Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1903-01-31
THE MAN AND
HIS METHODS.
What Does Metz YORK. Think?
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Wall street calls the bull schemes
was to attempt the undermining OF
our country's prosperity Foreigners
can hardly conceive the extent to which
these huge amalgamations, with their
incidental booming Of prices, have been
popularity identified with the natural
movement OF prosperity
The two other reasons for the silence
or Misrepresentation of the press IN
these matters were the fear Of antas-
onizing the powerful interest that
might be useful, and not least the fact
that The Morgan interest IN one way
ar another had acquired voice In the
councils Of several prominent npWspa-
pers. This influence was acquired 10y
various means, which need not be
enumerated and which, in fact, are NOT
absolutely known in every case.
1 believe 1t to be safe to say that
In America public confidence In Mr.
Morgan's group Of financial operations
was not positively shaken until, first
the Northern Pacific fight began to
make people wonder what We're the
limits OF conservatism, and later The
remarkable financial operations Of the
steel trust and the Louisville and
Nashville greatly emphasized such
doubts. The story Of the Northern
Pacific struggle is sufficiently well
known to English readers.
The point to which attention should
be called in this connection, however,
is that the public began to ask how
operations could possibly be- cOnserya'
tive which involved the tossing Of cap
ital into the stock market at so crazy
a scale Of prices.
Old hands used TO say In wall street,
when the rise Of Northern Pacific from
r. TO 1000 was in progress ON the stock
exchange, that MIR Morgan, at any
rate, was INDUCING IN no such mad
pastme. He was then IN Europe and,
Il was said, could not have approved
the action. But later, I'm the Peter
Powers suit, Mr.. Morgan testified that
he himself gave the buying order The
orders could not possibly have resulted
in anything but the disastrous corner,
which, as a matter Of fact, ensued,
The New York public has never for
given Mr.. Morgan this he has never
since enjoyed the reputation for con-
seryatlsm which was his before.
know that the reader win find nothing
OF this In the American newspapers
and correspondence but II Is true,
and every Londoner who mixed in
Wall street circles last May and June
knows II 10 be true.
The steel trust scheme TO convert
100000 600 preferred shares into bonds
has from the FIRST been regarded as a
Morgan move, one of Mr. Morgan's
own closest associates said fatty. when
the conversion was blocked by njunc-
ton, that Mr. Morgan was more set
upon carrying that "deap through
than upon any other pendirg undertake
ing.
Yet the announcement Of this CONVEX
sion scheme was a heavy blow TO public
confidence in this and kindred pro-
motions.
The feeling. both in and out Of finan-
cial circles, has been that this conyer-
sion scheme was undertaken for the
purpose Of helping out certain large
subscribers TO the Steel trust ANAL
gamation who were unable TO sell their
stock except at heavy sacrifice. and
who, therefore, were TO be provided
with bonds at the expense of the COM
pany's credit
1t is perfectly safe to say that the
outside public now regards this con-
version scheme as utterly indefensible.
especially when inaugurated by The
opposition 10 pay Sl0,0O0O00 outright
TO a Morgan syndicate for the service
Of guaranteeing the conversion
My readers will not, therefore. won
der that when the new amalgamatlon
and conversion operations came on the
market this autumn they We're received
IN a frame Of mind very different from
that Of eighteen months before. In
deed, the change In public sentiment
from the time when the Reading and
Jersey Central were combined at the
close Of 1900 and when the steel trust
itself was formed IN the ensuing March,
to It's attitude at the present time to-
wards such operations at the shipping
trust hotation and the Louisville and |
Nashville deal, is one Of the most strik-
ing and dramatic in the history OF the |
American market
The present Wall street comment on
this entire financial group may be ,
summed up tersely as follows: why |
can they not leave us alone q moment |
and give our shaking money market
breathing -space?'