The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-31

Representatives of the Vanderbilt fam
 fly have been at pains to advertise that
 the Vanderbilts are tickled to death over
 the admission of MT Hartman to their
 official circuit. On MT. Harrman's ac-
 count he has been quoted as speaking
 for himself that he will look after his
 interests and that presumably others
 identified with the Central will attend to
 theirs with equal fidelity. This utterance
 sheds no light on his intentions with re-
 gard to eventual control of the system
 Wall street is disposed to draw it's own
 conclusions, based largely upon MT. liar
 rimans public form.' and what is
 known of his propensity for ruling the
 roost. a trait of character which gains
 in force as he grows older and more
 powerful. It would seem that MT. Harri-
 man would be willing to give himself a
 rest, now that he has won the rank of
 the greatest railroad power in America
 and has passed into the sixties Such,
 however, seems not to be his desire or
 purpose.
 Instead of Tightening his burdens he is taking on more. It Is the marvel of all
 Wall street how he is able to give his
 personal attention to the details of his
 enormous and widely diversified affairs, yet he keeps in touch with everything In which he has his money or with which he is officially connected. He is glutton
 
 which seems almost superhuman. More over, he is not in good health. He has a bad stomach, rheumatism and other ailments which give him more discom- fort. There are times when he can only get about with the greatest effort of will. yet he will not listen to the advice of his doctors, nor to the urging of his fam fly. He insists on going ahead at full
 gallop regardless of his own health and everything else. Friends and critics alike are beginning to say that there is too much Hartman. The comments, of course, differ according to the viewpoint. The stock market has been drifting along without special features Most of the great leaders have been keeping out of the lime light and apparently taking slight interest in the current happenings. A deep seated conviction is felt on the stock exchange that large amount of l Union Pacific, Southern. Pacific, Reading, | St Paul and Northern Pacific sold on the eliminating bull movement after the elec- 1 tion remains undelivered. It Is known as well as anything can be known that is not absolutely public property, that l the big market leaders sold out large lines of stock bought last spring and summer and took out profits There is lack of evidence that the stocks have been delivered in anything near the quantity sold.
 Hence the inference that the certificates are being held back and borrowed against The scouts of the exchange l have been for several weeks trying to locate the houses that are holding this l undelivered stock and they have succeed | ed in doing so to their own satisfaction. | and have even made what they think is | a close guess on the aggregate One house, they say, has S00,000 shares which | it is slowly working off. making deliver | ies as fast as possible without creating disturbance or calling attention to the
 magnitude of the play. Ordinarily this would be considered a menace to the
 market, but it does not now arouse | alarm
 | It is felt that the big people who took | their speculative profits out of the mar
 ket are desirous of seeing prices main
 tained around present levels and will do
 nothing to send quotations down shake | public confidence. Their more important | interests lie on the bull side-on the con- structive end of the situation.
 Commission houses generally agree that their books are full of buying orders