The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-04-10
A DANGER SIGNAL.

a few weeks ago President Hill, Of the
Great Northern, predicted that the craze
for investment in the stocks and bonds
of what are facetiously termed the I'm
dustrials," what are euphoniously term
ed TIN trusts" and which really are
to a panic. In the letter of Attorney Gen
eral Griggs, relating to the enforcement
Of the antitrust law, which found its
way into publicity, he said, in closing,
SO much to the community at large as
to the people who are induced to put
their money into the purchase of stock,
a portion of the letter to which a string
was not attached. The closing scenes of
the week on the New York stock ex-
change emphasize both the prediction of
Mr. Hill and tn warning of the attor-
ney general.
The conditions were those that always
precede financial collapse; a plethora
of money breeding passion for invest
iuSHt, tIdl 10 play Gu upon ny CAPCll anu
INSCRIPTIONS promoters until 1T becomes
craze, when ordinarily sane men fling
their money, and all they can raise by
hypothecation of collaterals, into tina
scheme that promises a golden harvest.
Where this condition is of slow growth
and long duration it gradually affects all
classes and the most conservative come
to doubt whether their hesitation is.
after all, prudence or downright stupid
ity. Then there is q tumultuous whirl,
prices go kiting, all commodities catch
the contagion; for brief period men live
in a fools paradise from which the in
evitable crash summarily elects them.
And the crash always comes when the
germ of doubt of the solvency of some
inflated institution, or of its securities,
gets Judgment in few heads and germ
mates with the fecundity of bacilli Then
comes the counter rush to unload, and
we have the panic.
1t would seem as if we were not yet
far enough away from the causes that
brought about the panic of 1893 for men
to have forgotten Its lessons. and 1t is
apparent that, if investors have, the
was their refusal to accept industrials
as coIiaterals for loans to be invested in
other Speculative stocks that brought on
the furry in which stocks went off so
the inflated stocks that dropped, but, in
the panic caused, the contagion spread
to other stocks that have a legitimate
basis for their values.
1t is hardly probable that this back
set will permanently check the devel-
opment of industrials nor the tendency
to speculate that is inherent in our race
We will have an increasing supply Of
money. with It's appetite for increase
thr ough good investment, that will grad
ually become less and less careful as
we get the fever that eliminates in COL
lapse. The exhaustion Of unoccupied
lands will prevent the land booms that
caused the panics of 1897, 81 and, largely.
of '7S, but the promoter will find, after
industrials have had their run, ample
field for his talents in our new possess
sions. People with surplus money will
soon be reading alluring prospectuses of
the big returns to be got from invest
ments in sugar, coffee, banana and other
franchises, mines and other schemes, and
American investors will reap the rich
harvest of experience that English YER
dants CLEANED in Egyptians. Kaffirs and
Argentines.