Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-07-25
Operators Take Advantage OF
a luIl With the Public.
RAIL WAYS THE FAvORITES
Check to the Industrial Movement
Past Week.
MANIPULATION OF STEEL ISSUE
Heinze Victim of Street Wolves.
Stripped Of Cash and Securities.
French Bourse Fizzle.
Special Correspondence Of The Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
NEW YORK, July "A. 1900.
There is undoubtedly considerable dis
tribution of high-priced railroad stocks
going on. The pools and large individual
operators are the ones who are engaged
in this business of profit taking. They
find the public rather less anxious to buy
than they were a few weeks ago, and
consequently manipulation is more ma
GRAVITY in evidence. This is particularly
the case in steel, Union Pacific, Reading
and copper 1t looks very much as
though the favorites in the intermediate
grade. like Rock Island preferred. Chesa-
peake and Ohio. Southern Railway pre-
ferred, Rio Grande and few others may
have some further advance ahead or
| them, they being In developing stage.
The properties behind them are being
worked into higher efficiency and great
er dividend earning capacity. There IS
still plenty of room ahead for legitimate
progress both In physical sense and III
the stock market
Stocks like Pennsylvania, New York
Central, st. Paul. Illinois Central. Louis
Vile and Nashville and Atchison show
no decided tendency in any direction.
The stocks are strongly held by investors,
and the speculative interest therein. while
| large, is not the dominating factor
Possibly New York Central may be an ex-
ception to this statement. as there Is al
ways an active stock market interest In
that issue 1t has been particularly in
dustrious for the last year. Pennsyl-
vania is probably freest of any of the i'm
portant railroad stocks from manipula-
ton.
by ircreasi sing in favor for months, got
check this week on account OF
the trouble over tariff revision In
Washington. Wall street has not
yet made up its mind what the
dispute is going to amount to in the &C
tual reconstruction OF the bill now before
Congress. That Mr.. Taft Is enforcing his
VIZ VS. with all the vigor possible. and that
the measure as 1t came from the senate
is likely to undergo important modifica-
lions, is taken for granted, but the exact
measure of the Presidents power Is the
indeterminate factor AS matters now
stand specialists in industrial shares are
| disposed to await definite knowledge be-
fore charging their risks. There are
exceptions to this indecision. and among
the stocks which have been In favor re-
CARELESS of Washington news is crucible
stael, Pitlshurg stock dealt IN almost
the attention of the iron and steel con-
tingent in Wall street, however. and
good many New York orders have gone
to the Smoky City for investment In
that issue.
There seems to be very little let-up, If
any, in the progress Of the iron and steel
industry. The corporation has practically
stopped taking orders beyond October
The policy seems to be to let the IN.
prices and leave freer field for the
taking of new business after the present
rush is over.
Speculation Over Steel.
The return OF Mr. Morgan stimulated
anew speculation as to the chances Of an
increase in the dividend rate on Steel
common. There is no doubt that the
corporation can afford to pay larger
rate and that its earnings will continue
to grow Nevertheless there is earnest
and sometimes angry discussion as to the
wisdom of making the increase at this
time. On the one hand is heard the
argument that owners of the common
stock are entitled to larger share of
the earnings than they are getting, and
that there is neither justice nor good
sense In keeping them out of money they
are entitled to. On the other hand. 1t is
polite to raise the dividend rate right
at the end of two years of hard times
and just at the very beginning of en-
larged earnings.
in the dividend rate now would be con-
strued most unfavorably by the investing
public, which would look upon the move
as strictly in the interest Of Wall street.
They profess to regret the growing dis
position to cater to the stock jobbing
end of the game instead of attending
strictly to the manufacturing END. They
do not want to see stock speculation De-
It is very horrifying to think of the big
insiders playing the stock market and
making the great corporation an agency
for coups on the stock exchange. AS
| though this had not been one of the
chief, ends of % per cent Of the big men
in control of the company and its poll
cies.
Many of the biggest plungers in Wall
street are active in the management of
the United States Steel Corporation, and
| have been from the beginning. Next to
Mr.. Hartman, the most important
operator in the street for the last five
years has been Mr.. H. c. Prick, the
| virtual dictator of Steel Mr.. Prick de-
votes one day Of the week to the bust
ness of the Steel Corporation, and for
two years or more he has been the great
single figure in the administration of the
giant industrial. 1t is of common knowl-
edge that the tremendous manipulation
| which has been going on in the Steel
issues for the last eight months or more
has been directed by a small coterie of
| financial leviathans which makes its
headquarters not a thousand miles from
the banking house of j. p. Morgan &
Co. No stock in the street has been
more openly manipulated than Steel.
Important Move.
The decision Of the board of governors
of the New York Stock Exchange to
Abolish the unlisted department is by all
odds the most important move ever made
by the exchange to establish itself in the
confidence of the general public. The I'M
listed department has been the curse of
Wall street. 1t has been the mask behind
which some OF the rawest swindles have
been Observation-Disclosures which have
disgraced the name of the exchange
and brought upon Wall street much of
the merited criticism about which it SO
weepingly complains. Some of the most
disreputable deals and campaigns of jug
glery ever heard Of have been conducted
openly and in defiance of the rules of the
exchange and az every sentiment of
decency and fair play. The big manip-
ula tors, like Rogers and Havemeyer and
others of their ilk. ran blind pool after
blind pool. giving neither the public nor
the authorities of the exchange more than
the barest outline of the condition of the
properties they were handling and which
| were traded IN enormously on the floor
of the exchange.
1t was charged openly that the ex-
change authorities dared not call these big
men to account. and that they were self
ishly Influenced not to do SO by reason
of the huge commissions accruing from
the buying and selling of the shares I'm
blind pool corporations. Now all this op-
portunity for foul play is going to be
stopped. The erring members will have