The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1904-01-22

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 topheavy enterprises as the Steel
corporation and the Mercantile Marine,
asserting that he was actuated 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 vast
" capitalized corporations, into which
large investors and the public both
here and in Europe placed their money,
relying chiefly upon his Judgment.
They bought Steel preferred around so
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 60 and the
common around 20. They saw the
former go to 1071 and the latter to 8.
The Mercantile Marine bonds. $5O.0O0.-
600 of the S775,OOO,OOO issue. We're taken
by Mr.. Morgan's financial friends here
and abroad at 90. These bt..Ls have a
nominal value now of Is. At times,
when efforts have been made to sell
them, the best bid that could be got
was 80.
A smaller matter, but one that injur-
ed Mr.. Morgan in the opinion Of many
New York capitalists, was the Sheldon
syndicate he had organized in the ship
building company f1asco. This syndi-
cate put up about $4,OO0OOO to take
over shipbuilding company bonds at
20. These have a nominal value now
Of about ii, but nc large amount of
them can be marketed at that price.
There is 10 market at all for large
quantities. The subscribers to this
syndicate are large banking firms and
individual capitalists, such as e. H.
Hartman, George Gould, Perry Bel
mont, Stuyvesant Fish and others, who
are not in the habit of losing hundreds
of thousands of their own money. Brit
ish and European investors lost little or
nothing in the shipbuiiding company,
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 Mr.. Morgan abroad.
Another matter which has irritated
the losers in the Morgan ventures is
that neither Mr.. Morgan himself nor
his firm has lost any money. 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.
It has been MI. Morgan's pol
icy to tie up his w money or that of.
his firm in any of his enterprises. He
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
prestige, the proof established by the
camille Marine securities that his judg-
ment was anything but faultless, and
the suspicious aroused by the shipyard
inquiry have erected a barrier between
Mr.. Morgan and the capital he has al
ways relied upon that may prove in
surmountable.
Mr.. Morgan is not a young man by
any means. He will be sixty-seven
years old on April IL next. 1t took
forty-1ve years Of incessant labor and
almost unbroken successes to place
him upon the heights of fame which
he occupied a year ago. Not only has
Mr.. Morgan been blamed directly for
losses sustained in corporations 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 Wall street grievances against
him may be summed up as follows:
motion business.
Second.-That he set an example In
overcapitalization which was initiated by
others, producing a flood of securities that
had nothing to stand on When trade con-
ditions began to go back.
Third.-That he created conditions which
made the whole market for securities
vulnerable and invited the bear raids
which proved SO disastrous to prices dur
ing last spring and summer.
Fourth.-That he was the originator Of
the new school Of "high NANCE which
is now so completely discredited.
Fifth.-That his judgment of the pub
lies capacity to absorb new securities
was completely at fault.
sixth.-That his judgment of the trade
future and the amount of shares and
bonds that the Steel and other corpora
lions could reasonably stand was also
very much at fault.
seventh.-That his failure to live up to
the high reputation he had established
had worked an injury which would take
years for investors to forget and had
done almost irreparable harm to Ameri-
can investments in foreign centers.
A study Of the achievements Of Mr..
Morgan makes two facts glaringly ap-
parent-namely:
First.-That as a reorganizer he has
known nothing but success.
0ooonH -Yhof o0 on 0rOQ NfyoP hA has