Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-17

though he has been living In the city for
many months. There were 600 shares OF
various stocks sold for his account. After
jolly luncheon one day another man, a steel
millionaire, and not one of the tip-toppers
at that, bought 10000 shares OF one stock,
%, O00 shares of another and 10000 shares
each of three stocks. If the supply or
liquor had lasted he would, his admiring
friends declare, have bought 1,O00.O0O
shares. There is a firm which does such a
good business that 1t Is supposed to have
some very good customers. Inc neao OF
that firm, in spasm Of truth-telling, con-
fessed to me recently that outside of few
customers who usually bought for invest
ment and never traded oftener than once
a month his active customers consisted OF
five Americans and one Canadian. or these.
the Canadian and four of the Americans
never bought more than 500 shares at one
fell swoop, and none of them ever car
ried" more than LOCO shares The rest OF
the firms big business came from one man,
who is not known as a plunger even oy MS
intimates. This man, the chief promoter
of rather prosperous "trustlet, thinks
nothing of buying 100000 shares at clip:
The list could be extended. These. mind
you, are unknown" Anecdotes of their
plunging could be given, but they would
lose their educational value by reason OF
the inability to mention names. however,
the point is not that the world does NOT
know these men, nor even the ncreoiple
magnitude of their gambling, but that these
men speculate not as men OF the Wilam
Rockefeller type do. but as room racer ayers
of a stock because It Is going up. Just as
the little fellows do. Their purchases carry
the advance still further. The advance
then ceases. They don't like the cessation
They don't like to read a serial story nor
TO play poker in installments. they tnefe
fore sell out like the pikers. The marker
thereupon becomes very weak, ana 'Hey
wonder why. At times like these they re-
ally make the market, but because OF the
scale on which they play the game tnelI
operations produce effects which puzzle ana
deceive the men who insist upon Judging
a traders market today by What tTduel
market used to be.
1t is certainly true that some hundreds
Of millions Of dollars of stock are being
carried" speculatively In Wall street To-
day, and that at the same time the aver
age commission house Is carrying very lit
tie. The conclusion is inevitable. and "
happens to be true, that 1t Is the Dig
men, who are thus heavily loaded. MOI
withstanding Mr.. Lawson's assertions, tne
big men are carrying so much STOCK, ny.
same stock in order to keep the structure
of fraud reared by the system from
crashing down on their heads, but because
they thought stocks were worth hhoie
money.
They have not been able to sell these
stocks to the public at the price they think
the public ought to be willing to pay. bu'
who is to start the selling which is to make
them let go their holdings at any old price
in order to avoid ruin? A careful survey OF
the situation almost forces the belief on one
that it must be Lawson. The pubic hasn
the stocks to sell: that is, 1T hasn them
speculatively. And as for the investors they
are not in the habit of selling securities
when basic conditions throughout the coun-
try are as sound and as progressive as they
are today. We thus find the speculative
Of ctr kS he
long of them and conditions good Any one
is justified in being bullish on the United
States at this moment. The Standard Oil
and other t'votaries of the system may
wish to exchange their inflated securities
for the public's cash. But Mr.. Rockefeller
had nothing to do with what promises TO be
a record breaking corn crop, nor Mr.. H. II.
Rogers with what looks like a wheat crop
big enough to enable US to sell $50, 100000
bushels to Europe at good prices, after al
lowing for our own consumption. And so
throughout a fresh deluge of brand-new
wealth. wealth that did not exist last year,
gold that will come from abroad, dollars
made this summer by the sunlight and the
rain and the air and the sweat of mems
broWs
There is, however, no desire to advise
the public to buy stocks, but merely TO
show why the big men not trembling
because they are heavily long" The fact
remains that stocks are very high. That,
of itself, is not necessarily a bear argu
ment. In considering whether prices can
legitim tely be higher there are many fac
tors to study, altogether apart from the
possibility of another wild BOOM 1t IS i'm
possible to generaliZe. Some stocks are too
high, others high enough. still others too
low. But it is a fact that the big men
are looking farther ahead than the average
speculator of the trader" class cares to
look One of the very shrewdest and
broadest-minded of the great financial
strategists'' in the United States does not
today own one bond of any character or
description. His holdings are exclusively of
stocks. The money he has invested, all the
millions he has "salted away beyond like
lihood of loss, what he hopes to leave to his
wife and children, are in stocks. To be
sure, he bought most of them at lower
prices than now prevail, but he still buys
for investment now and then, and always
stocks. And this man is not thinking of
today; he is thinking of tomorrow and the
effect upon tomorrow of the worlds enor-
nous gold production. He cannot see how
the increase in the output of gold can pre-
vent what he calls decreased purchasing
power of the dollar" The income from
good bonds, assuming that there will be no
defaulting, is limited; 1t will be $40 or $50
dollar. as he figures, will only buy as much
as say, sixty cents does today. That's
why he owns no bonds. That Is too far
ahead for the average man to look 1t is
market" to consider We have not had
such contingency before. There is no
precedent" The past gives us no rule to
apply to the future in this instance. This
is only one of several cases in point to
justify the statement made In the beginning
that professional Wall street is just now so
aimlessly and unsuccessfully guessing be-
cause 1t does not adapt itself to all the
present conditions as it ought to, being
American.
PRESS OF WALES PROTESTS