Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-08-10
REGAINING LOST WEALTH
II ~ II q = a-.e-fs g. 4 II
Result Of the Late Rise in Values Of Secu-
rites.
The Figures Which Show the Gains
Are Almost Appalling I'm
d - ~
Their Magnitude.

~ L. correspondent
Last weeks experience indicates that
this country is rapidly regaining the
wealth which was lost by reason of the
apprehensions and real conditions which
were caused by the election, and, In con-
siderable measure, by the administration
of Mr.. Cleveland.
No one now pretends to say that the vast
appreciation in the prices of all securities
dealt in upon the exchange and of the
prices of our breadstunfs Is due to the in
fiuence of specializing capitalists. If specu-
lation has taken places. as is reported to
have been the case in st. Louis, it is of a
legitimate kind. since the spectators are
not creating the market and utilizing their
creation to their own profit
They have been buying wheat and finan-
cial securities because they have seen the
Irresistible tendency which began to be
perceptible as soon as it was apparent that
the Senate would pass the Dingley tariff
bill.
The figures representing the transactions
both in wheat and in securities since the
day the D:ngley law went upon the statute
DOCKS are unprecedented In their magni-
tude They represent volume of trans
actions which in detail are almost impossi-
BILE for the human mind to conceive.
The figures approach the grandeur and
enormity OF those which are employed in
describing the laws and movements of the
celestial bodies.
An idea of the enormity of them can only
be suggested by comparisons, as, for in
stance: The transactions in wheat de-
signed for export for two days last week
were so great that if this wheat were
turned into flour and then made into bread
1t would give six leaves of bread to every
one of the 70,O00,0OO inhabitants of the
United States
Then, too, last week upon our own ex-
change 2.so0,0oO shares of stock were
bought and $19,00O,O00 of bonds. and an
approximately like amount represents the
transactions upon the exchanges of the
week Immediately following the approval
OF the Dingley bill.
The purchase of nearly 100000 of rail-
Way>and industrial securities, and of near
ly $iO.OJ0,OO0 of-bonds since the passage of
the tariff law, suggests figures so enormous
that no one of the trusts syndicates nor
all of them acting in common purpose could
be charged reasonably with having power
to manipulate or force such transactions
Only the great body of investors that
considerable company of those who have
permitted their money to lie idle for the
past four years, and who now again have
faith in American properties could have so
acted as to make this stupendous record.
The feeling is that it is but the beginning
NO longer do the prophets, or those who
nave mad experience in other years, predict
that a great and disastrous reaction is sure
TO follow these advancing movements.
These men have been SO greatly con-
founded in their statements and predic-
tons during the past four to five weeks
that they are now certain that new and
controlling influences, making for a great
advancement of wealth and an unprece-
denied development of the resources Of the
nation are causing new conditions SO that
the situation today cannot be compared
with any which was characteristic of other
times when prices were advancing.
1t is even different from the condition
which followed the resumption of specie
payment in 1879. At least, the manifesto
lions of the coming of prosperity are in
many respects different from those which
accompanied the return of activity after
secretary Sherman announced that he was
ready to redeem all government obligations
in gold.
One of the conditions which is said to
be unprecedented is that in which the New
York clearing house last week found itself
The clearings for the first week of August
Were discovered to have been larger than
for any other week in the year 1897 with
two exceptions, and, If this is not unprece-
dented, as it probably is, it is so rare an ex-
perlence that none of the officers of the
clearing house recall it's occurrence in any
other year.
They say, also. that it is most remarka-
BILE, in thar 1t is a most unusual circum-
stance that for four weeks at time usual
1y characterized by the greatest dizziness of
the year, that of midsummer and the dog
star, the clearings have been greater each
week than for the week before and very
I-early reach the largest clearings for the
most active business month of the year
-Four weeks in July and the first week in
August the bank clearings exceeded $1,000
100000 week, and there can be no doubt
tual coming of prosperity, but the justifica-
ton OF the hope that with the passage of a
reasonable tariff law much of our business
disturbance and paralysis would pass away.