Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1909-02-03
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~ D
PROSPERITY OF THE WEST.

An unparalleled situation presents it
self in the business and financial world
today, and the prosperity of the west
is particularly pronounced. The New
York Suns weekly review of Saturday
says:
The financial market and the bust
ness situation taken in its general as
pect as that of national phenomenon,
is never exactly the same 1t is like
the surface of the sea, at times smooth,
at times ruff1ed and at others tempest
uous, but whether smooth or ruffled or
tempestuous, still never of exactly SIM
liar sort as conditions previously ex-
perienced, and the comparison here is
poor, because the security market is
subject, more than anything else, to
the varying bulletins of human emotion,
and cannot, like things material, be
scrutinized as subject to the operation
of physical law.
There is probably no scene of human
effort into which many varying and
subtle factors enter as the stage on
which daily take place the rise and fall
of security and commodity prices. AS
is but natural, the method most COM
monty adopted in endeavoring to fore
cast the future of any and all markets
is nevertheless a comparison of existing
conditions with conditions known in Il
past This is indeed the only method
that can be used in making these de-
auctions by reasoning men, but it is at
best faulty because of the intensely
mutable character of markets and the
fact that each time the attempt is made
to draw a comparison it is found that
new elements in the situation render
precise analogy impossible.
1t is thus apparent that these mat
tiers as they now stand in our country
have never had an exact parallel before.
The great forces now playing or SEEM
ing to play in financial affairs are the
existence of vast and almost over
abundant supply of money which makes
every kind of financial negotiation or
arrangement relatively easy, state of
great prosperity in the western agricul-
tural section whose continuance seems
fairly assured for an indefinite time to
come; owing to the obvious circun-
stances that consumption of the staple
food stufs or at least those ordinarily
used to sustain life among the people
of the north temperate zone is rather
more than equal to the production of
these articles, insuring for them, there
fore, high price and more or less
depressed state of business in the east
ern half of the United States, center
ing largely in manufacturing industries.
Added to this is the general circum-
stance that the country has just passed
through a period of severe business
storm and stress, and that the wreckage
from the catastrophe is manifestly not
yet entirely cleared away.
1t is evident that the situation is in
its broad features not unlike that wit
messed many times before in the United
States, and that it has greater re-
semblance to its predecessors in the
years of 1903 and 1893, than to any
Others At both of these former times
the supply of money was abundant, as
indeed it almost always is in the year
or years Immediately following. an era
of extreme business depression. On
the former occasions, however, Or at
least not in 1893, the extreme pros
perity of the west did not enter as a
factor in the problem, and there have
been few corresponding occasions be-
fore when doubt as to the general sta
bility Of the government, and particu-
larry as to the safety of the currency,
were not acute elements in the case.
II is true that in 1903 the wealth OF
the western farmers still kept business
in their territory at fourishing pace
as compared with that maintained in the
east, but ID the present year the dis
parity between conditions in the east
and west has been far more pronounced
/ than ii was Eve years since.
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The new and quite important town