Evening star., 1909-09-05
The World of Finance and Trade.
Washington; New York; London.

stocks for years with almost uniform sue
cess. some of them on a large scale. me.
have made a business of speculation, JUS
as men make a business OF any otnei
speciality. They have studied the samt
and find 1t as safe as merchandising vi
manufacturing. They buy when things
are cheap and sell when they are dear
This is a reversal of the common ?ractlce
of spectators on the stock exchange, the
Cotton exchange or the Chicago boaro
OF Trade, where ii seems TO be strugsl /.
on the part of the great multitude OF
unsophisticated players to buy at the toE
and sell at the bottom.
The prolongation of the pressed cal
steel strike at Mckees Rocks arouseS q
good deal of irritation in that division Oh
Wall street population interested In IN
dustrials. There has been growing dls-
position to criticiSe the manner in whlcn
the company's end of the strike ditficuitS
has been managed by F. y. Hofstot ana
Jim Friend, president and vice presl-
dent respectively. They find themselves
the center of unpleasant notoriety anu
their records are being hauled over. IL
is recalled by former Pittsburgers now
in New York that Hoffstot and Freno
bought $6o0.OGO worth of experience feW
years ago from Cassie Chadwick. Cassie
convinced them that by letting her nave
that amount she would make them 81.
Coo,o00. They have the best of it at that
Cassie is dead
Hoffstot, by the way, has stopped WORK
on palace he Is building up on the
northern shores Of Long Island. What Is
especially annoying to some of the inl-
portant stockholders in pressed steel car
is that rival concern organized Few
years ago by Diamond jim" Brady. for-
merly with the company In leadlns
capacity. is benefiting enormously by the
shutdown caused by the strike.
Is It Right to Guessp
Among a very wide-awake and infiuen
tial contingent of newspapers and news
papermen the philosophy prevails thai
whenever a man of large affairs about
whose doings there happens to be acute
public interest surrounds himself with
mystery and denies to the press informa
ton to which 1t feels itself entitled, they
have a perfect right to guess and tC
speculate as much as they want to. There
is a shade of excuse for that attitude. \
big man rarely gets into the limelight. eX-
cept of his own free will and volition, and
having taken that position he invests him
self and his actions with a degree of pub
lie interest which he cannot consistently
ignore.
There has been lately a conspicuous ex-
ample of the evils likely to follow mis-
taken idea that very important person
age can surround himself with an atmoS-
phere of secrecy, and not have that atti-
tude miscOnstrued and resented. Fortu-
nately. in this case. the mistake was rec
ognized by the principal and corrected by
him in spite of the obstinate objection Of
coterie of ill-advised guardians OF the
sacred person. There is complaint. how
ever, that the Arden bulletins do not come
fast enough.
1t is too bad that the late W. c. An
drews, we'll known in Pittsburg and New
York. is not alive to know that influential
and enterprising people are reSurrectlne
his pet hobby of manufacturing gas at the
West Virginia coal mines and piping it to
large seaboard cities Of the east notably
Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. II
was Mr.. Andrews conviction tina, fuel
and light could be piped from the mines
cheaper than it could be transported in
the form Of coal.