Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1899-12-07

After an uninterrupted business career
of eighty two years, the publishing house
of Harper & Brothers, New York. has
acknowledged its inability TO meet its
obligations, and has surrendered the
business to its creditors. The liabilities
are SS,500,OO0 to J p Morgan & Co,
secured By mortgage, and $1,000 600 I'M
secured. The assets exceed the liabilities,
yet are of such a character as to be I'M
availing.
Commenting on this failure the True
american says =
The passage of the house of Harper &
Brothers into the hands of what is tanta-
mount to a receiver, is national calamity,
because it marks with lines of great force
the decadence of what was the solid, sub
stantisl prosperity of the country, before
the destructive advance of mo1ern specu-
lation.
The great prosperity which is supposed
to be swearing over tins country and
enriching the iron masters aud the rail-
: roads-tbe prosperity which enables the
holders of public franchises to double their
stocks and bonds and unload them on a
speculative pHblic-the prosperity which
combines dealers in neeessaries and en-
ables them TO earn dividends on their
watered and fatulent values, out of an
unresisting public the prosperity which
enables the amassing OF great fortunes by
beneficiaries of a protective tariff-an
seems to have passed by the Harpers,
except such of it as caught them in the
swirl of its current and has dashed them,
broken and wrecked, on the shore.
And yet there is no single institution 10
this country which has done more to en-
Tighten the American people; to familiar
Ize them with the highest types Of art to
educate the young people In the arts of
literature and Illustration or to set before
the literary world of Europe a higher
example of our capabilities in these arts
than the Harpers.
Failing today, as they do for the lack of
current funds, they hsvein their possession
assets far beyond their liabiIitiss-asse
which are represented by copyrights, by
stereOtyped editions of valuable works, by
a magnificent plant fitted in every detail
for the best work in all branches of their
great business.
Such business as this required for its
conduct a great capital, and enormous
credit, and to be prohtsbly conduct needed
every advantage TO be found in the puI-
chase in a competitive market. So that
when the paper dealers and the type
makers formed their trusts, and when the
protective tariff ineTsased the cost of all
their materials; and the Federal and
State and city governments piled on their
taxes; and the trusts and combines
swallowed up all the floating capital which
had sustained a thousand enterprises
there was nothing else for the Harpers to
do but to confess their failure to ft this
great, substantial and praisworthy enter
prise to the conditions of modern business.
The receiver hopes to succeed much
better than they did, and it is claimed
has already made economies equal to
100000 a year in the management OF
the business Ii is not stated at the
expense of whose flesh aud blood these
economies are made, or at what cost in
the quality of their output. But the
inference is natural one that while the
body of Harpers may be saved for it's
creditors, the soul which led the way in
every enterprise, which fostered and
created a community of writers and artists;
which fixed in everlasting characters the
best thoughts of the brightest minds of the
world, and which established the literary
reputation OF our own country, has been
extinguished aud absorbed by that modern
prosperity which is enriehing another few
at the Expense of another many.