Bisbee daily review., 1907-11-19
INSINCERITY OF
ROOSEVELT PORTRAYED
Rnacfc Evil Trusts. RIIt Bushes
ttSNNS ~ - e . - sN~I - :. = - = 80 -
to Assistance of SpeCula-
tive Banks,

4 % lllt T1tlAol Vi Inc ANGNtNW
The same day that saw the run on |
the Knickerbocker Trust company !
brought the information that E. H. !
Hartman had been able to borrow |
$40 600, 600 on securities which are
doubtless good, but which are not |
quickly marketable That fact was
elected in an official investigation of
the Mutual Life affairs. The ability
:, .,5;5--s;77- &c onn eco =. 1o"htf,,l 60 J
curity is a very useful qualification
for a man who wants TO become one
of the greatest captains of industry. 1t
helps to buy control of a bank and
then borrow 100000 from that bank
and so on until he can handle hun
dreds of millions of dollars for which
he has put up only a few hundred
thousand. This is what is being done
by Hartman and by Ryan and has
been done by Westinghouse, who has
gone to the bad. The Westinghouse
failure is likely to extend the bank
panic far to the west. It will touch
the securities of the steel trust and
as they are held outside of New York
it is very likely to create financial
difficulties where it had not been eX-
pected they would appear.
And yet, after all, it is a rich mans
panic. 1t is a fight in Wall street be
tween men who were just as eager
to get rich quick as anyone of those
much scOTned western rubes who
come to New York to buy gold bricks,
or green goods. It is a panic bred of
the determination Of a few men to
make themselves enormously rich at
the expense OF the investing public.
1t comes out of the new financial
scheme of building a one million dol
lar corporation on a basis Of about
one dollar at the bottom.
Where the Responsibility Lies.
Let me quote: This is what Mr..
William Turnbull of the Knickerbock-
er Trust company said as that bank
ing corporation closed its doors. This
is the inevitable end of what has been
in progress for months. There is a
man high in authority who does not
know the meaning Of credit, and who
has consistently done all he could to
destroy this delicate constituent Of le-
Ultimate business. If disaster follows
and anyone wants 10 know the funda-
mental cause of the trouble let him
go back over the last six months and
read the speeches of this man"
Of course Mr.. Turnbul declined 10
say who the man referred to was.
Perhaps it might be left to the guess
of the reader.
Curiously enough when the vice
president of the Knickerbocker Trust
company was giving out the state
ment which is here quoted, President
Roosevelt at Natchez, Miss, was say
ing this:
These policies represent the effort
to punish dishonesty. l doubt if they
have helped to bring the trouble, but
if they have it will not alter in the
slightest degree my determination
that for the remaining sixteen months
of my term these policies shall be
persevered in uuswervingIy.
I am responsible for turning on the
light, but l am not responsible for
what the light showed"
Now after ali now mas Mr. ROose-
welt turned on any light which might
affect the KnickerbOcker Trust com
pany which has failed, or its subOrdi-
nate branches, or what did he do in
the way of turning on the light to
illuminate anything wrong in the
Westinghouse company, which is one
of the greatest industrial concerns of
the United States, and which is not
in any sense a trust? What has the
president done, except to agitate-and
after all an agitatOr is useful. Why
should the speculative New York
banks be suffering on his account?
He has done nothing except to per
NIT his secretary of the treasury to
offer them something like two hun
bred million dollars to tide them over
: d PimCfI. lie mas % fF51, i - q &c;
somewhat Ct random against monopo-
lies, and he has discovered that dis
honest men ought to be punished.
But must we believe that the discOy-
cry of punishment for dishonesty rests
with Roosevelt? He has never been
explicit: he has never gone further
than to say that predatory wealth
should be frowned upon, and that dis
honesty in great financial institutions
should be penaIized Both state
ments seem to rank with the most or
binary platitudes.
The Stock Exchange and the Investor.
| remember very well some years
ago when the failure of certain gentle
men, now very rich, known as the
Moore brothers, and the cOinCident
collapse of the Chicago Traction com
Danies, owned at that time by Charles
T. Yerkes, led the Chicago stock ex-
change to close its doors for some
weeks. If an ordinary line "piker,"
who stood to lose four or five thOUs-
and dollars fOresaw trouble, there
would not be any closing of the stock
exchange. When Yerkes, who robbed
the city of Chicago of millions of dol
lars, and when the Moores who had
taken millions away from small in
vestOrs were in danger of losing, the
stock exchange cheerfully closed up
for their benefit. So, now, the Pitts.
burg stock exchange is closing for the
benefit of the Westinghouse compal-
les. In brief, it seems fair to say that
the ordinary investor would do better
to keep out of the stock exchanges.
If he loses, he will be closed out at
the ring of the gong. If the big man
loses, the stock exchange will be
closed in order that he may be able
to tide over a pinch.
WILLIS ]. ABBOT.
Washington, d. c., Nov. Is.