The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-10-16
PUBLIC A POWER
 IN STOCK MARKET Has Been Buying Stocks for
 Several Months CROP, REPORTS ERRONEOUS Wild Statements of Experts" Discred- ited by the Government statis- tles-Parker Offered Place
 in Big Law Firm.
CROP, REPORTS ERRONEOUS
BY w. c. NICHOLAS.

New York, October 15-Wall street his- torians are chemically in the habit of announcing in their current literature that the public is not in the stock mar ket; that the public cannot be cajoled or coaxed or driven into speculation, etc, etc.
 This is a mistakes The public is in the market and under 1t. It may not be in- terested individually in actual stock dealing, but collectively the public and its money are there-there with both feet. The public has been buying stocks vica- riously for the past four or five months. The business has been done by .ep.esent- atives of the banks, trust companies and insurance companies who are directly re- sponsible tor the 20 or 30 point advance and who have used the money of the public te accomplish the result.
 The individuals who compose the public could not oe dragged or driven to buying stocks. They prefer to leave their money on deposit in the banks and trust com panies. Neither the prices nor the situa- tion were attractive to the mutitudes. Yet, as events have turned out the de-
 
 making purchases just as certainly as though the deals had been made in the names of the individual depositors.
 It is customary for banks to loan money on stocks to within 20 points of the quoted market value. The average of prices on active stocks is 20 to 30 points higher than at the beginning of the upward movement. Consequently banks are today lending on the aggregate mass of stocks as much money as the securities could have been bought for outright four months ago. The market therefore rests directly on the funds of the public. The profit that has been made on the ad- vance runs to the banking interests which have had the handling of the public's surplus. The owners of he money are not participants in the boom It is alto gether probable that an attempt to real ize these profits, which are as yet large- ly in paper, would put prices off Ind- cations are, however, that the banking interests will strive to maintain prices around current levels until the public be- comes accustomed to the new figures The theory is that when a speculation begins 1t might as well start from this standard as lower down, and unless there should be some violent upheavel or international disaster, the carrying out of the pro- gramme seems an easy matter.
 The speculative stocks in which the big advance has taken place aggregate in volume about $5, 900, GOO, 900. Twenty per cent of that amount would be $1, 900, ,0OO, 900, and that figure very nearly represents the actual raper profits created by the manipulated rise in the stock market en- gineered by the banking and promotion interests. Of this huge sum the public is gainer comparatively nothing. although It's capital has been employed in the mak- ing. The market experience of the past few months affords fragrant illustration of how vast fortunes can be coined out of atmosphere-be created on a fundation of credit.