The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-08-20
American Securities Being Put
on the Market by Euro
pean Capitalists.
IT'S EFFECT ON RAILROADS.
Much. Needed Extensions and Improve.
ments Must Be Delayed for
the Present

American securities of ali kinds are
practically unmarketable in the great
money and financial centers of the world,
owing to the agitation In favor of the free
coinage of silver that has been in progress
in the United States for several years and
which resulted in the adoption of free
silver platform by the Democratic Ma
tional Convention and the nomination of
w. J. Bryan on that platform.
This is the substance of a statement
made yesterday by Colonel Charles f.
Crocker, who just returned to San Fran
cisco after three months absence, spent
on the Continent, in London and in New
York, partly on pleasure, partly on bust
ness.
Mr. Crocker's three children, Mary,
Templeton and Jennie, had been attend
ing school in Paris in order to receive
tuition in French. and one of the objects
of the Colonel's journey was to bring
them home. Mrs. Eastman, the grand
mother of the children, who had the care
of them while they attended the Paris
school, also returned with Mr.. Croker.
The French course OF tuition was COM
pleted by the three children, and in Sep
TENDER, Mary, the eldest, who is Is years
OF age, will 60 East to finish her education
In speaking of his trip Mr.. Croker
said:
81 went to France to get the children,
who had been in school there two years,
and while waiting for the schools to close
l made the tour of Northern Europe trav-
cling through Scandinavia and the Meth
erlands. Then | spent two weeks in Lon
don and one week in New York.
Everywhere i'll this country | noticed
a general suspension of business owing to
the agitation of the silver question, and
in Europe there are no investments being
made in American securities. We cannot
sell any OF our securities here, in New York,
in London or in Europe. We find evil
dences of American securities in general
being put upon the market and all such
investments being Withdrawn from this
country.
THE indisposition of the European
capitalist 10 invest In any kind of securi-
ties offered by Americans, or those inter
ested in American enterprises, has pre-
vented the sale of long line of our bonds
that would have insured the construction
of projected lines and the com pletion OF
the coast line long ago. But we cannot
build railroads if we do not sell bonds,
and the market will not absorb our bonds
or the bonds OF any other American rail-
road or enterprise. That is what forced
the Atehlson, Topeka and Santa Fe, the
Northern Pacific and the Union Pacific
railroads into tie hands of receivers.
I'VE cannot continue TO invest money
in the construction of new lines unless we
sell bonds, and this uncertainty and the
proba bility of the interest as we'll as the
principal of bonds being paid in 53-cent
dollars prevents people here and abroad
from investing III them.
Now, do not want to be understood as
saying that the adoption of silver plat
form ami the nomination OF Bryan on
that platform by the Democrats is the
cause of this tImidity on the part of the
capitalists, for that would not be correct
it is this agitation in reference TO silver
which has been going on for several years,
and which has produced an uncertainty
in the financial situation OF the United
States.
1.-The class OF people with whom we deal
in borrowing money has never thought
that the American people seriously con-
tenn plated the reputation of contracts
payable in gold, SO as to take advantage
of the difference between the value of the
gold and the silver dollar in the marker.
But they are now made to feel that this
is possible by the com bination of the
Democrats and Populist parties for Bryan