The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-11-15
PEN PICTURES OF WALL STREET
j. Pierpont Morgan Severely Criticised Why
Standard Oil Crowd Wants to Control
Steel Trust

cent. rate for this period was due TO
Standard Oil influences and 1t Is now
intimated that the same influence VIII
insist at the next meeting upon dlVl-
dends on the common stock being dls-
continued altogether and dividends on
the preefrred stock reduced to per
cent. rate There is provision in the
charter of the United states Steel
Corporation giving the management
authority to buy and retire its own
stock. Steel common can be bought
around $40 a share and retired. The
owners of the property would then
have pretty sound investment. If
the United States Steel Corporation
were reorganized tomorrow on the
basis of the present market value of
its securities it would not be over
capitalized.
James Stllman, president of the Ma
tional City Bank and one of the lead
ing members of the Standard Oil party
in Wall street, was elected this week
to the directorate of the New York
Central displacing Mr.. +. Y. w. Ros
sitter, who has long been the personal
representative of William K. Wander
bilt, Sr., in New York Central af-
fairs. During the bear market it was
suggested in this correspondence that
the Standard Oil interest in a number
of different railroad properties, partic-
ularly New York Central, was being
heavily increased Recent events have
tended to confirm this suggestion.
Within the past year the Rockefeller
interest in railroads in the United
States as represented by distinctly
Rockefeller men in the directorates of
those railroads became decidedly more
prominent. Mr.. Stillman was recently
elected to the board of the Chicago and
Alton, which is essentially a Hartman
property The Rockefeller interests are
also strongly represented in the boards
of the st. Paul, Union Pacific South
ern Pacific. Chicago and Alton. Mis-
souri, Pacific, Wabash Texas Pacific,
New York Central, Delaware, Lacka-
wanna and Western, Missouri, Kansas
and Texas and Northern Securities.
The Rockefeller interest in St Paul
and Missouri. Kansas and Texas is a
prominent one,-at least, this was for
merly true of st. Paul and probably is
yet, but there is reason to believe that
the Rockefeller interests have been
shifting heavily from st. Paul to Mis-
souri, Pacific. st. Paul has been pocket
ed by the combination of the Great
Northern, Northern Pacific and Bur-
lington in the Northern Securities Com
pany Since the formation of the mer-
ger the gross earnings of these three
railroads have increased away beyond
st. Pauls gross earnings, although the
roads serve practically the same ter
ritory and similar conditions govern
all 1t is a well-known fact that the
wealth of the Standard Oil crowd has
increased so rapidly during the past
two or three years that the chief prob
lem of this powerful contingent has
been to find investments for it's money.
1t appears to have been finding such
Investments both in the railroad and
industrial fields II iG a crowd that
has infinite patience and can afford to
ignore fluctuations. Standard Oil stock,
by the way, has had an advance of
more than 100 points within a year.
which is distinction, especially, in "a
bear market