Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1899-03-05


history of this country were
so many changes in the
ownership of manufacturing plants in
consideration or in process of actual
accomplishment, and SO large are the
interests involved and so rapidly has
one gigantic conception followed upon
another that it requires special stud
ent of the subject to keep at all near
posted as to the exact situation from
day to day. The long established and
successful manufacturing plant of to-
day, which has made money. for its
stockholders and aided in building up
the community in which it is located
through the employment of labor and
the purchase of materials, is to-mor-
row a factor in some great combina-
ton, controlled, perhaps from an office
a thousand miles away, and as likely
to be shut down as to continue run
ming. The local management has been
lost, and with it goes not only local
interest, and local pride and loyalty,
to very considerable extent, but
there is lost that community of feel
ing which always exists where indi-
vidual manufacturing concerns are
owned and controlled by citizens OF
the town where located, and
in its stead there is in
terjected into the situation a new
life as different from the old as that
trite contrast between day and night,
and an uncertainty as to future ac-
lions which is too often realized in a
manner the reverse of profitable for
the city or town affected.
Wheeling has, to very considera-
BILE extent, felt the impulse of the eX-
listing craze for consolidating every
thing from collins to chemicals and
pretzels to pig iron production. There
has been, or is imminent, a shifting
of interests in local and nearby plants
unparalleled in our history, and it
WOulu tdhc SCNSldl SHCClo vi PopCl
and some time to figure out to-day
who are the stockholders in our larg-
est enterprises, and some addition eff
fort to arrive at safe judgment as
to what conditions will exist to-mor-
row. The consolidation craze is in the
air of the entire country, and the
disease will have to run its course,
like the mumps and measles. What
the end will be, is past guessing, but
guess by no means bad is that the
future will not be profitable to those
now recklessly, putting millions into
this and that combination.
The Registers industrial reporter
talked yesterday with an old and care
full business man upon the passion of
the hour, and among other things he
said
II have money to invest; but excuse
me from investing it in the combina-
tons now being formed by professional
promoters, who reap very substantial
and immediate reward for their efforts
along the line of consolidation. That
these gigantic enterprises will pay those
interested under the new dispensation,
is impossible. 1t is the old story of the
foolish freaks of idle capital, which has
brought so many wrecked fortunes and
so much sorrow to thousands of capt.
talists in England. This promotion
and consolidation idea is imported from
England, but the two have been COM
bined in this country under slightly
different system. There were many
English combinations, but nothing like
what we are experiencing here. Pro-
motion of plausible corporations with
high-sounding titles and prospectuses
and ostensibly backed by noble names,
purchased for consideration, was the
English speciality; consolidation was
but a side issue. Here our Schemers
have broadened out the consolidation
idea, combined the two into a gigantic
power, and are welding it to an extent
which, l am convinced, will result in
some sudden and startling shifting of
fortunes before many years are past
In England for years you could pro-
mote any old thing. All you needed
was money enough to print three
ringed circus prospectus, a quantity OF
stocE-it don't matter how much-some
bonds in green and gold, get some big
men to allow the use of their names as
bats, open an Office and ask for sub
scriptions. The chances were that the
stock would be subscribed half dozen
times over, and you picked out the best
or made an allotment, gathered in the
money, made a more or less extended
bluff at doing something, and then the
company failed, and the trap was reset
under another name. Hundreds OF
millions of English pounds have gone
into this sort of thing in ten years,
and will never be seen by the original
owners again. Disclosures OF crooked
ness have nearly blocked the game In
London, but here the class of promo
tiers have found virgin territory and
wide field The result is the existing
craze for consolidation, and the rapid
changes in the ownership OF our indus
tries of which every day affords us some
new glimpse. Some OF these days,
there will come an end, and there will
be a crash which will far eclipse all
previous industrial earthquakes. In
every instance with which l am at all
familiar, the new companies have been
organized upon a fictitious value. Stock
of old concerns, reasonably prosperous
upon a par valuation, has been sold at
two and three or more for each dollar
originally invested. Under such cir
rumstances. how can there be adequate