The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-12
HARTMAN ADDS
 ID HIS PRESTIGE Dramatic Intervention In Saw
 ing the Erie
ABILITY IS A SURPRISE
The Money Markets Are Working Easier and Call Money Is Found in Abundance-LongL Loans
 Placed With Caution.
BY w. G. NICHOLAS.

New York, April 11.-Mr. Hartman s dramatic intervention for the salvation of Erie adds very greatly to his prestige and will make it easier for him to finance the impending s50,000,OOO Union Pacific loan and the $1zOOo,OOO Illinois Central loan In London and New York. The street on hearing what MT Hartman had done jumped to the conclusion that he had become the dominating factor in the Erie system and that he would presently annex it to Union Pacific, making 1t the northern arm of his transcontinental line. He already reaches the seaboard by way of Baltimore and Ohio Erie will give him a northern outlet
 It is barely possible that this Harri- man conclusion in regard to Erie is erroneous. Just where the new deal may ultimately land the Morgan marty is at this writing one of the uncertainties. There can be no immediate expulsion of MT. Morgan and his friends from the Erie management for they are in overwhelm- ing control of the board of directors, committees and officials. It is not pre- tended that MT Hartman is in the ma jority control of Erie stock, or that he is in position to do any arbitrary oust- ing of people he might not like. It may turn out that the Morgan people are merely letting MT. Hartman mix in to the extent of supplying the necessary funds, his real object being more to bolster up his credit at home and abroad against new and very important bond fio- tations, and that in the end the transac- ton will give him very little added power in the control of Erie affairs.
 Mir. Morgan's open Indifference to the recent troubles in which Erie found it. self involved has puzzled Wall street not a little, and those who assume to look upon the surface and obtain an X-Ray understanding of what is going on there think they see in the incidents and de- velopment of the last few weeks a dis position on the part of MT. Morgan to get even with Mir. Hartman by throw ing upon the latters shoulders the burden of carrying the Erie railroad through a crisis-the particular thing mentioned as having grouched MT. Morgan being the part taken by Hartman in stopping the sale of Cincinnati, Hamilton and Dayton to thes IsFie= company. Mrs Hartman successfully overthrew that beautiful mer- ger scheme and threw the Cincinnati Hamilton and Dayton road back on Nor gan's hands, inflicting loss upon him of several million dollars, whereas he had arranged to clean up a big profit in the unloading.
 The stock market worked itself into a state of stagnation pending the outcome of the latest acute manifestation of finan- cal distress in connection with Erie. A deep down feeling peryaded the street that MT. Morgan and his immediate friends would not be averse to seeing the road go into receivership as being the easiest way to tide over the difficult ties.
 Indeed, just before he sailed for Eu- rope, he is quoted as having confidential ly said to associates that he did not feel at all certain that he would see either Erie or Southern railway through the approaching period of hard times. He had previously pledged himself to tide both systems over and to provide such funds as would be needed. The work looming up large, however seems to have wrought a change of mind and chilled his willing ness to assume the entire burden. He