The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-06-14
SLUMP IN STOCKS
HARD TO EXPLAIN
Brokers Are Sitting Effects to
Find the Cause
AN INJECTION OF POLITICS
Several of the Critics Have Sought to
Make 1t Appear That Prospect of
RooseveIt's Nomination Has
Hurt the Market.
AN INJECTION OF POLITICS
BY w. G. NICHOLAS.

New York, June 1S.-(Special.)-T work
Df Sitting effects to find causes, a task to
which the professional Wall street critics
have appointed themselves, goes actively
on. The tremendous shrinkage in secu-
rifles values that has occurred this year
is not to be accounted for by apparent or
Surface conditions and the subterranean
passages of the stock market are being
explored for why's and wherefores. Moth
Ing very definite has been found nor Is 1t
likely that the true causes Will be dis
covered until they cease to be causes. 1t
rs easy enough to look backward and say
what was the matter with the stock mar
ket The present phases of speculative
phenomena are so greatly complicated
that no man can honestly pass judgment
OF hand as to whether prices have seen
the bottom or whether the unaccountable
liquidation that has been upsetting cal
culations pretty much all the year has
ceased. There has been seen this year
thing that had not been seen for many
years before, namely, liquidation of stocks
by "big people on declining quotations.
How much of this liquidation has been
Voluntary-that is done under pressure
and how much OF 1t arises from a definite
dissatisfaction with the stock market
prospect cannot now be determined. Ihe
piker public was eliminated from the mar
ket in the course of the violent decline
which eliminated last December and 1t
may be asserted as a broad proposition
that nine-tenths of the liquidation that
has occurred since then has been by inter-
ests of the class usually described by the
term big people, Every share Of stock
that is sold must be bought and 1t Is OBJ
vious that the biggest interests have been
holding open bag for the securities
others were liquidating. The heaviest
selling of stocks this year has been by
people who were most bullish a year ago
and the natural presumption Is that the
heaviest buying on this level has been by
the interests who shrewdly liquidated
their stocks on the crest of the bull wave
last year.
Politics In Market.
The search for specific causes above re-
ferred to has caused politics to be injected
into academic stock market discussions.
Several of the critical fraternity have
sought to make out that the prospect of
Mr.. Roosevelt's denomination has influ-
enced certain proportion of the extraor-
binary liquidation that has been in prog
ress and has made important financial in
terests reluctant either TO support prices
ing far a-field in politics, the present at
titude of Wall street toward Mr.. Roose-
welt for another four years may be pre-
scented from a purely Wall street point of
view. 1t is declared in banking parlors,
big brokerage offices and other institu-
lions here that the financial community
will contribute grudgingly to the republic
can campaign in the event of Mr. Roose-
velt's denomination. Wall streets contri-
button to that fund in the campaign of
1900 was, perhaps, the largest ever made
for a similar purpose. There is hardly
broker in Wall street of any prominence
who did not go down on the list for any
where from 500 to $1,000, either as indlvd-
uals or as heads of firms. Every banker
came down handsomely, all giving in pro-
portion to their means and standing in
the financial world These contributions,
of course, were not for Mckinley, but for
the cause of gold: not so much with the
idea of electing the republican nominee
as of defeating Bryan. If the free silver
issue is not raised again in 1904 there will
be less incentive, of course, of Wall street
contributing to the republican campaign
fund. But making due allowance for this
fact. the apparent and growing indsposi-