Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-08
WALL STREET GOSSIP
NOTES OF INTEREST CONCERNING
BULLS AND BEARS.
BY w. G.. NICHOLAS.

| The general public was not a heavy SUI
ferer by the ten to twenty-point break In
stocks. 1t was rich mans sacrifice ana
incidentally affected a goOd-sized class OF
professional and semi professional specnia-
tors who were in the market as gameie
| and who risked money in the game when
they could afford to lose. The following
which these allied elements drew into the
market was not of the kind usually de-
Scribed as~'the public" The excitement OF
the play did not communicate itself to the
multtudes as it did In the stock boom
which eliminated two years and half ago,
when everybody from the highest to the
most humble bought blindly and extrava-
gantly the strength of the honored
names which were attached to the various
over-capitalized industrlals. On this for
mer occasion hundreds of thousands of in
nocent investors and spectators were i'm
poverished. That experience seems to have
effected a cure in great majority of In
stances and the sufferers have not returned
to the market. 1t was case of the burn
ed children avoiding the fire.
X X
A curb has been put on the personal am
billions of E. H. Hartman and George j.
Gould. Both of these men became ag-
gressive and inconsiderate of the plans
policies and desires of their hackers as to
become a serious menace to the railroad
situation In Its broad sense. Hence, 1t be-
came necessary to teach them a lesson. IL
the case of both the thing done was to re-
trict the borrowing power and close down
upon avenues of financial support This
was more easily done with Gould than with
Hartman.
Standard OH, as the phrase is now inter-
preted Is no longer little group of COM
mercial buccaneers whose operations be-
gan forty years ago and whose very f1nan-
cial life then depended on the secrecy with
which they were conducted The group has
enlarged until its influence spreads all over
the world. Its interests have become amaz-
ingly diversified and vitality affect the
poeketbooks of hundreds of thousands of
men and women whose money is invested
in business enterprises controlled by Stand
ard Oil capital. These properties embrace
scores of industrials and many of the most
important railroad systems in America as
well as leading banks and trust companies
in the larger cities Standard Oil capital
has become so stupendous in volume and its
investments SO vast and varied that 1t is
now fmbued with public interest. and there
Is valid excuse for the clamor for light
upon its uses and employment
X X
The anthracite coal trust has had another
distribution of loot. Very recently the
profits of year were allotted to the va
rious members of the pool. The figures are
jealousy guarded, and have not yet leaked
out The distribution, usual, was made
is composed of the presidents of the various
anthracite coal roads, whose interest there
in represents the percentage of business
given to each road under the pool agree
ment. 1t Is stated on the best of authority
that the profits last year were the largest
in the history of the trust, exceeding those
of the previous twelve months by many mil
lions of dollars.
The anthracite coal combine ia the most
fragrant hard and fast trust in existence
and Is conducted In open and defiant viola
ton of the law. Conclusive evidence against
the trust has been in the possession of the
Department of Justice in Washington for a
year or more, yet no steps have been taken
by the administration to break 1t up.
X x
Southern Pacific has been making 80
much money that it is about to issue an
other $50. 900, 900 in bonds. The back of that
poor goat will be broken in the middle one
of these days.
A grubber has discovered that seventy
two men control ninety of the largest cor
porations in the United States, the list in
Guiding banks trust companies insurance
companies. railroads and industrials These
men are described as the real financial aris-
tocracy and as composing a group stronger
in influence than the federal Congress or
the state legislatures.
A little group of ex-Unted States senators
has embarked in the business of collecting
on old issues of bonds put in circulation by
-
period. Several of these issues were repu-
dated when the people of the victimized
commemorative came into control of the no.
Htlcal machinery of their sections Recent
~ the Supreme Court of the United States
validated some repudiated North Carolina
bonds on an Issue adroitly raised, by which
the state of South Dakota appeared as one
of the plaintiffs Former Senator Pettigrew
of South Dakota, former Senator Butler of
North Carolina and two or three of their
close friends saw in this a good opening
for the prosecution of similar claims and
they are now in the market for clients
Their advertisement appeared In the morn
ing papers for one day.
X X
The Hanover Bank crowd voted 175 OCO
shares out of 100000 shares at the annual
meeting of Tennessee coal and iron and re-
tanned control. j. II. Hoadley kept I'D
bluff until very nearly the end but was
not in evidence to any appreciate extent
at the meeting. When he found that he
could not carry through his southern iron
merger he is supposed to have unloaded a
considerable portion of his Tennessee coal
and iron holdings and to have virtually
abandoned the deal. Headley was one OF
the targets at which the sharpshooters were
firing on this last slump. BY his own con-
fession they forced him to dsgorge a big
line of securities. but he claims to have
come out OF the engagement without serious
Disagreement, although he saw many hum
dreds of thousands of dollars in paper prof
its vanish from sight