Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-01-06
Financial News Letter
BY W. G. NICHOLAS.
.ecial Correspondence Of The Star.


Iators in Amalgamated that the present
dividend of per cent on the stock will
be increased. The company is certainly
earning great deal more than is required
to pay quarterly dividends of So share
H. H. Rogers is the man to say whether
Amalgamated will increase its distribution
to it's stockholders. He is more powerful
in Amalgamated than Mr.. Hartman In
Union Pacific; what Mr.. Rogers says goes
Il
For a considerable time Amalgamated has
huctuated within narrow limits in the
market and spectators not in touch with
Mr.. Rogers have made more or less costly
efforts to bull the stock. When they have
failed in their efforts to bull 1t. they have
tried to bear it, with equally unsatisfactory
results. Any one who wants to run cam
paign in Amalgamated without Capt. Rog-
ers' help is doomed to disappointment. Inc
stock sticks at this level.
X
Amalgamated acted the same way a year
or so ago, when it was selling some $50
cheaper. When the stock was In the JUS
spectators not in close touch with Capt.
Rogers complained of the cheapness of the
stock and tried to advance 1t. But their
experience then the same as now.
Amalgamated would not go up until Rogers
said the word.
X
The copper metal market Is In a very
much stronger position now than 1t was
then, and the best judges Of the copper
industry believe that are in long
period of high prices for the metal The
Amalgamated is not greatly increasing its
output, but It's profits are mounting up TO
an extent that the promoters Of the com
pany did not dream of when they fioated
the company seven years ago.
If Mr. Rogers wants to increase the divi-
dend rate on Amalgamated it will be in
creased But will it be just the thing for
him to do? The copper industry has its
ups and downs. Now it has one of its ups.
The great strength of the metal market
today should not blind us to the fact that
the profits of mining copper may not al
ways be as large as at the present mo-
ment. Amalgamated may pay 10 per cent
or even better this year; but could 1t pay
this high rate next year and the year
thereafter? Mr.. Rogers wants to put the
Amalgamated stock in the class of invest
ment industrials. He cannot put 1t in that
class by paying large dividends during a
boom in the copper industry and paying
small dividends in periods of depression
If Mr. Rogers wants Amalgamated to APP
peal to American investors it may strike
him that the wisest course to pursue Will
be to distribute profits conserVatively IN
boom times so that fair dividends can be
returned in hard times. This country mas
not yet grown to the point where cor
pOration profits can be distributed In the
English fashion The English investor ex-
poets his dividends to vary according to the
state of trade. The American investor pre-
fers a fixed rate of dividends.
PITY Secretary Shaw. He wants to be
leader of the people, but unfortunately ne is
thaf he
ton street New York, without creating the
belief among his countrymen that he has
fallen into the trap of the Money Devil. Mr..
Shaw is almost willing to neglect his duty
rather than arouse this terrible suspicion.
Ever since Mr. Shaw was tempted by the
Money Devil to put to useful purpose some
of the idle millions in the peoples treasury
an outraged populace has been calling him
awful names Mr. Shaw nobly and cour-
ageously withstood the outcries of the peo-
pie, but a wall from Nashville, Tenn, was
too much. A common everyday man
down in Tennessee sent him the piteous ap-
peal: How much longer will the treasury
come to the relief of the gamblers and
money sharks?
4
Mr.. Shaw at once took his pen in hand
and wrote to the common everyday man.
down in Tennessee. He tried to put HIM
self right with the outraged citizen of
Nashville and after he had written the let
ter it sounded so good that he called in the
Washington correspondents and besought
them to spread it broadcast over the coun-
try. Feeling sorry for the poor Secretary
who had been tempted by the Money Devil
the charitable correspondents forthwith
FASTENED to the telegraph offices and vlca-
riously spent much good money IN Tolls. Mr.
Shaw told the Tennesseean that he had
shoWered down the mamma OF the treasury
on the Just and unjust alike because the
people were hungry for money. If the ter
rible Money Devil had gobbled up all the
gold he could not be blamed.
From a position outside of the battle
ments Mr. Stuyvesant Fish, lately bounced
from the presidency Of the Illinois Central
by Mr. E. H. Hartman, discharges news
paper column Of lamentations. In answer
to the question put to him, Are we APP
preaching a great political and industrial
criss?' he says, among other things:
1.-THE New York Stock Exchange has
ceased to be a free market where buyers
and sellers fix prices through the ebb and
flow of demand and supply and has become
the plaything of a few managers Of cliques
and pools to such an extent that for months
past every announcement of increased divi-
dends of stock distributions and of rights
has been met by fall in prices.
''The investing public are and remain out
of the market, not because of ventures in
industrials, in electric railways or in sub
urban real estate-the speculation in each
of which was checked months ago-nor yet
because of the more recently pricked bub-
BILE in mining shares, but simply because Of
the distrust which even those possessed of
10 a n m n
porate finance now in vogue in New York.
That Europe shares this distrust of those
methods is shown by it's outcry against the
misuse of American finance bills"
He finds the country in great danger. A
crisis of awful portent he discovers to be
imnending and he warns the people to be