Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-07-27
The Prosperity Barometer.


THE stock market at present is dom
mated by a combination of the most
powerful and skillful operators the
Street has ever seen. These gentlemen
and their corps of able lieutenants are
energetically engaged in sustaining the
market and carrying first one stock.
then another to a higher level, in order
to distribute their surplus holdings of
securities. at present prices their pro-
fits are exceedingly handsome, but the
public show no voraciOus appetite for
their offerings Apparently, however,
it is their purpose to save the market
from any important decline by creating
increased activity and thus widening
the speculative movement and stimula-
ting the distribution of stocks. From
a recent letter issued by the New York
banking house of Henry CleWs & Co.
That paragraph would indicate that
the New York stock market is suscep-
tible to manipulation. Muck rakers
have been trying to make us believe it
for a year or two, but their statements
have been so extravagant that few
cared to take them at their face value.
Having once started to discard, one
soon finds himself robbing the whole
But when a conservative old institu
ton sets it forth in dispassionate ian
guage as part of bald and unbiased
statement of market conditions, it car
ries weight. Wall street is keeping
prices of securities and paper evidences
of wealth at high level for it's own
ends.
We are glad to know the truth regret
ting always that it is the truth. But
there is another side of the story. If the
general tendency was downward in
stocks all the manipulations of Wall
street could not keep prices UP for a
very long period. Let us read a little
further:
"It must be recognized that condi
tions are unusually favorable for such
operations: and it need cause no sur
prise if they met with more or less
success. Advices from the interior are
universally optimistic. and sentiment
here is equally hopeful. From the
great agricultural regions of the West
reports as to crops are very encourag-
ing. and hopes for another profitable
season to farmers are gradually ap-
preaching realization The corn crop.
the biggest factor in our business out.
look iS still h
been no diminution in the pros
poets of a bumper yield at
very good profits. Even should
prices fall below those realized for the
last crop, as has been previously point
ed out in these advices it looks as if
the farmers of the United States will
this year produce somewhere about S.
600. 900. 900 of new wealth. This is a
prodigious amount and must have a
very stimulating effect upon CONNER
cial, industrial and financial affairs.
Bankers in the West are universally
hopeful owing TO crop conditions Mer-
chants are not carrying large supplies
of goods. and factories are obliged tc
steadily increase their output"
So it appears that after all the coun-
try is prosperous and that Wall street
is simply pushing along a good thing
In other words when the country is
prosperous Wall street makes the most
| of it. jumping the trough of the finan-
cial sea and rising high on the crest OF
the wave when it comes within reach
1t has its tenacles stretched out ovel
the country reaching into the pockets
of the wealth producers several months
ahead Of the great prosperity and will
be in a position to reach down deeper
when the greatest prosperity of all ar.
rives. .--.-..-.