The age-herald., 1901-05-12
NED BRACE TALKS ABOUT THE PANIC
 TN WALL STREET AND OTHER THINGS

Tn the history of this country there has been nothing to equal the past week in Wall street. Several powerful financiers combined together, got control of North ern Pacific stock and cornered the mar ket. forcing those who sold short to set tie at exorbitant figures. In other words, 1t was a gamblers game. It looked like the gambler who invites the public to play against his loaded dice. The public al- ways loses when it plays against the gamblers game. The public has been playing against the gamblers game in Wall street and the public has finally come out loser.
 There were a few who made money In the recent tremendous bull market in Wall street. They were like the cap pers" who gamblers have around their wheels of fortune at county and state fairs. These fellows go up and play the games. win cash in their chips. and ap- parently go off in great exultation. This looks like an easy thing and crowds then gather around the place. The crowds lose all they have and retire.
 So it has been in Wall street. A few people from the outside world have won. One little chorus girl who dances in the sextette In Florodora was given a tip on Union Pacific several weeks ago and made s750.oO0 Her picture was printed in the newspapers. She was interviewed. She quit the stage and has started on trip to Europe. She was smart enough to take her money out in cash. But the great public which then fell pell-mell over one another to get to the stock market have been sufferers and great sufferers. The public of Birmingham has been no excep- tion. Lots of good hard-earned money has gone out of Birmingham during the past week to swell the tills of Wall street stock gamblers.
 
 What a. foolish thing it Is to play against the other fellows game. The man away from Wall street has but little chance and few of them in Wall street have any chance, There are combinations of millionaires in Wall street who can put any stock up down just as they ele- vat4d Northern Pacific from less than s10O a share to s1o0O share last week. The big gamblers came within an ace of creat- ing a panic In the entire country by their manlputauonS> But Tor the Tact that they loaned money and stocks almost recklessly on Friday there would have been panic in this country equal to that of the famous "Black Friday Of 1869.
 
 few men In this country with head quarters In Wall street. have become so powerful of recent years that they are enabled ct any time to corner any market just as few gamblers and speculators oornered the gold market of this country during Cleveland's second administration and forced the government to issue to them gold bonds at 103 which they sold within a week at 119. Tn other words, they hAld up the government at that time just they have recently held up indi- viduals.
 Railroads and iron concerns and steel mills and cotton factories and gin fac tories. fertilizer works and flour mills and hundreds of other manufacturing. and producing concerns have gone into trusts. It is even said that all the street railroad concerns have gone into trusts. It Is even said that all the street railroad concerns are being organized Into one great trust. About the only thing not in a trust these