Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-07

greatest and ablest stock Spectator the
world ever saw. It may be: but as an
operator In the stock market. Of all the
street. the best trader" is by ali odds Mr..
=. H. Hartman. He was an active MEM
Der OF the stock exchange before he ever
took the slightest interest in the manage
good trader then and he is even
better today. He is probably the
most unpopular big man" in Wall street:
personally disliked by ninety-nine. out of
every hundred men who have to do BUSH
ness with him. But 1t is only justice to
say that he IS man who is absolutely
without fear. And when a man has bound
less courage, indomitable will. q tenacfty
that nothing can shake and a great many
millions at his command. 1t is easy to see
what Mr.. Hartman, with his connections
and his early experience as a trader, can
do in the market
1t is probably because the other big men
are not primarily spectators that they
must regard with antipathy and distrust
man, for example like John w. Gates. who,
able business man though he may be. is.
nevertheless. trader" raised to the
power. His speculative operations while at
the head of the American Steel and Wire
made Mr.. Morgan refuse to give him
place In the directorate of the United States
Steel Corporation, but the Louisville and
in the way of disturbing the equanimity not
only Of the Rothschilds' American repre-
sentatives. but of Mr.. Morgan himself. II
ever Mr.. Belmont thinks his subway sue
think of how John W. Gates and few kim
dred spirits from the west took the Louis
vile and Nashville away from him simply
because they plunged, and in that instance
at least plunged very intelligently.
Disturbing Factors.
Ever since the boom in iron and steel
companies eliminating In the formation of
the United States Steel Corporation, created
overnight horde of muti-nillionaires, men
like Mr.. Gates and his friends have been
what the New York magnates have called a
disturbing factor in the financial situation.
These men were no strangers to the stock
market, but where they might have traded
In thousands of shares In the early nineties
since 1900 they have speculated ten times
more heavily. This Is really conservative
OF them. because they are twenty times
richer than they were. But they can upset
the plans of men whose business life has
been different. A man accustomed to the
old-fashioned financial methods, who has
taken thirty or forty years of fairly hard
derstand the western plunger, because he
does not understand their psychology nor
their habitual point ofviewttoward the stock
market. The virtuous Indignation which
the enete eastern magnate used to express
whenever the hateful subject of the new
financiers from Chicago was discussed is
not expressed so vehemently nowadays, be-
cause there has been too much washing of
dirty linen in public Of late. The western
ers think that they do not deserve con-
demnation merely because if they think
stock ought to be bought they buy hun
dred thousand shares. Their opinion of the
ethical side of stock gambling is that if
they can afford to carry that much stock
there is no good reason why they should
not. The three principal members of the
May wheat pool all of them steel million
aires, lost 100000 each last week in wheat
But nobody thinks it crippled them
In the stock market their operations are
merely characteristic of men to whom
money can't possibly mean what it does to
men who took longer time to make their
pile, They retired from the routine of ac-
tual business when they cashed in their
profit in United States Steel in 1901. and
stock gambling is a nice clean business
very pleasing when they win but at ali
times giving them a run for their money
The trouble is that by buying enormous
blocks of stocks they find it impossible to
realize without hurting the market They
don't care what happens to a stock after
they have made their turn whereas the
constructive financier, men like Mr.. Morgan
or Mr.. Schff, must never do anything that
would give the securities of those comma
MES whose financial hackers they are a bad
reputation. But the terrible plungers from
the west, If they feel like selling thew sell
II they win out so much the better If they
don't they will make it up some other time
they could not sell what they had without
forcing prices down, so they sold So other
people sold So stocks went down.