Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-31
WHY STOCKS FELL OFF.
Public Loaded Up With Railway
Securities.
HOW CONFIDENCE WAS LOST
Effect of Hostile Legislation and All
Sorts of Wild Propositions.
OWNERS FASTENED TO SELL OUT
Values of the Shares Just as Much as
Ever-Only Spectators on Mar
gins Were the Sufferers.
OWNERS FASTENED TO SELL OUT
BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.
II
Special Correspondence of The Star and the Chicago
Record Herald.

Special Correspondence of The Star and the Chicago
Record Herald.
NEW YORK, May %, 1907.
There has been an enormous falling off
in the price of stocks during the last two
months and the tendency is still down.
ward. The prevailing sentiment among the
banking community Is bearish and nearly
every one I have talked with believes that
quotations will be lower before they are
higher, for several reasons. 1t Is also the
popular impression on Wall street that
President Roosevelt is the Ursa Major.
They accuse him of doing all the damage
that the bull spectators have suffered
| since the great slump on March IA. The
| "howling dervishes' consider him RESPONSE
Bile for the green bug that has appeared in
the western wheat fields. as well as for the
cold spring weather. Whenever Roosevelt
sneeZes the spectators duck their heads,
and they get up early in the morning to
read the dispatches from Washington to see
| If he has stopped the revolution of the
earth You can't imagine how ridiculous
| is the hallucination that the President of
the United States Is towering like a great
black vampire over the New York Stock
Exchange reaching out his talons to seize
| some innocent gambler, to carry him off
| to mountain crag and eat him alive as
| the condors in the Andes are said to seize
| and fly away with the little kids in the
| pastures. There is no story too absurd, no
| rumor too preposterous for stock specu-
J lators here to believe. Every man, who
| comes from Washington is surrounded by
| eager inquirers who ask questions that
| would be accepted by any marshafs jury
| as clear evidence of insanity.
| Legitimate Shrinking in Prices.
| But you must not think that everybody
| on Wall street is insane There is a small
| minority of thinking men among the finan-
| cial community who point out clearly
| the real causes of the depreciation in stocks
| and give good reasons for mem. These men
| are almost unanimous in their opinion that
prices previous to the late panic were I'M
| reasonably high, and that the present quo
| tations are not far from normal, although.
basis, they argue that certain popular
| stocks could drop several points lower and
still represent their full value.
These gentlemen explain that the shrink
Ing in prices, while it has been enormous,
does not represent a shrinkage in value.
There has been no falling off in business;
dividends have not diminished, and almost
every share on the list Is worth today as
much as it ever was, although the demand
| for it is not active 1t was three
months ago, and the supply is just as large.
The true cause of the recent slump, there
| fore. may be found in the natural law Of
supply and demand, and not in the annex to
the White House.
The following table will show the differ
ence in the quotations of several of the
the day before the panic, and May 24-yes-
terday.