Panama City pilot. (Panama City, Washington County, Fla.) 1907-19??, 1908-02-27

the value of their holding, and it
must be remembered that a panic,
such as we have just passed through,
pays no favoritcs. 1t affects every
interest in the country"
The PILOT disclaims the correctness
of the inference drawn by the Tele-
graph from the formers article, that
the panic was caused by predatory
wealth." What it did say on this
subject was as follows:
Zone does not have far to go to
find the cause of the upheaval. Graft,
thievery, disreputable business me-
thods discovered existing among
those who held positions of public
trust, led to loss of confidence in
nearly all the quasi-public corpora
tons, and the downfall of many a
supposed multi-millionaire, whose
foundation was based not upon sound
business actions and principles, but
upon fictitious values, criminal finan-
cial operations, and cheek"
Neither the Standard Oil Co., nor
the United States Steel Co., are
managed by men who have been en-
gagged in dishonest banking, rotten
insurance deals, or financial kite fly
ing generally. On the contrary they
are a very hard headed sort of finan-
ceers, who foresee the results Of p
panic brought about by the methods
mentioned, and have much to do with
checking such a catastrophe, or has
tening it. When it is their interest
to do the latter, they find it an easy
matter to with hold aid until the OPP
portunity is ripe for them to reap the
benefit of sheriff sales, and that is
just what the PILOT charges was done
in this instance.
A panic is a psychological event.
Reason is dethroned and wild fright
takes it's place. The fear of the I'M
known overrules all experience, the
laws of business, and the facts of
histoay. 1t is not like physical fear,
generated in an instant, but is the
sequel of many things, often running
through quite space of time. But
it is aided by those having control of
the money of the country when they
fail to Keep it in circulation, or to
put it in to the channels of commerce,
until the streams are strewed with
wrecks. That they had money dur
ing this wrecking process is self
evident proposition, as is also the
fact that it was not forthcoming until
the damage was done.
AS to our worthy contemporary IS
remark that during the panic the
products of the Standard Oil went
down. By reference to the markets
in different sections of the country
the reasons for such fluctuations will
be disclosed. In this section where
they were strangling an Independent
company prices were lowered before
the panic, and have not been changed
since. At other points similer con-
ditions are to be found, while their
manipulation of the naval stores bust
ness shows most conclusively that
real values had nothing to do with
prices. From SO cents for spirits in
Florida, they put the price down to
AZ cents; then during the panic for
some reason best known to them
selves they run the price up to 81
cents, then as money grew plentiful
and business began to resume normal
conditions they have put it down to
AZ cents, If our contemporary can
gather any data to base an opinion
upon by such manipulations as to the
effects of the panic upon this corpo-
ration he will do what the naval
stores men have not been able to do.
Again the United States Steel Co.,
have In no way reduced the price of
steel rails, which is the bulk of their
output, and the one which has the
most to do with the people, in the
way of furnishing better transporta-
ton facilities. They still remain at
the old price of s2S per ton, regard
less of panic, reduced wages, and all
other incidents pertaining to lower
prices. In this connection we print
an extract from the financial columns
of recent issue of the Chicago Tri-
bune, regarding the attitude of this
company in this respect, which is
very severe criticism of their policy
in keeping up prices.
1.-The attitude of the United States
Steel corporation and the other large
rfnnl IL, j..