The Topeka state journal., 1904-10-12
PROSPERITY IN WAVES.

| 4naI WalI street is III most Opll-
mistic mood is evidenced by the latest
issue of Henry Clews & Co.'S Financial
Review which says:
Powerful manipulation and a good
supply of favorable news combined to
stimulate the market into greater ac-
tivity the only check to a further
rise being the outpour of stocks from
both inside and speculative sources,
which caused more or less erratic
fluctuations. History is once more re-
peating itself in the stock market,
and at last the confidence so persist
entity displayed by insiders for months
is extending to the outside public,
simply because current developments
prove that this confidence had been
based upon actual conditions of which
the leaders naturally possessed pre-
vious knowledge. The week has been
fruitful in favorable developments. A
number of very satisfactory railroad
reports were forthcoming, some of
which showed gratifying gains in gross
earnings. others important reductions
in operating expenses, while others
have joined or promised to join the
ranks of dividend-payers. All of these
disclosures prove that the railroads, as
a whole, are enjoying continued pros
peIity. Nor is this all Traffic man
ayers appear very confident in con-
tinuance of this prosperity for another
season, and it must be conceded that
such views are well supported.
"An doubt about the crops is now
at an end, and this removes a very
important restraint upon bullish en-
thusiasm. We are finally assured of
an abundance of corn, and this, even
s< 10
not quite realized, is one of our most
important sources of national pros
perity. We are sure, also, of a big
cotton crop, some estimates now
reaching 100000, and while early
frost might cut off 100, 900 or 100000
bales, it could not do serious injury.
Even the wheat crop is threshing out
better than the crop killers were will
ing to let US believe, and in conse-
quence of these developments the
prices of corn. cotton and wheat are
receding from the excessive high prices
which they not long ago commanded.
''It is now demonstrated beyond a
doubt that American farmers-east,
west, and south-are to enjoy another
year, which is the all-im-
portant fact in the business situation. |
They and their dependents form SO |
large a proportion of our total pOpu- |
Iation that good times with them |
means better times for everybody
better times for merchants, better
times for the investor. The unreas-
onably high prices for these three sta /
pies which lately prevailed were bene-
hcfal to no one except spectators,
since producers did not secure these
prices and consumers will not pay
them very long. Their final effect
would have been to injuriously check
exports and stimulate overproduction
IN the next crop. In fact, the pros
perity of the farmer and the country
at large is best promoted when specu-
ation acts simply as a balance wheel
and is not devoted to creating destruc-
tive corners. The recent declines
therefore. in wheat, cotton and corn
Ire an encouraging feature. Without
the profits of farmers, l.
hey will permit a revival of the nat
lral outflow of domestic products and
save us from an injurious derange-
nent of our foreign trade, which
would certainly occur if reckless grain
Ind cotton operators had their Hav"