St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-03-18
THE SCHEMER IN WALL STREET
The Latter the Mecca of Every
rian in Search Of Money. :.
The SPRING CROP OF SCHEMES VERY LARGE
The Promoter and the Capitalist From
Whom zye Seeks Aid-TIse Man with
q Silver Mine No Longer in Evil
dence, but Gold Properties
are Still In Demand.

Selfcn or money. He comes to the metropolis
armed with documents of various sorts and
beseges the banking houses and the brokers
for hearing. Perhaps the scnemer has a
patent that he wants to sell or have a COM
pany organized to push the sale of the
patented article. More likely he has the
bonds of Il Western or Southern electric
light, water or street car company that he
wishes floated. In many cases he has an
industrial enterprise of great worth, as he
phrases it, which he wants capitalized for
snug figure and disposed to the gullible
public. In more cases, perhaps, it is a mine
of some sort with which he desires to dazzle
the world.
Just noW the street is over1un with schemes.
The crop is unusually large. The reason TO!
the present enormous supply OF projects i.
simple. During the panic nobody would listen
to scheme, no matter what it was. In the
homely vocabulary of the banking fraternity,
gold dollars couldn't be sold for ninety cents
last Summer and Fall. Before the panic set
in, and for several years previous, schemes
had been in some demand. Many of them
had been successfully negotiated. Industrial
establishments OF real merit were put on the
market, or rather the stock of such. concerns
was, and they found ready sale. The public
bought the preferred shares of well-known
business houses and where the dividends
have been regularly and promptly paid, thers
is still demand for the stock. These sue.
cesses encouraged the schemer and he began
unloading all his ventures. Then came the
panic and everything stopped. The embryo
scheme, the partially developed project and
tha f,1lI cI,o
Half dozen banking houses and score os
brokers We're just preparing to issue enter.
prises to the public when the financial cy.
clone struck the country and blew the street
clear off its feet.
For the past two months, Wall street has
been improving. 1t hasn't regained it's nors
NAL health yet, but it is recovering Liks
most convalescents, it is beginning to resume
interest in former matters. It is looking
around to see what was left from the wreck
that is worth saving. 1t may be said that
species of financial salvage is in progress in
certain directions. OF course, the schemer
has eagerly watched the recuperative process
on the part of the great money patient Thu
moment he saw signs of reawakened interest,
he trotted out his old scheme and resumed
his former occupation. Brother promoters
saw the scheme of their colleague on its
rounds, and fearful lest they might lose an
opportunity to dispose of their wares, they
took their projects from the shelves, busted
them off, polished them up, and tucking them
under their arms undertook q new Pilgrim
age. The pilgrim promoter is once more
jostling you on the street and again, as Of
yore, is haunting the banker and sitting
patiently but persistently at the door of the
capitalist. From early morn until the clock
strikes six, the schemer tramps around
with assorted specimens of all that the finan-
cial world ever contemplated, and with a.
startling array of relics. just @ few thou
sands here and q few thousands there will
infuse life into these defunct projects, ac-
cording to the statements OF their promoters,
and it only requires the trump of the Angel
Gabriel of Finance to sound, and at once
there will be such resurrection of fortune
making enterprises as the nation never wit
messed.
There is one sort of scheme, however, that
has failed TO resume its familiar round. Tbs
man with silver mine has disappeared.
Perhaps it would be more just to say that the
scheme has vanished, while its old spokes-
man is on the ancient path with a gold
property. Silver mines cannot be given away
in New York at the present time. The thous-
aIds of investors, who nibbled at silver shares
in the days when the grayish metal showed d
profit, are anxiously inquiring whether the
mine that took their money isn't showing
traces of gold or lead, or anything except
silver. The average SPECTATOR would no
more gamble in a silver mine now, with silver
selling lower than ever, than he would invest
in farm in order to raise wheat, when the
latter commodity has touched the lowest
price on record. However unfortunate this
may be, it is the truth and when d certain
class of schemes is dead in Wall Street. there
is no one even humane enough to give it a
halfway decent burial.
! But it is different with gold mines They
J are on the flood. A really meritorious mine
finds ready market in New York, and per-
haps still more ready market in London.
The trouble is that the itinerant schemer
brings few properties to the street that are in
saieable shape. He has claims, or alleged
claims, few of which have been vouched for and
still fewer developed. The man that can come
to Wall Street with good property that is
yielding handsomely, has paid dividends, has
plenty of ore in sight, and is equipped with
good machinery and the title to which is per-
feet and free from complications, need not
hunt long for q purchaser. Wall Street boards
gold in the shape of currency, but seeks gold
in the ground which can be sold to the mint
and speedily converted into coin. There ara
several syndicates looking for such invest
ments. Ha9gn, the old California pioneer
and millionaire, is buying gold mines as they
come along, in conjunction with Senator
Jones of Nevada. Darius 0. Mills is said to
corner paying gold mines. David H. Moffett,
the Colorado railroad magnate, spends his
time largely in New York buying and selling
this kind of property. Stephen ". Dorsey
works with Moffett. Dorsey is a clever ne
gotiator of mining enterprises, and is credited
with making big sale recently to English
parties. There are half dozen small bank
ing houses that are making speciality in this
direction.
Outside of gold properties, the schemer
has not much chance of success as yet.
There is capital again on tap for indus
trial plants, but most of it is engaged already
in some enterprise that was in shape before
the panic, and is only awaiting clearer skies
and milder breezes in order to float the craft
on the subsiding sea- Many a banker came
near bankruptcy last year because Of the cash
required to keep in form good business
that but for the storm would have been is
sued to the public months ago, and turned in
handsome profit to the issue house. The
street is full of schemes simply because tho
supply is SO large, and the needs SO pressing
that they must be turned loose no matter
what the sacrifice.