Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-12-30

NItll NIL. IAOSclS ltluIIGu " INC"
York he was full of his scheme for con-
solidating the Butte properties. and he, in
turn. interested the ROckefellerS, James
Stillman of the National City bank, j..
Pierpont Morgan. as represented through
Robert Bacon, his partner: r. p. Olcutt
of the Central Trust company, and form
or Gov. Roswell p. Flower.
No more important interests could be
gathered in the country and the rumor
soon got abroad that a combination was
forming to gather in all the copper
properties of the country, and that the
charter of the Bay State Gas company
was to be used to effect the consolidation,
Whereupon this ghostly concern, which
owns nothing but a charter, became an
active feature of stock speculation, and
advanced to 10. 1t is now selling at
about l..
The company has no use for the Bay
state charter, and proceeded with it's
organization under the liberal laws of
New Jersey. At the same time the pro-
moter continually worked to obtain con-
troll of all floating Anaconda stock held
III London, and made overtures to the
owners of Butte properties to purchase
outright.
In this he has failed, and. in fact, one
does not much wonder at the failure in
- VI lax nv " llulllbtI VI lAt SullS.
Mr.. Heinze, of the Montana Ore Purchas-
ing company, has brought no action
against the Anaconda company, but has
succeeded in tangling up the affairs of
the Butte x Boston and Boston & Mon-
tana until it seems as though the titles
20 these properties, claims of invading
one anOther's mines. and vast claims for
damages growing out of alleged illegal
taking of ore could never be Strengthened
out.
To fortify himself against the aggre-
gated power of the trust, Mr.. Heinze,
in the pursuit of his claims, now MAIN
tains that he owns both the east and
west end of the Anaconda, or, rather, that
1t cannot extend its mines beyond their
present limitations without invading his
territory, and he proposes to light for
his rights to the very end.
What the result will be no one can
foresee, but in the meantime the work
Of taking over the properties by the
A~malgamated company has received a.
check. Perhaps, however, the Standard
Oil people have not yet turned their seri-
Gus attention to the Montana Ore Pur-
CHASING company, for from the very con-
ception of the Amalgamated
they have had to deal with the Boston
4 Montana interests in Boston, and it
has taken them eight months to shake
Mr.. Bigelow in the control of that COM
pany.
The first attempt to dislodge Mr.. Bige-
low was through attacks made Upon the
Boston & Montana through the adver-
Using columns of the newspapers. 1t re-
suited in driving the stock down from
about $2I3 to 1925 a share. 1t did not
dislodge Mr.. Biyelow, but he and his
friends We're forced to support the prop
erty, n to do so We're obliged to buy.
it is said, some 60. 900 shares. This load,
when the money market became strin-
gent. was too heavy to carry, and the
crash already mentioned came as a ma
tural result.
No one has any intimation of how far
the Standard Oil trust proposes to go in
the matter of acquiring copper proper
ties. At the time the A~malganated COM
pany was launched. with its SIS, 00O, 900
of capital, it was said that this amount
was to be largely increased to obtain
minority interests and other properties.
Perhaps it seeks to control copper, as it
does crude petroleum., and began the in
teresting process by buying up some
properties, to use these as a cudgel to
bring others into the vast combination.
This is one of the theories of the UNDER
taking circulated in Wall street. and the
prediction is made that when the fight
ing energy of the trust is next directed
at any corporation it will be lone through
deprcciating the price of the metal.
With copper at high prices, many OF
the smaller concerns can mine and make
a living. but With a further decline in the
market the work would become unproft-
able, the mines quite likely shut down,
and. perhaps. eventually be gathered into
the combinations. But first, of course,
the trust would gather in the control
of the companies having stock issues in
a manner similar to that pursued in the
case of Boston & Montana.