The age-herald., 1900-04-23
WEEKLY REVIEW OF
 THE IRON MARKET
Speculative Raid in Wall Street
 Created Sensation.
WAS HE WORK OF INSIDERS
Actual Business Continues Active, Not withstanding Bear Movementin &c., curities-While Orders Are Slack
 There is No Sign of Weakness

New York, April 22.-(Special.) )-Rogers, Brown and Company, the well known iron brokers, reviewing the market from this point for the week ending Saturday, April 21, says:
 ''The iron trade in this vicinity has been treated to new sensation in the week un- der review. The making and selling of iron and steel has always been legitimate and conservative business and never be- fore have the Erie railroad methods of the Gould and Fish days been introduced into it. It is needless to say that the man. agement of the companies who are attend ing to the interests of their stockholders and are not working Wall street, feel that a stigma has been put upon the whole business. How far the injury done may extend to legitimate business is a ques- tion. It is much less of a question, how ever, than would have been had it hap pened before the character and methods of the chief operators become so well known.
 Tt is scarcely necessary to say that Wall street believes the whole move of stopping the mills, published statements of over production, etc., coming within two weeks after rosy statements of big busi ness and huge earnings, was nothing more than a speculative raid. The street also firmly believes that it was planned and carried out by insiders in the company re- ferred to.
 While Wall street is good judge of the signs in stock manipulation, the iron trade thinks it sees other reasons. The Steel and Wire company is a very large con sumer of raw materials These materials it buys of the principal producers of billets It is currently supposed that prices of nails and wire have been held relatively higher than other steel products. That buying should be slow and stocks accumulate un- der these circumstances is quite natural The producers of billets seem to be unable to make large concessions while ore, coke labor, etc., remain where they are. The rest can be guessed. The incident has led to heated discussion of the whole ques- tion of values in iron and steel Out of this, some essential facts seem clear enough One is that whatever may be the rate of buying, the actual melt of iron goes on nractically undiminished. Those "Ao nave been through such things be- fore, argue that it matters little whether contracts are held back or made freely ahead so long as the product of the blast furnaces of the country goes into actual consumption from month to month. That certainly is the case at the present time.
 This all governing fact is proved in a dozen ways. careful study of individual concerns shows that with few exceptions they are using more material than a year ago, and are selling what they make The testimony of commission houses fur naces mills and foundries, is that while new orders are slack they are shipping out a greater tonnage than last year, and that this tonnage is going into actual and quick consumption.
 It is quite possible, of course, to pursue bear tactics to point where the final con- sumer will himself feel alarmed and draw back to where the whole underlying basis of confidence in the soundness of the com pany's prosperity can be destroyed. That is scarcely possible, for the, American busi- ness public, while gullible at times, can not be made a fool of all the time."