Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-14
pec,al Correspondence of The Star.

wonder at the rottenness Of Wall street,
and then cease to wonder how certain
huge fortunes have been made In few
years But that Is about all. 1t Is curl
Gus habit of ours to talk too loudly. to over
indulge in hyperbole. The megaphone may
be an oratorical aid at times. but no audi
ence can stand twenty-four hours day of
II. The bravest and brightest thing the
late Roswell p. Flower. a man OF great
courage and of a pronounced epigrammatic
gift. ever said was: Damn the votes" But
If he had damned everything and every
body Unfortunately his great phrase
would have been neither brave nor bright.
In the miles upon miles of columns printed
in the past few months about grating
practices in Wall street one cannot help
perceiving the unfortunate tendency to the
use of the megaphone instead Of heart-to-
heart talks in conversational tones. Either
the articles have been semi-fction, in which
the facts have been made unconvincing by
mistaken picturesqueness of literary style
and the fiction interesting for the same
reason or else they have been tedious and
over-statistical, and therefore condemned in
advance to non-perusal.
1t doubtless will be denied, but it is none
the less true that the unpleasant effect pro-
duced by the revelations in the Equitable
Life has been due more to the apprehension
felt among the hundreds of thousands of
insurance policyholderS in the Solvency or
their companies than to wave of virtuous
Indignation at the sordid spirit shown TO
exist Now, the company is beyond ques-
ton solvent Its financial strength Is as
great as ever It was. and II life insurance
was good thing a year ago 1t is not
whit less good today, for all the accusa-
lions and counter-accusations of the Hydes
and the Aiexanders. To their angry pas
I'D. ia So he L ln6ry
that even wealthy men are not always able
to resist the temptation Of form of graft
which can be practiced without going to
states prison. AT one time Wall street
feared that the revelations might SO
brighten the public to precipitate
huge selling movement on the part OF IN
vestors who might be led to doubt the hon
esty Of the management of the corporations
whose securities they held Today the aver
age man in the financial district feels COM
fortably certain that there will be little
more washing of dirty linen In public
not because there is no more to
wash. but because what Is still I'M
known is so malodorous that neither fac
ton can be so imbecile as to allow 1t to
come out. That few people In high places
occupying positions of hduciary charac-
ter can and do take advantage OF these
positions to prosper their private fortunes
does not seem so unpleasant as the selfish
spirit of liberation shown by most Wall
street men, who are, after all, fairly rep
disquieting thing about it. You can almost
hear these men say: Such things exist.
They have always existed. They Will al
ways exist. Kismet!'
One cannot get around these things. If
the good people of the United States. who
are doubtless in a majority, would fight
against abuses, there would be none. The
trouble Is that we are optfmists. In Wall
street this national optimism has been at
the bottom of nearly all abuses, in the
way of excessive capitalization and undue
attention to the stock market and OF cor
pOrate financing, or rather nnanclerlng
One must go very far back to find the
time when people didn't gamble and did
not desire to get rich quick. 1t Is practi-
cally impossible to pick a stock which was
not at first water. There are securities
which are today absolutely gilt-edge, as
safe as government bonds. selling on an
investment basis, eagerly purchased by
trustees who desire absolute safety rather
than big returns on the capital invested,
which at the time they were issued rep
resented merely the capitalized hope of pro-
moters, stocks which were given as bonus
es. thrown in with other securities to make
the latter attractive to speculative IN
vestors. They were once water and MOTH
ing more, worth no more than most OF the
common stocks of the companies which
combined into the United States Steel Cor
poration four years ago. The country mas
grown up to the water In the hrst instance.
The early captains Of finance did not care
to wait for their dreams to come true be-
fore they cashed in. Time and again this
has happened. In the end the country's
growth makes people forget the vicissitudes
of the past But the high finance doesn't
forget. 1t Is always betting on the United
States. This is optimism; it Is indeed a
form of patriotism. But 1t breeds certain
disregard of the ethical side OF important
questions to which due the existing
abuses.
81. ~ Stock Market Rich Mine.
There Is no mine so rich as the stock
market. The stakes are high, but In many
instances the risk Is dispropordonateIy
slight At the worst a really high-class
promoter need only wait patiently for good
times in order to win out And IL at times
the highest are carried away by the ease
and rapidity with which a stock-mad pub
lie makes them rich, they come to their
senses before much damage Is done to them
1t is all In the game; 1t Is all an American
trait.
II Is, of course. because the stock mar
ket Is rich mine that the ruling powers
are regarded as legitimate prey by workers
I'm. for example, the political mines. Since
IL only happened last week 1t Is possible
that few people still remember the news
paper comments on the defeat OF the Dill
to give New York cheaper gas. Certain
ser ators were accused of having succumbed
10 the persuasive voice of Consolidated Gas
dollars. Some names were mentioned. An
Albany newspaper correspondent published
the latest quotations in senators, some or
them being absurdly cheap. 1t was made
clear that a paltry hundred thousand dol
lars could stave of a ten-million- dollar loss
In the stock market. One of the suspected
was even called the senator from Brooklyn
Union-he halls from the city OF churches
and the Brooklyn Union Gas Company's
securities are largely held by the Standard
OIL coterie And yet not one of these men
will be driven from public life, and moth
ing will be proven against them.
N the old times LEGISLATORS used the club
their position gave them. in order to affect
the stock market on their own hook. They
would go short of stock, introduce some
measure calculated to injure the company
whose stock they had previously sold and
after a quick market turn" would lose all
interest in the special legislation. 1t was
legal enough. Nobody had bribed them.
nobody had given them bills marked or I'M
marked Nobody could say man had no
right to buy or sell securities because he
was q state senator or an assemblyman.
But Commodore Vanderbilt taught them a
lesson they never forgot when he let them
sell Harlem short ard would not let his
lobbyists fght against the adverse legisla-
ton, but contented himself with covering
the stock. He raked Albany pockets with
q fine comb and didn't squeeze more be-
cause the people who had given him the
money also promised to be nice II he
squeezed no further. This was. after all.
rather crude form of DOlitical graft in Wall