The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1904-01-22
gan from his dazzling pinnacle and
grind his reputation into dust.
Three Great Blows.

NY "S4C lSIllIiS blo ~ do kASS
lshowed that his highly eulogized sudg-
ment in launching new enterprises was
at least as faulty as other mems. Some
people do not content themselves with
saying that Mr.. Morgan merely COM
mitted errors of judgment in creating
such top-heavy enterprises as the Steel
corporation and the Mercantile Marine.
asserting that he was a%ctuated solely
by the motive TO gather into his own
strong boxes every available dollar
held by the public.
In any event, he had created two
vastly capitalized corporations. into
which large investors and the public
both here and in Europe placed their
money, relying chiefly upon his judg-
ment. They bought Steel preferred
around 80 and Steel common between
40 and so. They saw the former go to
so and the latter to 10. They bought
Mercantile Marine preferred around so
and the common aroun 20. They saw
the former go to 1919 n the latter to
3. The Mercantile Marine bonds, $780,
100000 of the S75,000,0O issue, were
taken by Mr.. Morgan's financial friends
here and abroad at so. These bonds
nave a nominal value now of rs. At
times, when efforts ave been made to
sell them. the best bid that could be
got was 80.
The %shipbuildins Fiasco.
A smaller matter, but one that in.
jured Mr.. Morgan in the opinion OF
many New York capitalists. was the
Sheldon syndicate he had organized In
the Shipbuilding company tiasco. This
syndicate put up about 81 600, 900 to take
over ~Shlpbuilding company bonds at 70.
These have a nominal value now Of
about IA, but no large amount Of them
can be marketed at that price. There
Is no market at all for large quantities.
The subscribers to this syndicate are
| - ora ha rlirr firp, md ir1jyt11,o1 non-
italists, sue as Z. II. Hartman,
George Gould, Perry Belmont, Stuyve-
SAINT Fish and others. who are not In
the habit of losing hundreds of thou
sands of their own money.
British or European investors lost lit
tie or nothing in the S~hipbuilding COM
pany, but they did lose heavily in the
Steel corporation and the Mercantile
Marine company. These foreign losses
account in a measure for the feeling Of
hostility for MIR. Morgan abroad.
Morgan Not a Loser.
Another matter which has irritated
the losers in the Morgan ventures Is
that neither Mr.. Morgan himself, nor
his firm, has lost ~anyAnloney. He is
probably richer by millions of dollars
today than he was a year ago, as far
as money goes, no matter how much
he has lost in reputation.
1t has never been Mr.. Morgan's pol
icy to tie up his own money or that Of
his firm in any of his enterprises. Ee
has always used the money of other
people, keeping his own assets in liquid
shape, SO that they are ready for any
emergency.
His great strength and power rested
not in his own wealth, but in his abil-
ity to get capitalists all over the world
to put up money for anything that he
said was good" Therefore his loss Of
DreGtiop tho nr0nf ecta h1icha6 nv tha
collapse in value of the Steel and the
Mercantile Marine securities that his
Judgment was anything but faultless.
and the suspicious aroused by the
Shipyard inquiry have erected a barrier
between Mr.. Morgan and the capital
he has always relied upon that may
prove insurmoantable.
MIR. Morgan is not a young ma by
any means. He will be 81 years old on
April II next. 1t took forty-five years
of incessant labor and almost un-
broken successes to place him upon the
heights Of fame which he occupied a
year ago.
Not only has Mr.. Mofgan been blamed
directly for losses sustained in corpora
tons that were peculiarly his own, but he
has been held responsible for the general
big shrinkage in the value of all kinds of
securities.
The Grievances Summarized.
AN GIL oAlSSl SAlSNo d6ulllol MIN
may be summed up as follows:
l. That he greatly overdid the promotion
business.
2, That he set an example in over-capi-
taliZation which was initiated by others,
producing a flood OF securities that had
nothing to stand on when trade conditions
began to go back.
3. That he created conditions which made
the whole market for securities Vulnerable
and invited the bear raids which proved
so disastrous to prices during last spring
and summer.
4. That he was the originator of the new
school of high finance" which is now so
completely discredited.
.. That his judgment Of the public's ca
pacity to absorb new securities was COM
pletely at fault.
g.. That his judgment of the trade future
and the amount of shares and bonds that
the steel and other corporations could rea-
sonably stand was also very much at
fault.
Z. That his failure to live up to the high
reputation he had established had worked
an injury which would take years for in
%vestors to forget and had done almost ir-
reparable harm to American investments
in foreign c%enters.
A study of the achievements of Mr..
Morgan makes two facts glaringly appar-
ent, namely:
l. That as a reorganizer he has known
nothing but success.
2. That as an organizer he has never
made a brilliant success.
In other words he has the faculty of
deleClinS ana correcting the DlunderS and
mistakes Of other men, but this same fac
ulty has not saved him from committing
the same blunders.
A Builder Up of Wrecks.
Mr. Morgan made his reputation as a
builder-up of broken down railroads. He
c%ontented himself for over thirty years
with that kind of labor before he en-
parked upon the new field of organizing
industrials. Some years ago, when his
fame for reorganization was at its height.
the Wall street term for the word was
INSTRUMENTATION"
While practically every Industrial or
ganizatlon Mr. Morgan has created is a
failure from the viewpoint of the stock
holder and the bondholder, 1t should not
be for gotten that a dozen of the bigger
railroad systems in the country owe their
prosperity to his brain and genius. And
in building up these railroad properties
taking hold of them when they vera
financial wrecks, Mr.. Morgan probably
made as much money for different stock
holders as his ventures in the industrial
field have caused other stockholders to
lose.
.. lard Time G - IL. u