The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-26

on as something of joke, and to repre- sent nothing except the activity of in- consequential elements.
 The strength of United States Steel common and preferred is the marvel of the street. and high testimony to the skill of those entrusted with the stock exchange end of the affairs of the great corporation. Admittedly, the iron trade is in bad shape excepting in few of it's features, such as wire and nails and tin plate More than that the outlook for a revival is bad Confidentially niIfe out of ten men actively in the trade admit this and discuss most gloomily. tho out look.
 It is an open secret that outside of the United States Steel corporation and two or three especially favored concerns the big producing companies are. losing money. Insiders confess that such com panies as Republic Steel, Cast Iron Pipe. Bethlehem, Sheffield and Lackawan- na are well content to make both ends meet and some of them are not even doing that.
 The Republic, for instance, is only run ming about 2S per cent of capacity and has virtually not made a dollar since October. It is down to the s7,OO0000 limit of free assets, which it is required to
 
 at the time of the Notation of a $9,000,00O lean three years ago, a condition which would seem to foreshadow the passing of dividends on the preferred at best harsh reduction thereof. Control of this company is lodged In the hands of the same parties who owned Tennessee Coal Iron and Railroad before it was shaken out of their grip and swallowed by the big Steel corporation.
 There has been more or less talk about the contemplated absorption of the Re- public by the same voraeious concern, but there is little. basis for the gossip.
 Cast Iron Pipe is very strongly held and could pass dividends without bringing 2 much of the stock out, whereas with Republic a big slump in prices might re- suit
 Next to the National City bank and the Morgan combine, the United States Steel corporation is today the most pow erful bank in the United States. It has a banking capital of about $15O,000,000 and has been actively in the banking business for many months. Its operations thus far have been rather on the benevolent order, it's, speciality being the financing of it's own Customers. This has enabled it to get full share of whatever new bus mess has been coming in and has also enabled many of it's clients to take pro-
 
 have done Result of this has been that the great corporation has, been slowly accommodating pile of iron and steel pa- per, which it has not thus far been com pelled to rediscount.
 The Notation of the $40, ,OOO Pennsyl- vania loan is about the most encouraging thing that has. happened in the bond market for months. The big transpor- : tation company whose credit is among the best, had to pay nearly 412 per cent for the money, but that is far better than any other railroad corporation has done for long while and better than any If the other candidates for new capital can do today.
 As rule railroads are entirely willing to go as high as per cent and not few of them have been forced to sell short time notes at actually usurious terms. John w. Gates has been putting a lot of money into short time railroad paper, getting in some eases as high as 10 per cent.
 The professional country and market "saviors' are quietly maturing ambit- ous plans for the reorganization of some of the corporations they have been man. aging, and also for otherwise profiting at the expense of the properties en- trusted to their keeping. After using
 
 buy up stocks at panic prices in Oc- tober and November, which the same were sold out in most part at tremendous profit on the big January rise, they are now planning further conquests.
 They found it so easy to rig the mar ket while engaged in the laudable work of saving the country that they have l no mind to. leave the field As MT. Thomas Fortune Ryan said of AIanhat- tan, they find Wall street a nice green clover patch, well populated with lambs. The market story of the past year af- lords a first class illustration of the claim that Wall street operations are not gambling. To gamble Is to take a chance.
 The insiders and market leaders who have been in charge of late never take e chance. They are the rankest kind of sure thing players. They have furnished testimony against themselves on the gen eral broad indictment brought by pop ulists and demagogues that Wall street is brace game, run for the benefit of insiders and that the public at large is continually mulcted-likewise milked
 Generally speaking Wall street looks with favor on the projected programme adopted tentatively by railroad magnates to mark up freight rates They see in this move possible chance for the rail roads to drag more money out of the public to ultimately form basis for new borrowings, fresh infusion of capital and ground work for another big bull stock market.
 They view with open dispeasure prep arations which shippers are making to fight the uplift in schedules and openly exnress the hope that the opposition will fail They see no reason why shippers and the great public should not pay at least s150,0OO000 into the coffers of rail- roads, contending that the move Is jus tifiable and that those who use the transportation companies have no right to kick.
 The claim is made that there has been no raise in rates for 16 years. As mat ter of fact there has been a continuous advance In freight rates during the last six years under cover of what the rafl- road men call "a readjustment This readiustment "up'' has affected a large majority of articles which compose the hulk of the freight that is carried, and has In some instances amounted to rise of 15 per cent or more
 The process has gone on unobtrusively, one might almost say covertly that Is has not excited widespread attention or crit icism If the companies really intend a further advance it will probably be made along the same insidious lines so as not to arouse the united opposition of shippers throughout the whole country
 Not one commission house in ten in the Wall street district is paying running ex- penses. They are bitterly complaining about dull times and saying to them selves that nothing like it was ever seen