The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-07-05
KEYNES RETURN
 CAUSES FLUTTER Wall Street Looks Upon Him as
 a Great MaoipuIator WITHOUT A BULL LEADER  Stock Market Has Been Without Man to Lead the Movement to Lift Prices-Interestins Gossip of
 the Financial World.
WITHOUT A BULL LEADER
BY W. e. NICHOLAS.

BY w. 0. NICHOLAS.
 New York, July 4-(special.) )-rhe re- turn of James R. Keene to Wall street after an absence of several months, dur ing the greater part of which time he was confined to his couch with refrac- tory knee joint, caused as much of fiut- ter in the stock market community as did the return of J. Pierpont Morgan from Europe a fortnight before. MT keene' has so long been the foremost manipu- lator of stocks that his pre-eminence Is ouite taken for granted. A great many people believed that he would never re- turn and the younger generation or traders put forth several candidates for his mantle. But he has fooled them all by. re-entering the game with all of his old-time vigor, and the chances are that he will continue for some time to come to occupy place in the stock market affairs that Is peculiarly his own. The impression has been cultivated that MT. Keene is very bullish on the market and has returned to undertake operations for an advance on a large scale. His brok- CTS have been active on the long side of the market for several weeks and 1t is believed that MT. Keene again is CO., operating with the Morgan party. The dissolution of the United States Steel un- derwrlting syndicate was believed for time to have terminated his bullish con- tract with the Morgan interests. But this opinion has lately been revised in the light of various incidents seeming to show that the relations between them are still close. The activity of the keene brokers, has nowhere been more con- spicuous that in the Steel shares. Mr. Keene knows more about the market position of the Steel securities than, per. haps, any other man alive. He conduct ed the most remarkable distributive campaign in those stocks that has ever been seen in Wall street. and for this the Morgan party owes him debt of everlasting gratitude, for it is ques- ton whether the promoters of the United States Steel corporation would not still be hung up with the stocks if MT. Keene had not 50 adroitly distributed them to the public.
 The stock market has been without a bull leader for several months. If, as now appears to be probable, MT. Keene should reassume aggressive leadership on the bull side he would not want for a following There is reason to believe that the Morgan party favors an advance if for no other reason than to make market on which to sell more stocks, and there Is no man better equipped to con duct bull campaign at this time than Mr. Keene- He would be very danger ous factor on the bear side because it is no secret that the market is full of vulnerable stocks, and MT. Keene has almost a diaboIical genius for finding what in the Wall street vernacular are called weak spots" This influence for making trouble alone might influence the Morgan crowd to entrust a bull cam paign to his hands. The stock market is perhaps, a more two-sided affair than at any previous time in five years. and the influence of such man as MT. Keene would count for a great deal on either side. He is no respecter of sides, and would as soon bear stocks as bull them, speculative possibilities being equal. His association with the Morgan crowd, how ever, no doubt has left him with a great abiding interest on the long side of the stocks than he ever had before and that might naturally influence him bu1lishly where conditions favor equally opera tions for either the advance or decline. Most all great bears have ended by be- ing bulls. It was so with the late Ad- dison Cammack who, in his time, was one of the greatest bear leaders the street has ever known. Gradually he ac- cumulated stocks until in the end his personal interests on the long side of the market more than balanced his specu- lative preferences for the bear side. Mir. Keene is, perhaps, the only man who has ever had the distinction within his life time of being considered by friends and enemies alike the greatest manipula- tor that has ever lived. The afternoon of his career had brought him to period in American finance when things are done on more colossal scale than was ever the case before and naturally, 1 he being the foremost operator in the market, his campaigns have been greater than those of the most daring of his predecessors. He seems to have a wonderful tenure of life. He has not only outlived his rivals and out shined them in their own peculiar methods, but reserved it for a later period of his career to achieve successes along new lines and on a scale that re- duces the exploits of such of his rivals as was Jay Gould and Addison Cammack to comparative obscurity. Although he. more than any other man, Is responsible for the market success of the United CtdtSs oitti tOi pOIdllplls lHt NpluIHe or whose securities is greater than that of any other three corporations in existence, he Is likely to live in Wall streets history merely as manipulator. He Is essen- tially a trader His methods are illus trated in the story of friend who be- seeched him necessarily for advice on the market. Mir. Keene put the man off time after time and was finally exasperated to the point of Saying: T pay more money for information than any other man in Wall street. have better sources of in- formation than any other man. I have made life study of speculation, and I know all there Is to know about it. With all this, the best that I can do is to beat it four times out of seven. If I could beat it three times out of five, would have all the money there is In the world"
 The pressing for sale of large amounts of United States Steel corporation new per cent bonds below S5 has been at- tracting a great deal of attention. They have sold as low as s1. It has been said Al