The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-07-16
The End of the Hard Time Period.
(San Francisco Bulletin.)

san francisco Bulletin.
In the latter part of every period of de-
preston, the less sanguine part of the
people make up their minds that business
has settled into normal conditions and
henceforth will present small fuctua-
tions. The opportunities of the past never
will return. Causes will be assigned
why the flush times of former period
never can be revived With sigh of
regret people reach the conclusion that
they were born just generation late.
No man or woman doubts that if he or
she had been in California in the f1fties,
an Independent fortune would have been
as certain as life.
Some of the tables presented Mr.. John
j. Valentine in "The Bulletin" for Mon
day evening suggest that the day for large
profits Is not past, never to return. One
OF these tables is list of thirteen rail-
roads, the market value of whose stock in
1881 is compared with its market value in
June, 1897. These are all solid proper ties,
whose market value has been reduced
only through an impairment in their
earning capacity. They are not roads
that were not wanted, built as an adjunct
to land speculation, but roads that I'M
der ordinary business conditions would
earn good interest on their market value.
The New York Central, which has the
choice location in the United States, has
dropped from $147 per share to 500. The
Baltimore and Ohio, whose dividends
twenty years ago were considered rather
more certain than interest on United
States bonds, has fallen from par to $40
II. IL L
from $l13 to ST. These are but three of
a list of thirteen. The roads are now be-
ing operated and the country through
which they pass is as fertile as ever. The
population upon whose earnings the COM
panies depend for business has increased
in number, and their wants are not less
now than in the period of their greatest
prosperity. Some diminution in the earn
ing capacity of the people has deprived
ing expenses which in better times had
been divided among stoc kholders.
Now, with the same material to work
upon, the same amount of land and more
people, it is not possible that revival Of
business will not follow. The spokes in
the wheel of industry now point down.
ward but the perpendicular is clearly
passed. There is already an actual re-
vival in business. The thirteen railroads
whose condition Is referred to only as an
illustration of general conditions will feel
the impulse Of better times. No real
property has disappeared. The only ele-
ment of loss is the estimated value which
depends upon the current capacity of the
roads to earn money. A little improve
ment in general business will appear in
market quotations. A recovery Of 10 per
cent adds millions and hundreds of mil
lions to property in the hands of the peo-
pie. While 1t is measurably true that
people do not know when times are good.
they are keenly alive to the fact of hard
times. 1t is only four years since the
present depression set in, but good many
people have concluded that it would
never end. 1t is as certain to end, how
ever, as all previous depressions have
been certain to end. AS the country
seemed to lose thousands of millions of
dollars through reported depreciation
of values so will 1t gain through the i'm
perceptible recovery of values when the
spokes in the wheel of prosperity begin to
point upward.