Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-06-18
INSIDE OF WALL STREET
Dizziness Still Prevails, but Recent Events Have Set
the Pebble to Thinking
BY EDWIN LEFEvRE.

- pI EoWA Az
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To all outward appearances the salient
feature of the stock market lately mas peen
the dullness The reason the market is
dull, of course is that the public Is not
specializing in. stocks. It is not buying Sc
curities: that is, not enough to help things.
On this point-the spublic's inactivity-an
are agreed, intelligent. observers as well as
professional spectators. Where the >dif-
ference Of opinion exists is on the reasons
why the public refuses to be coaxed into
listening to the voice of the ticker.
The great financial powers study under
lying business and Industrial conditions not
a whit less carefully than they do the con-
dition of sentiment There are beyond ques-
ton great many reasons why the pubic
today finds no inducenent to the purchase
of securities. Many Of these are purely
technical and can interest only students OF
the tape Perhaps the most striking and
in some ways the most important Is the
uneasiness lately created by the printed
revelations of financial graft in high places
and by the ways and means employed IN
the accumulation of some colossal fortunes.
That public opinion has been aroused Dy
the miles upon miles of columns In the
newspapers and the magazines bearing upon
fnaneiers realize it; they even acknowledge
it. The public has permitted itself to think.
1t was unusual, and because the pubilc.
though very patient and very stupid, Is
very powerful, the very intelligent and very
impatient financial kings are also doing
some thinking.
The serious feature of the entire matter
is not and never has been the fact that the
Aft soil 70
the public inferior goods at high prices. 1t
really is very seldom that such goods are
deliberately and grossly misrepresented, as,
for example, in the United States shipbuild-
ing promotion. The sponsors or creators OF
companies which never bore out the expec-
tations of the sgners of the prospectuses
and the purchasers of their shares are rel
atively few. Compared with those that
have made good, the disparity Is pleasantly
large-a few millions of bad dollars along
side of a billion or two of dollars that still
pass currency. Great fortunes have been
made because this is the richest country in
the world in opportunities as we'll as in re-
sources. The alarming thing. therefore. was
not the growth of few individual fortunes.
but the growth of the belief that Few men
in control of vast corporations were law
unto themselves, anSwerable to nobody, so
long as they kept within the letter of the
law. There was danger that financial oil
garchy might be established 1t was TINS
manifest tendency which made men appre-
bend serious trouble in the future-men be
1t noted, who were neither calamity howlers
nor sensational demagegical orators against
the Wall street robber barOnS. Briefly
stated it was the prevalence of the belief
in high financial quarters that the principle
of minority rule could endure in this coun-
try as 1t has endured in countries long ac-
customed to aristocratic government 1t
may be true that there is an arlStocracy OF
money in this country. 1t is probably true
that today power is expressed in terms OF
dollars the world over. But it was dan
gerous principle. none the less. 1t was not
sought premeditatedly to establish 1t.
+ \
The public may rest assured that no for
mai conspiracy was entered into by Mr..
Morgan and Mr.. Vanderbilt and Mr.. Cas-
satt and Mr.. Hartman and Mr.. Hill and
Mr. Rockefeller and Mr.. Gould and half
dozen others against the basic principle Of
our political life. There was no insidious
effort to insert the thin end of wedge of
gold 1t merely was the more or less logical
growth of certain conditions, among others
the national indifference to important ques-
lions and the publics ignorance of financial
practices. The minority has long ruled in
Wall street. The Vanderbilt family, own
ing a small percentage of the stock of the
New York Central, has ruled 1t autocrat
| ically. 1t was a Vanderbilt who first said:
1.-The public be damned" Why not If the
| real owners, the public. permitted it? Why
did the real owners permit it? Why do the
people permit political bosses to say what
| laws shall be enacted? Mr.. Morgan would
pooh-pOoh the notion that he desired pow
ers which were not proper or which were in
violation of the principle that the ma jOrity
should continue to govern. Yet he saw
nothing wrong in seeking to prolong 1ndef-
| initely the Erie voting trust. There was
| some reason why voting trust for Erie for
a few years after the reorganization of the
company might be good. 1t meant that
| these men ruled the destinies Of the road
| absolutely To continue this indefinitely
| was like asking all the voters of this coun-
try to allow three men to cast all the votes
| of the nation for the President and con-
gressmen. Everywhere that tendency to ig-
| more the publc's rights was evident. The
| intentions of the minority may have been
| admirable. They may have meant to make
| their constituencies-the stockhoiders-pros-
| per- But for all that. 1t was very decidedly
| un-American. Granting that the mob does
| not know what is best or practicable In
| business or in finance. and that power con-
| centrated in few hands insures greater effi-
| cheney, the best that can be said of the
| tendency shown by Mr.. Morgan and the
lesser powers was that perhaps they went
| on the theory that government under an
| Intelligent and benevolent despOt was the
best But 1t is obvious to all that benevo-
| lent despots are not oyerabundant, and that
| to be deaf to the ticker In Wall street is an
| infirmity possessed by none of the self
1 appointed candidates for the benevolent des-
| pots job.
| n
| 1t was this tendency. as previously stated.
| that gave ample es,use Cor alarm Capital
| may have the best Intentions in the world
| aid labor may be unreasonable, extortion-
| lie, stupidity seeking to cut the throat Of
| he goose that lays the golden egg: the
| unions may be the led victim of grating
| delegates and bosses-another case OF mi
nority rule But it cannot be denied that
the two groups were becoming restless. It
| looked as il the distinction OF classes and
| masses were In process of formation in this
| republic; and classes and masses must in.
/ evitably clash. A few months ago, IL any
| one had ventured to suggest such a thing to
| Mr.. H. H. Rogers he would have evoked q
| laughing denial. Mr.. Morgan probably
| would have told the man who said such
| thing that the man was an ass. The DEM