The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-10
NICHOLAS WALL
 STREET LETTER The Financial Crisis Is Now
 Over CONVALESCENCE IS SLOW Withdrawals and Hoading of Cash ProportionateIy Larger in New York City Than Elsewhere. Epidemic of Fright.
CONVALESCENCE IS SLOW
BY w. G. NICHOLAS.

BY WIG. NICHOLAS.
 New York. November &Lrhe crisis is over and the sick man is on the way to recovery. Convalescence win be slow, however, as the patient was desperately III and very much weakened by the strug- gle. It is entirely too much to expect entire restoration to health at once. , Market and money conditions are still far from normal, and indications are that the country will suffer from scarcity of actual cash for several weeks, probably until after the neturn Of the year. Tens of millions of dollars were withdrawn from the banks and trust companies and hidden away in safety vaults. This concealed treasure will not come out of its hiding places immediately Some of 1t, of course, will be redeposited with the banks, but the mass was put away as insurance and much of 1t Will be allowed to remain until the banking situation clears.
 Selfishness, fear and indifference to the demands of commerce and of gen. eral welfare inspires tens of thousands of people to pursue the narrow policy of hoardng their funds until the storm passes away although the very process delays the desired result. The miser practice of secreting money does no. amount to much in few individual 1n- stances, but where there is an epidemic of fright the aggregate amount With drawn from channels Of business cuts a very important figure.
 It has been the chief cause of the acute money famine in New York and In many other of the larger communities throughout the country. Withdrawals In the city of New York are said to have been much heavier than in any other city. This was due largely to the dis covery that insiders in the Knickerbocker Trust company had drawn down their own deposits on the day of the sus- pension of that institution, fact which aroused suspicion that officers and Ia vored customers of other banking con- cerns might be doing the same thihg. It then became q question of getting mine first" The banks of this city have been forced to be very hard ana unrelenting in their treatment or the public. A policy of self preserva'loh obliged them to get on as near GAhl- eral credit basis as possible and to " fuse to pay out cash on checks unlesA' absolutely driven to It. Rigid adher- ence to this policy was attended by many hardships on members of the busl- ness community, but 1t seemed to be for the general good and the cases Of individual suffering had to be borne with the best grace.
 The run on the Trust Company of North America was the most sensa- tional feature of the week In the bank ing situation. The story of how that institution made it's heroic fight will long stand out as an extraordinary perform ance The fight was conducted under the generalship of Oakleigh Thorne against seemingly impossible odds. The result shows the company to have been admirably handled and to have been In most excellent shape. Otherwise it could not have withstood the demand. The record of $35, GOO GOO in cold cash paid out over the counters of the banks In two weeks of agonzng stress out of total deposit account of about s550O0,0oo makes a case of endurance, courage and re- sourcefulness almost without parallel. An effort was made to drive MT. Thorne out of the presidency of the trust com pany as the price of assistance by other banks. The president felt that he had won his battle however, and that this demand was not only unjust. but that it indicated a purpose on the part of the banks making the demand to en- gage in piece of Piracy and hoggish- ness WHICH WOulu 1lOl Dt loici aleu iiS fully believed that certain rivals in the field were bent on getting hold of the assets of the company for fraction of their value and destroying an inst- tuition which was in every way solvent. He accordingly backed up against the wall and told his assallants to ''go to the devil" His nerve having been previously tested the wrecking and salvage crew abandoned their raid and concluded to let the fighter alone.
 market incident of first importance was the swallowing of Tennessee Coal and Iron by the United States Steel Cor poration. The corporation had had its covetous eye on Tennessee Coal and Iron for years, but the opportunity was never before presented of getting hold of the property on what was considered satis- factory terms. A year ago or more repre- sentatives of the Tennessee Coal and Iron pool made overtures to sell the property on the basis of $500 share. The propo- sition was turned down by Judge Gary as being preposterousy high. although John w. Gates and his associates man fully contend that the stock Is well worth $500 a share. The big steel trust ac- Quires control on a basis of about $l00 q share, which MT. Gates says Is tho bargain of the century. An interesting feature of the deal Is the fact that 1t has the personal approval of President Roosevelt, who was consulted about it before the trust officials would give their approval. The United States Steel Cor poration may, therefore. be said to enjoy full administration indorsement as being good trust"
 It already has control of about 70 per cent of the available iron deposits in the United States and may proceed with the highest political approval to go ahead and gobble up everything else in sight. The mammoth trust has now ownership or lease control of more than D. 600 tons of the best Iron ore in the world. The Tennessee Coal and Iron deposits Is variously estimated at 100000 to 1,100.- 600 tons and it's coal deposits at 1,400, OO0, ,000 to 2,000,0 GOO tons
 The combination cuts the productive ca pacity of the independents down to about % per cent of the total outfit. The most important of the independent concerns are the Jones-Laughin company, the Lackaw wanna company, Bethlehem and the concerns controlled by the Pennsyl