The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-12
NICHOLAS WALL i,
 STREET LETTER Manipulation Is Ruling Feature
 of Stock Market FAVORITES GO SOARING Immense Importance Is Attached To the Coming Crop Movement In
 Boosting Business and Im-
 proving Conditions.
FAVORITES GO SOARING
By ". c. NICHOLAS.


 lation again became the ruling feature of the stock market, and prices for many of the favorites went soaring. The ag- gregate of business jumped in one day from 75,000 shares to more than 5OO, ,OOO shares, and has kept up the improve ment. To some extent this burst of ac- tivity on an advancing scale of quota tions was an open demonstration of Wall street contempt for the Denver conven- ton and it's product. The movement may be said to represent in a degree the Wall street habit of discounting the future. which in this case means the election of Taft and the maintenance of republican majority in the national House of Repre- sentatives Wall street is almost childish at times in its methods of political reas- oning and conclusions.
 The mere fact that Mir. Taft has seem- ingly the entire approval of Wall street IS blindly accepted as tantamont to his election. The need of several million votes to confirm this verdict is not taken into consideration The Wall street favor is enough to do the business The rest follows as natural sequence; that Is, the registration of the popular will at the pOliS. OucH d tnlnB never enters the guileless Wall street political mind that the radicals who worship Roosevelt in the republican party and Bryan in the democratic may find Bryan more to their liking than Taft-more Rooseveltian as 1t were and more dependable than any can didate who may happen to bask in the sunshine of lower Manhattan Island.
 Wall street is deeply grounded in the conceit of it's own political infallibility, h1I trrac rtrfco old Chicago Tribune who noted once upon time that there are more barbers and butchers and bakers than there are bank CTS Likewise these barbers and butch CTS and bakers have numerically a thou sand times more cousins and brothers and uncles than the bankers have. All Of which leads to the thought that there is plenty of time for an awakening in the three and one-half months that will elapse before the ballots go into the box time enough to alternately elect Taft and Bryan half dozen times. The more ex- perienced element in Wall street look for at least two or three prediction fur ries before the first Tuesday in Novem- ber
 The general business situation con- tinues disappointing, no matter what the apostles of cheerfulness and sunshine may say to the contrary. Railroad earnings are showing up bad week by week and month by month. Conversationally things are looking bright and buoyant in many quarters, and there are those who take seriously the joyously intoned declara- tion of Gary of the Steel corporation on the eve of his departure for two- months junket in Europe. One of the judges associates in the management of the big corporation characterizes his ut terance as "hot air." and makes the statement that it Is fatly contradictory of known facts in many particulars and misleading to present conditions. He added that the Steel corporation Is now running only 59 per cent of its capacity against several points higher a month ago, a situation he did not consider en- couraging in view of the fact that we are now entering upon the last half of the year, period not usually produc- tive of a great amount of new busi- ness.
 The papers are full of outbursts every once in awhile of the unemployment of large numbers of men, railroads being picked out as conspicuously active In new work A few days ago the Illinois Cen tral was named as having put 5000 new men at work in its machine and repair shops. It actually put 150 men at work Upon such material is confidence expect ed to be spontaneously restored. Ado Is also made of the fact that the number of idle cars on the side tracks is now re- dueed to almost 3OO,0O0 and prophecy is made before the end of the year that there will not be cars enough to handle the freight
 If this glorious condition could come about the railroads would certainly have occasion to rejoice, for they are running behind normal at a most sickenng rate, and in order to make both ends meet they are forced to such economizing as they have never indulged in before for many years. It is true, as many practical men have observed, that railroads are wearing out their equipment and must in time put a lot of new business into the rolling mills, but as yet there is no indication of activity in that direction Nor Is there likely to be until the railroads can mar xet second-class bonds and securities, for which there is at the present time almost no sale. They can issue very few first class bonds their debt limit in that line having been reached. That good time will no doubt arrive, but it is not here at the present writing.
 While on this subject, 1t may be said tfat immense importance attaches here about to the approaching crop movement. Touching on this matter the president of one of the leading western systems con- fessed to the writer that as a revenue producer wheat was not what it was popularly supposed to be.
 He mentioned the fact that this year farmers of the west and southwest were very slow in pushing their grain forward to market, having become educated to the idea of dollar wheat, and not taking kindly to the so and S5 cent quotat ton. At any rate, he added, on what Is known as the great wheat and corn carrying roads the normal percentage of these cereals figures in the total tonnage at not above 10 per cent. It is the general busi- ness that counts, and in periods of de-