duct and give us some chance tie un
5 dersell somebody, whereas in fact
= we undersell nobody, the effect o
3 a high tariff in the United States
; to cause manufactures to start u
= everywhere, and at one moment tn
!, market is all gorged with goods an
70 the next season the price of thos
manufactures which amount t
necessaries are so great that labC
has to ask more wages. Coal an
! labor are intimately connected
" The modern laborer has a gres
z many little luxuries to purchas
~ which are the product of manufa
y, - lures. If these things were chea
10 he could afford to take less wage
=, The reason he is constantly pressin
= for more wages is because he cal
=, not meet the demands of the mo,
% ern household under the artifici
VI standard of prices. Between tt
a watering of stocks and the expa
~ sive bonds of railroads and the e
Z" actions of the tariff, we have b
come the most expensive COUNT
for living on the globe. Out of 81
100000 of people in the Unit
er States, 100000 are engaged
as agriculture. These 100000 ha
or IN he taxed tn support the arSifici