The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-15
HEAVY NET GAINS
 IN STOCK MARKET New Era Is Inaugurated and Prices Continue Strong BULLS IN FULL CONTROL Legislation Pending Which Will Be Favorable To Railroads and Cor
 porations Tends To Give an
 Impetus To Prices.
BULLS IN FULL CONTROL

New York, March 14-(Speclal. )-After an exciting session stocks closed with material net gains today. The last figures were only slightly under the best of the day and the short interest contin- ued covering up to the end. If signs are worth anything. wild Bpening is in store for Monday morning. In the last few months Washington has chloroformed the market nearly every Monday morn ing, but the bottle has been put up on the top shelf as result of successful ne- gotiations just completed A new era has been inaugurated and 90,000,000 American citizens have laid their quarrels aside. Under the circumstances 1t is, of course, impossible for any person, however well informed, to say exactly what the mar ket will do. A reaction is overdue and the market would go further ultimately if it could rest a few days now. While the ultimate effect of the new legislation will be tremendously bullish it must be remembered that the general public has not begun to realize it's importance and will not do so for several weeks. The new legislation at Washington as far as known, provides for pooling among railroads and makes combinations in straint of trade illegal only when harmful. All of the great trusts are illegal under present laws. Impartial enforcement of present laws would mean that every one of the trusts would have to be dis banded exactly as the Northern Securi- ties company was forced to liquidate. It is realized that such a thing would be b1 Il hl1c mess conditions demand the trusts be- cause things have to be done on such a broad scale these days that individual business men cannot command the re- quisite capital. There is no intention of those in charge of the movement to make any exemption in favor of labor unions as those organizations would be covered by the same law that makes the trusts le- gal.
 Conditions are exactly the reverse of what they were a year. ago and with prices still under the normal there is -such a wide swing possible that it would surprise nobody who knows what the new legislation means, if stocks were to go in 1908 to the highest prices ever re- corded in the history of the country. The situation is pregnant with high rec ords.
 A new bull party has been formed in cotton with the intention of squeezing the shorts who have been selling rather too heavily the last few days.
 The number of shares of stocks sold to- day was 564,477 against 424,26l the same day last year.
 The total par value of bonds sold to- day was $l,S47,000 as compared with d,- S60000 the same day last year.
 Shorts in New York Central got bad scare when the stock crossed par and stayed there. The directors of this com pany have a surprise in store for the traders who have kindly sold stock they did not own.
 The American Smelling and Refining company has advanced the price of lead from 375 to 39O cents a pound
 The bond issue of the Union Pacific may be sprung at any time now.
 Gould stocks attracted much attention today when they joined in the general scramble for higher levels. IL is evi- dent that great many persons have been looking for receivership for Mis- souri Pacific and Colorado Fuel and have sold their shares accordingly. Colorado Fuel crossed 20 and Missouri Pacific sold up