The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-07-27

New York July 27.-No one who IS not
ON the scene and in close touch with the
men in the offices of Wall street can begin
to realize the intense gloom that has hung
for the past three months over the center
of financial industry. No one who has
not had his finger on the very pulse of
Wall street can appreciate and under
stand how restless and how feversh has
been the temper of the street.
Some days the market showed the rest
lessness that dwelt in the spirit Of the men
of Wall street On other days the market
was apathetic, listess and dropping, as
were also the men who made the market.
The ordinary trader, and the ordinary
commission merchant simply had to sit
down and wait, and there is nothing more
calling to the real Wall street man than
Is that necessity to wait while other pow
ers with whom he has no part make or
mar the market that is to him the source
of his income. For months they stood it
in good shape, but toward the last a
spirit of fierce restlessness pervaded every
office. Staid old commission merchants,
who never had been known to talk before
freely opened their hearts to all corners,
and raved against the iniqlity of those in
high places. Prominent traders on the
floor came out and showed their sheets of
the days transactions-a thing most un-
professional.
It is little wonder. indeed, that all sorts
and conditions Of wild rumors have been
current. Each day thousand men guessed
wildly at the causes Of it all. They sin
gled out one company after another one
individual after another, one bank after
another as the weak spot. They all made
theories Of their own. They set their the
cries, as is the nature Of men In desperate
straits, above the sober facts that the tel
egraph and the railroads brought to them
from the fields of Kansas, and the ports
OF the Atlantic and the Pacific. The win
ter wheat crop, in ordinary years the basis
Of all hope, failed to allay the fever of
unrest. They actually groaned over the
immensely of that crop and are grooming
yet because the bigger the wheat crop the
more money will be required to move it.
In a bear market all the news is bear
news. No matter how many presidents and
directors came out of the west to tell Of
the wonderful crops and the wonderful
movement of traffic on all ines-Wall
street had no use for it. They only knew
that the railroads were borrowing money
at high rates. They knew that half doz-/
en- railroads had stopped improvement
work. They knew that big men were in
trouble. They knew that the building
trades in some of the great centers had re-
ceived a check from which 1t would take
many months and weeks to recover. They
remembered that the banks had NEARLY
on the street for money when the street
dreamed that it was rich. From this they
argued that when a call came and found
the street poor the catastrophe would GER
tainly follow the call.
Idols of the Street Are Broken.
A far more subtle reason than any of
these must be chronicled. 1t is the SIM
pie fact that the mightiest idols of the
street are shattered and broken. A year
he Of i,,
which all confidence, all faith all hope
were conferred. year ago the press of
the world lauded to the skies the man
whose power and prestige were to make
one the fleets Of the Atlantic-under the
Start and Stripes. A year ago no Wall
sailed the honor of the firm of Morgan
& Co. About him he had gathered-so
ran the stories-a coterie of brilliant
geniuses, men Of high honor, keen fore
sight, wonderful business acumen. Not
a man of them all but was the finest
specialist in his own line in all the world.
Morgan had marshalled to the assistance
of his plans the best the world produced.
Baker, Hendricks, HOllins-theSe were his
bankers, and his banking advisors. Hill,
Spencer, Mellen-these were his railroad
lieutenants. Gary, Schwab, Carnegie
these were the men who guarded the des-
TIMES of his most gigantic corpora ton.
personal advisors No man in the history
of the world, sovereign or commoner,
ever gathered about him such an army or
such lieutenants. Their individual power,
centering in and administered by the gil
gantic intellect Of the financial colossus
himself, made such a power as no en-
peror ever welded. Such was the Nor
gan Of 1902.
To-day Schwab and Perkins are revled
in Wall street. The street has seen
Schwab called back from the tables of
Monte Carlo to his duty. 1t has seen him
figuring in the most gigantic fiasco of the
year-the recevership Of United States
shipbulding. In point Of fact the street
believes to-day that MT. SChWab has lost
nearly If not quite all the wealth that he
gathered in his brief and meteoric career
in Wall street To-day Wall street pic
lures him a broken wreck, seeking rest
where he can find it. His duties lie in
the hands of Mr.. Corey: his wealth has
gone to swell the horde of a shrewder and
mightier man than he The street be-
lieves that only the most heroic efforts
have saved the president of the United
States Steel from bankruptcy Schwab is
no more in Wall street. The man who
came from the driving Of a team in Penn
slyvania to the administration of the
mightiest corporation in history has to
all ntents and purposes gone back to his
team-se far as Wall street cares.
That Shipping FIasco.
International Mercantile Marine Is a
byword and a laughing stock. One day a
man advertised on the ticker that he had
lost 100 shares of International Mercan-
tile Marine. An hour later the ticker an