The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-06-21

l shows up to an advantage in this business
 is Charles M. Sehwab, who has made l heavy personal sacrifices to save the com
 bine, even to the extent of advancing all
 the cash about $2,OOOOOO. necessary to
 carry through the reorganization. Coun-
 sel for the dissenting interests, who now seek the appointment of q receiver un- wisely trained their artillery on MT. | Schwab and he appears now to have
 gotten the better of the argument having delivered an ultimatum In which he of fers to surrender the securities that were taken in exchange and receive back his
 Bethlehem Steel company. The Bethle-
 hem Steel company, which represents Mir. Schwabs interest in the combine, Is re-
 ally the backbone of the organization,
 without which the United States Ship
 Building company would be a very weak
 thing The United States government is
 heavily interested in this affair, having
 war vessels to the value of Sl5,000000 un-
 der contract with the United States Ship
 Building company. In the contracts be-
 tween the government and the ship yards
 it is provided that in case of delay the
 government may take the work out of the
 hands of the contractors and complete
 the vessels as it may see fit. It is said by
 officials of the company that there is not
 likely to be any delay in this government
 work. but in the event of receiver being
 appointed remote possibility, there will
 certainly be more or less delay, where
 upon the governments attitude would be
 a matter of very great importance.
 There are now under contract in the
 yards of the United States Ship Building
 company 12 war ships of various models
 in different stages of construction. h.
 timations have come from Washington
 that the navy department will brook no
 delay and will not be slow to take the
 work out of the. hands of the company if
 it's financial complications impede the
 completion of these vessels. There has
 already been considerable delay on gov
 ernment work in the Pacific coast ship yards and the Crescent ship yards at
 Elizabethport, New Jersey, owing to strikes.
 So severe a shrinkage in speculative values as has occurred in the stock mar ket in the past five months is almost in- evitably attended at late stage with ire quent reports of embe2zlements on the part of bank officers and employees. It is | marvel among old brokers in Wall street that some large embezzlements have not already been uncovered. The suicide this week of vice president of
 the Seaboard National bank produced
 chill on the floor of the stock exchange.
 the first assumption being that embeZ-
 element had been discovered As 1t hap
 happened the suicides accounts were all
 straight domestic trouble being respon-
 sible for his act. It certainly is not sur
 prising that employees of Wall street banks
 now and then get the speculative fever.
 The banks speculate officially on a very
 large scale and their operations are known, of course among the hlgher em-
 ployes long chapter might be written
 on speculative banking as conducted in Wall street The banks have tremen- dous advantage. of course in their in- innate knowledge of other peoples af- fairs In one of the uptown clubs the heads of the principal Wall street banks | get together periodically and discuss the | stock market situation exchanging infor- l nation on the state of loans. how this | operator is extended how that house Is l borrowing too much money on douptiul ! collateral and on every other pertinent subject They come to an agreement and 1 if that agreement is that loans should De l scaled down 1t means there is to De lall l in speculative values. In the last anal
 ysis the banks controlled the situation
 and there operations in the stock mar
 ket are governed accordingly. It is this 1 sure thing in speculation that enables 1 banks to pay dividends anywhere rom 5O to 100 per cent a year on their capltai. 1 It is of more importance to know what 1 transpires in these secret bankers con | ferences than to know values and con | dtions Bankers anticipate both. The | embezzlement of $75OO00 from the First | National bank by Teller Afford. two | years ago. was never reflected in that | banks report The loss was covered sim
 ply by marking up the book value or se-
 curities held. It is the custom among l banks to put book values on their secur- l ities much lower than actual values or
 market quotations. bank who bought | St Paul ten years ago at $Io share | might now be carrying it on it's books at par. whereas the range of the stock in