Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1908-05-24
Financial News Letter
BY W. G. NICHOLAS.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

BY w g. NICHOLAS.
| Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, May o3.-The combination
of great market leaders. who have been
pushing up stocks for the last two months
seem at last to have made a market
Whether or not they have distributed any
| considerable part of the stocks bought
low down or whether this distribution in
bulk remains to be done is a question
which is bothering the wise ones of the
street. The market which was created
Is not the great. big. broad one partici-
pated in by butchers and bakers and
blacksmiths. BARRIERS and all the multitude
of small fry people; it is. nevertheless
quite as important in the matter of vol
ume of purchases and quite as effective
| in the absorption of securities.
| X
| The market which has been made is
composed largely of rich and mddle-rich
operators. This is shown by the informa-
ton gathered from the rank and file of
bank and commission houses. These con-
| Germs are not receiving miscellaneous
| business of any consequence. but there is
hardly a house in Wall street that is
not running from one to half a dozen
very active accounts, some of them
very big ones. These live accounts in
some cases extend from $4,000 to 100000
shares, and in one of the big private wire
| firms there is an account of 100000
| shares.
| For the most part these men are not
professionals, but are mlilionaires who
!, dropped out Of the whirl months ago and
are only just getting back into specu-
lation. They seem to feel that times are
on the mend for sure. and that they can
once more safely put their capital in
stocks. A few hundred of such men are
as good for the creation of a big market
as are the many thousands OF little people
or the ordinary run of traders. They are
| just as good to unload on as a multitude.
and the agony is concentrated and stified
when the market goes wrong.
/ =
| A feature of the boom in stocks Is the
return to New York of the fragments of
the old iron and steel crowd that four to
six years ago made it's eadquarters in
the Waldorf ASTORIA where they gathered
by the hundreds and burned up their
money. These men no longer give their
undivided presence and patronage TO the
| Waldorf, but are scattered around among
half q dozen or more of the big uptown
hotels. They are at the Plaza, st: Regis.
Sherry's Holland and Aston. There is
only one explanation of their presence IN
| New York. They are not here to buy
drygoods or boots and shoes. or steam
| yachts. or brownstone fronts. A large
| ma jority of them suffered severe losses
during the last year or two. ana .hcy are
here to get their money back. They are
! looking for it where they lost 1t. More
| than any other element or contingent they
may be credited with the heavy buying
of the last three or four weeks winch
supplemented the previous tremendous
purchases by the Hartman Prick stand
ard Oil combination. This buying has
been on sufficiently large scale to en-
able the combination to get rid OF Dig
percentage of it's speculative lines. If SO
| disnosed. There are many indications
| that it has done So and that the COM
bine is ge ting itself in shape to view
with eauanimity smashing reaction IN
prices.
| I.atterly many of the most experienced
and alert traders of the stock exchange
have either quit altogether for the time
being or else confined their operations
to dives in and out. being well content to
PASS the hours in that way for whatever
Of a scalping profit they can get out of
the play. A leading trader of plunging
| nroclivities said to the writer day or
| two ago: Il am not on the inside OF this
! market manipulation and am as much at
| sea as to what is going on as the veriest
my Judgment tells me the bull move
| ment has gone too far, but the market
| action is convincing evidence that the men
in control have the power and ability to
| mt prices where they want them and
| TO make puppets of the whole stock ex-
| change l feel like a fool when l buy.
and so long as the situation remains as it
| &c am not going to sell short. A man
| who does that takes his life in his hands.
| such being the case !. for one. am going
TO fold my tent and. like the Arab steal
away for while until matters take more
| settled form The market is entirely too
feyerish and too strictly gambling
proposition to suit me-"
| 4
| How much stock the five men RESPONSE
b,e for the stupendous manipulation and
| advance had to buy during the progress
! of the campaign cannot be estimated. but
il must have run up into the millions of
| shares. The group consisted of f. H.
| Hartman. William Rockefeller H. II.
| popers John D. Archbold and Henry c.
| Frick. with John D. Rockefeller in the
background buying bales OF stock to
fortify his position with the various sys-
| TENS in which he has been interested for
| wears. 1t Is not understood that the
| Morgan contingent. the First National
! Bank crowd or any of the other groups
| have been aggressively active on the
| buying side. but they have made it easy
| for the manipulators to obtain funds with
| which to carry on the campaign.
! To that extent they have been in SYM
pathy with the movement.
| In some quarters there is harbored q
suspicion that the Morgan people have
been entirely too willing to lend the Har-
riman faction money. the inference being
/ that the lenders were DESTROYS of over,
loading the plungers with call money. a
| proceeding understood to be unfriend1v
| in the background.
|
| X
There Is no positive knowledge that the
five men named are running the gigantic
deal for joint account or as a pool The
belief is that they have some such ar
rangement, but that each one has been
/ line of sneculafinn