Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-07-17

plus earnings in more land an entirely
legitimate line of expansion and spirit OF
enterprise. This kind Of talk Is enforcing
itself upon the attention OF Wall street
and Is producing an enect.
Copper continues to be the sore spot In
the general business and speculative
situation. Miners are producing the
metal faster than 1t can be consumed at
home or exported. and the price remains
weak. with buyers holding of for still
better figures. Official statistics show
the production in the United States dur
ing the first six months of the calendar
year to have been 71I.O0O.OO0 pounds,
while deliveries were 69OOO0,O0O pounds.
Both of these columns show tremendous
increases, but no matter how fast the
metal is used up producers keep ahead
of the game, apparently regardless OF
price. Copper is now selling at around
II cents pound, and buyers are pursuing
the hand-to-mouth policy. refusing to
make long time contracts except at con-
cessions which put all the carrying
charges on the seller-and then some.
Danger OF Copper War.
The danger point in this situation is the
liability to open war between the
Amalgamated-Cole-R combination on
the one side and the independent pro-
ducers on the other. The amalgamated
federation of interests represents prob
ably one-half of the total production, and
it has been struggling with might and
main to induce all the big consumers
to enter into an arrangement for cutting
down production. Enough of the indie
pendents have held out to block the play,
and the suicidal program continues of
overproducing and adding to an already
unwieldly surplus. The warehouses Of the
old world are believed to- be filled up to
the roofs with American cpper sent over
on consignment, and that there Is
larger actual stock of copper above
ground than appears in the official Stats
tics
The Amalgamated crowd has been hold
Ing the umbrella over the copper trade
and has endeavored to keep UP the prices
of the raw material. The Independents
have been cutting under the Amalgamated
figure and supplying the demand Many
of them can afford to do this. because the
cost of production is below that of ma
Jority of the mines owned and controlled
by the big Standard Oil combination. The
situation is none the less aggravating, and
blood-raw hints are given out that
Messrs. Rockefeller. Ryan and associates
will presently let loose the dogs OF war
and give the independents such battle
as they never dreamed of. The conten-
ton is that in an endurance fight which
must result in a survival Of the ffttest.
they can outlast all but two or three Of
the big independents and starve the rest
into subsection or acquieScence. Such a
warfare would be demoralizing and would
smash copper shares all to pieces. 1t Is a
well defined fear OF this catastrophe which
is the one really important bearish factor
in the stock market at this writing. Such
a war would inevitably be followed by such
a raiding and breaking of the copper shares
that the rest of the market could not but
sympathize. Eventually the general list
would break away from the copper divi-
sion. but before that could happen there
might be semi-demoralization in some OF
the speculative issues and severe losses
inflicted.