The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-01-30
WALL STREET IS
 MUCH BEW|LDERED Cannot Understand Tactics Of
 The Government EXPRESSIONS uNSERTAlN Floods in France Affect the Prices of Stocks In the New Word-Cop-
 per Maneuverine Has Bear
 ish Effect on Market.
EXPRESSIONS UNCERTAIN
BY w. @. NICHOLAS.


 chief source of disquiet. The utterances from the national capital have been pug zling in the extreme. To great many people the policies of the government and dominant party betray uncertainty and vacillation. One day there appears under startling headlines the announce ment of the government going after cor porations roughshod and will use stern measures to enforce the letter and spirit of existing laws and will urge the enact- ment of additional legislation for the curbing of capital.
 The next day 1t appears from inspired utterances that the government will do nothing to shake confidence and that 1t has no intention whatever of indulging in agitation intended to disturb people. All of which inspires inquiry as to wheth- CT the administration and the controlling party in Congress are carrying water on both shoulders. or really carrying water on only one shouldr and trying to create the impression that 1t is using both shoul- ders In the transportation of liquid. If the latter is the case then which element Is being fooled? The problem is interest ing and does not tend to the conducting of quiet.
 The liquidation of weak accounts, which was interrupted on Wednesday by reassuring dispatches from Washington. was resumed again on Thursday, not tu- multuously or on a wholesale scale, but none the less of considerable magnitude Accompanying this liquidation was clear ly discernible general buying on a scale for the account of the important banking interests of Wall street. This kind of support has been given the market for the last week or 10 days.
 It was mentioned in my last letter and has been going on increasingly as prices went on declining. It is this kind of buying that builds under & market the strong foundation which marks the begin ming of every bull movement When powerful interests begin laying in sup. plies of stocks they do not try to pay high prices. Their aim Is not to make a market for the sellers, but to get the stuff as cheap as they can. Then some day there is witnessed the real beginning of another bull movement This begin hing may be seen now almost any day, despite manifest efforts on the part of the real buyers to prolong the season of disquiet.
 One of the important factors contribut- ing to the late weakness in the stock mar ket is the news of immense losses in France from floods. The influence of this disaster on prices can hardly be appre- Ci1tru py tuOSe WHO are not IaInllldT Wltn the intimate social ana financial relations between the old world and the new There Is a great millionaire population with interests almost as close in Paris and London as in New York. These peo- pie have been affected in a closely per- sonal way by the stories that come to them of the floods in France.
 They are very greatly disturbed by a sense of what the conditions are to be in oQx Do orfof ofo, .or, foI A,x,f year. In their minds they picture a scene of wreckage and epidemic at the very start off of the Paris season beginning in April and May To tens of thousands this Is quite as real as though the disas- ter had occurred in New York, in many cases even more so. It produces a feel ing of gloom and what might pass for actual distress. a state of mind directly influential in the stock market strange as it may seem to those not In close touch with this phase of international senti- ment.
 The wild and woolly maneuvering in connection with the Copper merger has also exerted a very decided bearish infiu- ence on the general stock market situa- ton. The scheme involves the manufac- ture and f1otation of an enormous volume of the ridiculously wind-blown securities
 
 western map from British Columbia down into the bowels of Mexico. The stuff is being showed out with utter disregard of real values ana a determined effort will be made to unload the goods on the public Hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks will be set afioat that are not worth 10 cents on the dollar, and the pub lie will be asked to buy them at par or as close thereto as may be possible.
 A more andacioua movement n u1aka and sell inflated securities has never been attempted in this part of the world. The campaign is so horribly absurd that 1t has created feeling of general alarm. Thinking men who have the welfare of the stock exchange at heart, because their selfish interests incline them that way. or possibly because they arae genu- inely patriotic to the street ideals, open ly express a fear that the crazy demon- stration will be followed by malodorous scandal. Just now the stock exchange has had 8 surfeit of evil along that line and Is in no mood to take on any moro.
 This stupendous merger of copper inter- ests is really terrifying to sensible people If the capitalization could be scaled down 75 to 90 per cent. then the properties con nected up would be rated at very much more than they would bring as strictly minging and smelting propositions. If tho men who are engineering the scheme suc- ceed in landing any considerable part of the stuff on the public, there Is a dead moral certainty of slump that will in- volve everybody concerned and a multi tude of onlookers in wholesale ruin.
 Here is one of the times that the stock exchange ought to step in at the very out set and take measures to prevent the slaughter. By taking cognixance now of the intent of the awful job the exchange authorities can save the public countless millions of dollars. By neglecting to use preventive methods 1t will lay itself open to the charge of being party to what will one day be recognized as a stupen- dous swindle. That the insiders can af- ford to pay a single lawyerd a fee of $775,o00 for doing the legal legerdemain shows the pronigacy of the scheme. That fee, multiplied many times, will be paid by the gullible buyers of the vast volume of securities being ground out by the or ganizers.
 With the springing of this monstrous speculative abortion there has been born a creature which will be a curse to the stock exchange If 1t Is given standing and recognition by that organization. The issuance of stock is being made in utter disregard of underlying values. The Steel corporation was notoriously foated on a basis of about One-third yaIuo and tWo-