New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-06-30
WALL STREET lGNOSTICS

The West Is right and Wall Street is WRONG
about one thing. At this great financial centre
there is not enough of that grand faith IN thu
| growth, prosperity and destiny OF this country
| which makes Western men of intelligence and
practical knowledge so daring in enterprise
Wall Street does not understand that this Ma
ton has achieved it's independence. The Street
has too many men who are strangers and So
iourners in America who have not got over
worshipping foreign ideas and institutions, who
have never taken square look at the country
with its millions Of square miles and its noun
tains of ore, who despise American currency and
detest an American tariff. All their notions OF
the tariff are imported duty free from Paris or
Berlin, and the ideas of the proper policy for
the Treasury are about large enough to rattle
around in Lombard Street. Larger men there
are, to be sure, who know and love America.
But Wall Street opinion Is likely to be dis
torted by the multitude who visit Newly
for business as man stops at hotel.
For instance, Wall Street had cold SILVER
when gold exports began in February and an
other when stocks began to return, and another
when Russia and the Rothschilds wanted more
gold. But Western business men have gone
ahead with their buying and their manufactur-
ing, in firm faith that the next good crop would
count for more than all the gold Europe could
take away How many Wall Street men be-
lieved in March that S7O,0O0000 gold could
90 out of the country before July without
panic or drop of 1 per cent in stocksP 1t is
a large country, this and has enormous reserve
power and the men who comprehend it best
are those who realize how much 1t has done
and is now doing to achieve, not financial and
industrial independence, which Protection has
already given but financial and industrial SUI
premacy. Europe will have to send hither for
bread, meat, oil and cotton this year and every
year. The Old World can jog along comfort
ably with its small yearly gain in population
and wealth, when everything goes well, but let
bad season come as In 1879 and 1880 and
suddenly Europe has to send this country
hundred millions of gold in year, and then
two million sturdy workers in three years in
order to relieve it's depressed industries and
then mcounted millions of capital every year
thereafter because more foreign investors have
discovered where things grow fast, and money
also. Each season of setback for European
finances and industries increases the dependence
of the rest of the world upon America. Each
new railroad that America builds, each new
mine opened, each new wonder Of a city that
springs up, calls hither more Of European en-
ergy industry and capital. The tariff enacted
last year has plucled up by the roots great in
dustral works already and transported them to
America. It's record of victories Is hardly be-
gun as yet, but Brazil and Austria, Spain, Cuba
and Great Britain feel its influence.
"What is the matter with Wall Street now ?"
asked a shrewd and successful business man
" am doing more business than ever before in
my life, but the big wheat crop out West will
expand it for me- | don't know how much"
Last year it was the South that marketed the
greatest cotton crop ever grown by million
bales, and yet the same year the iron mines
and works turned out for the first time more
iron than Great Britain ever produced. The |
industries do not all spring forward at once, but
they all take their turn, as Mr. Gladstone said, |
advancing with great leaps and bounds and
they never lose in subsequent depression all |
their latest gains. Is Wall Street afraid that |
Europe will have no more money to invest in |
such country?