Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1902-08-20
THE ART OF UNLOADING.
(From the New York e vening Post

InE m VI UNLUHUINus
(From the New York E vening Post,)
Ordinary people may be excused for
Il certain bewilderment in contemplat.
ing the operations of "high finance"
nowadays. Even plain man can un-
derstand what Disraeli called "the
sweet simplicity of the per cents"
but when 1t comes to such complicated
fotntions Of varlegated securities as We
are now seeing every day, the enor.
nous mass of them, with their intri-
cate methods, might well make the,
observer cry out, with the seller of rev.
enue stamps who was perpiexed at
Mr.. Gladstone's alterations of the law,
'He is too much for any head" Yet
the patient spectator gets now and then
gleam. He perceives sort of ra'
tionale runnings, through all the manip-
ulation of watered securities. Perhaps
he cannot quite put the thing in words
!. y
himself, but he joyfully sees the point
when some veteran banker or eXper-
fenced broker tells him privately, t'Yes,
my son. you are on the right track,
The whole art of hundred-million fl,
nance is the art unloading"
AS razors of the tale were not made
to shave, but to SELL so the highly
capitalized industries of the day are
primarily intended to unload. Only
this morning, for example, we read Of
the successful disposal of the Bethle-
hem Steel company to the United States
Shipbuilding company, We are not
bound to accept the published figures
of the sale as literally correct, The
water may have been 40 or 60 per cent;
the paper profits $5,000,000 or $4,000,
600; the principle remains the same. 1t
is, that the owner of the Bethlehem
company did not acquire 1t to hold or
operate, but to dispose Of. His orig
inal intention, unless all the reports
at the time were misleading, was to un-
load it ON the United States steel cor.
poration, But dis alter visum, which;
being interpreted, means that Morgan
would not have It! -fhereupons the In
genlous seller discovered that the COR
poration which really needed his plant
was the shipbuilding, not the steel
trust. Mr.. Schwab cleverly adopted
the verse of Matthew Prior, with slight
alterations, and sang
The merchant, to secure his treasure,
Conveys 1t In borrowed name;
The Steel Trust serves to grace my
| measure,
The shipbuilding's my real flame.
But, of course, the final unloading has
to be done on the investing public, and
there's the rub. 1t is all very well for.
corporations and banks to pass on the
inflated securities from onetotheo other
but all isin unstable equilibrium unless
a final resting,place be found in the
small purchaser, who cannot In turn.
unload, So the great quest of specula-
tive finance Is the private investor;
the widow with small savings; the
clergyman with a tidy sum laid up for
rainy day; the executor with trust
funds to place where they will yield
secure return for the orphans under
his guardianship. "Oh, that knew
where might find him." Is the sigh of
the would,bc unloader, longing for the
small buyer, IN great numbers, but not
OF too great perspicacity. The art of
running him down, of soothing him,
and Of inducing him to
take a part sof the load on his un.
suspecting shoulders-he who has
thoroughly mastered that strategy is
the true Napoleon of finance for he
alone is In position to reap the ulti.
mate fruits OF victory. OF what avail
Is 1t to have heaps upon heaps of com.
mon stock, which you got as a bonus
unless you can unloadY
| Unfortunately, there are sometimes
I.I.f a