Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-23

The stock market Is deep in the slough Of
midsummer dullness. but though the ticker
wheels may not revolve very rapidly, they
revolye. and that means that spectators
continue to differ In their views as to pres
emit and prospective conditions. To be sure
when the market relapses into what Wall
street calls professionalism. 1t means that
the bulk of the transactions consist OF the
swapping of contractS"-some traders sell
what they don't own and others buy what
they don't desire to keep. Fluctuations are
not important though here and there some
stock pleases disappoints its friends by
q rise or drop of a few points. The ma
jority, however. neither advance nor decline
sufficiently to make anybody much richer
or much poorer. and therefore since the
present Is Improbable it is to the future
that the speculative community turns long
ing eyes. This is always the case when the
market is in a state of almost perfect eQuil-
ibrium. Prices are high; they would be too
high If business throughout the country
We're not so good and the promise of the
crops bright the only exception to the
latter being cotton. But If this years cot
ton crop is smaller than the last the price
per pound should be higher. SO that the
purchasing power of the planters ought to
be 'uHdiminished as a whole. and that is
what will tell In the stock market.
n
X
It Is very difficult matter to determine
a stocks value. but even that may be as
certained if a sufficiency Of data bearing
on the king factors is obtainable,
and such data can always be had. The di-
costing of it is another and more, difficult
thing. Union Pacific is today selling at
price that yields very small return to the
investor 1t preSuDDOSPS the face OF IL
absolute confidence in the roads undimln-
ished prosperity during the next decade or
two. But there is what is equivalent to a
large 'book-value. by reason of the COM
pany's enormous profit in it's investment in
Northern Securities, well as a consider
able future revenue from It's holdings OF
Southern Pacific. The apparently very high
price, therefore, may be justified, and the
same holds true of other stocks. But II
cannot be denied that prices generally are
high and that much and prolonged prosper
ity would seem to have been discounted.
There is no desire here to enter into
discussion of security values. but into
question which Is rather psychological than
strictly financial. There Is evident dis
position among enough people to make 1t
factor to be reckoned with, to look forward
to a stock boom. The big men acknowledge
more or less freely that such thing would
not surprise tnem because the country az
large is rich and Is steadily becoming rich
er. The commission houses affect to believe
it more than likely because they must hope
for a huge business, which will mean fat
commissions. The average Spectator thinks
1t ought to be true because the average
Spectator being an American is naturally
on optimist and optimist Is naturally
bull on stocks. To such an extent is this
hope or expectation of d stock market boom
entertained that the question professionals.
insiders and outsiders are asking is: VIII
the public come back in hordes?
1t is only justice to the great railroad
financiers. however unprincipled the maya
zine-reading public may think then,-to say
that in the majority of cases advantage
has beenstaken of the last few fat years to
improve the physical condition of the roads
to such an extent that they ought easily to
weather any period of hard times that may
come. That and the growth of our popula-
ton and of our industries makes the rail-
roads today very different from the same
railroads in 1896. Nine years of prosperity,
must not be forgotten by those who insist
upon remembering how cheap man could
have bought st. Paul at the time of the
Bryan scare. In 1900 so intelligent specu-