The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-01-26
A MIGHTY BOOM
Has Been Sweeping Over Wall
Street.
Adding Colossal Fortunes to the
Enormous Piles
OF THE MILLIONAIRES
John d. Rockefeller Made
$3O,OOO,OOO.
The Vanderbilts Raked in $780,
100000 Each.

New York, Jan.26.-The New York
Journal says:
In the last six months fortunes aggre-
eating $615, 693, 591 have been made in
Wall street. The total increase IN val
uations of all the stocks and bonds
listed on the stock exchange aggregate
that enormous sum.
1t represents in money nearly three
times that of all the gold dug out of the
earth for a. year. The total gold output
of all the gold producing countries in
the world for 1897 was $237, 5O4, 800. The
increase in value of only a small group
twenty three in numbered the most
active stocks alone was well on toward
double this amount.
The history of Wall street, of the
world in fact, has nothing to equal this
prodigious piling up of fortunes. The
Ell Dorado days of California in 40, the
rioting IN wealth which followed the
opening up of the Australian and Afri-
can gold fields, the Klondike, the South
African diamond mines-al these rolled
into one have nothing to parallel the
deluge of wealth which poured down
upon that one little corner of New York
known as the ''Wall street region"
And 1t is not merely the CroeSuSeS
who have profited. Dozens and dozens
of little fellows" have darted into the
tumultuouS torrent of speculation and
QarIGQ out again, nuSS1nS TO Ine1r
breasts fortunes ranging from tens to
hundreds of thousands. The bigger
plungers brought up millions. The Croe-
suses, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts,
the Sages, have landed millions that
are counted up anywhere from the tens
to the thirties.
FEVER OF SPECULATION.
The fever of speculation has seized
upon everybody. Office boys, district
messengers, janitors and cabmen are
affected by it, and in one way or an
other, either directly or indirectly, are
profiting by 1t. The contrast between
Wall street of the dismal DAYS of 1898
"a and Wall street now is all but in
conceivable to one who has not actually
witnessed it. Then all was depression.
Brokers, lowering near the ragged edge
of SeedinesS, fitted gloomily about, eat
ing cheerless luncheons from the high
stools of dairy kitchens. Champagne
thirstS were quenched with beer. Mes
| senger boys got and 10 cent tips, and
few enough of them. The very cab
horses in the streets hung their heads
disconsolately and were lean, slat-ribbed
| in ragged isolation on their boxes or
gathered in forenoon groups and talked
| of the better days that had gone.
But what a difference nowl The cab
| horses are sleek and shiny, the sunlight
| glitters on the bright metal of their new
| harness. Cabmen erect and alert in
| smart liveries dash here and there with
fares" who give them dollars where
| they were glad to get 50-cent pieces.
! Messenger boys scorn a, tip that is not
a bill. Champagne bottles are popping
as late as 10 and IL o'clock at night in
restaurants which only a short time
! ago closed their doors at and p. m.
| Canvasback duck and terrapin have
| supplemented pork and beans. The very
waiter girls in dairy kitchens are wear
| ing diamonds. Office boys respond with
| the languid hauteur of wealth. Even
| Russell Sage has caught the infection,
| and recklessIy buys bananas at three
Onf1fC i'm nf 1iralll Xy
| hunting out the brown spotted ones at
a cent apiece. About Christmas time,
! at the flood tide of the upward boom,
| he bloSsomed out in a brand new Fe-
| dora hat at $1.75, reduced from 81 go
He then had made $4,000, 900 and had
| caught the infectious prodigality that
90 - BEGAN IN AUGUST.
1t was early in August that the first
big, pattering drops of this downpour of
| wealth began falling. The wise men Of
the street had seen it coming and had
wisely prepared for it many months be-
fore. Some of them began as far back
as the morning after the Maine blew
up. There had long been no real rea-
son for the stagnation that existed. Our
exports were enormous. They overtop-
ped our imports by prodigious figures.
England was sending US millions upon
millions of gold, born of the panic of
1898, which kept capital in the back
ground and barred the way to new en-
terprises.
This state of affairs could not con-
tinue forever The pressure of the re-
every day. 1t only needed some slight
jar to fling the f1oodgates wide open
and let loose the long pent-up torrent of
American energetic set the wheels
spinning and furnaces roaring as they
never had before.
The jar came when the dynamite
| blast tore out the side of the Maine in
Havana harbor. That meant war, and
war with Spain meant a speedy victory,
and after the speedy victory the deluge.
MIR. FLOWER WAS IN THE VAN.
Thus the wise men of Wall street rea-
soned. Roswell P. Flower was in the
advance guard of these sagacious ones.
American to the backbone, honest, a
| bulldog in his convictions, filed with
rugged earnestnesS of purpose and with
| a faith unbounded of the ultimate des-
| tiny of everything which bars Ameri-
can progress to be crushed and swept
| away, he began laying plans for the
operations which have made him with
| in the past few months the most robust
| picturesque figure the street has known
| for years. Things hung in the wind for
| a time. The uncertainty of war was
| talked about. The eager flood was held
| stayed back. Mr.. Flower and a few
more were not of this class. They were
| busily gathering at low figures all the
] good things that were in sight.
And then in the first week in August
I the premonitory warnings were seen
| in the street. The mysterious some
| thing which gets news from Washing
| ton to Wall street got in it's work. 1t
was known that peace was in the air
| For ten days a grand bull pool, with
| Mr. Flower at its head, was hard at
| work. The Rockefellers, ]. p. Morgan,
August Belmont, Croker, John D Grim
minis, William F. Sheehan. Hugh ].
! Grant, John w. Gates and Judge Gary
/ both of Chica go, Jimmy Martin