The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-07-31
B.G BANK GAME
 IS SLAUGHTERED And Stock Market Situation Is
 Greatly Improved q, DR. PEARSON FLOORED Comes 10 Wall Street With Bundle of Crisp Money and a Big Railroad
 Scheme of Gigantic Propor-
 tions-Copper Improves
DR. PEARSON FLOORED
By W. G. NICHOLAS

New York, July so.-The big game that the banking combinations were gunning for was properly slaughtered this week and once more the glad tidings passed along that the atmosphere has been cleared and the stock market situa- ton greatly improved thereby. This has gotten to be an old story-this thing of house-cleaning and atmospheric clearing On the present occasion, however there would appear to be better ground than usual for making the statement that the big end of the house-cleaning is over and that we may really look for market bet terment. The event referred to was the wiping out of the Dr. F. S. Pearson sym dicate, which brought from, $30,0oo,ooO to soOOoo,0Oo of nice. new. crisp money Into Wall street and left 1t there ,
 Dr. Pearson, who Is a middle-aged. American born engineer and contractor, had the misfortune to get Into a number of Mexican and South American traction and railway enterprises and make great deal of money for himself and a wide-awake following composed of wealthy English and Canadian capital ists and railroad men.
 He came very fast and having a most engaging personality oemented to him group of men who were willing and able to back him to almost any extent. Having skinned the cream off of Mex leo and South America in his particular line he turned to the United States as a broader field for big operations.
 The idea of securing either control or very loud voice in chain of railroads which when strung together would make trans-continental system extending from New York to San Francisco ap- pealed to Dr. Pearson as being about the right size for him and his holdings of Rock Island, Lehigh Valley, Wabash, Missouri Pacific and Rio Grande, the latter two also including the thousand mile extension from Salt Lake City to the coast known as Western Pacific All told these various roads owned or operated about 20Oo0 miles of track and 2 had share capital of close to $500, COX, 900. The sad story Is briefly expressed in trite phrase: They bit off more than they could chew"
 They were landed with the goods at high prices and were frozen out on the slump, which tore the market all to pieces the first of the present week. When they either could not or would not put up any more margins kind heart ed bankers formed a syndicate to take over several big blocks of the Pearson holdings which were up as collateral and the genial doctor and his friends were shown the door with scant ceremony
 It is mentioned as a phase of one of those queer pieces of Wall street humor that several of the parties who let him have stock at high figures contributed to the Kuhn, Loeb syndicate. which took over the wreckage under the hammer. The fact which seems to tickle Wall street particularly Is that the old Rock Island group of financiers and railroad owners still retain control of their sys- tenn. They have serenely weathered all the storms of the last ten years and to have emerged on this occasion as on all the others with more money than be- fore the storm broke. Indeed it is the gossip of the street that D. G. Reid and Judge Moore are worth more now than ever before in their careers. They al- ways seem to have stuff to sell at the top of every big boom. And then they sit back and wait for bargains. This seems to be good business.
 Another feature which marked the last week or ten days of the great market stump IS the Iact that enormous masses of stock were sold for what they would bring by innnmerable banks and banking institutions spread all over the country. These stocks are supposed to represent collateral on loans made by individual speculators or investors, who discovered that they would be saving money by financing their operations in Wall street through their local banks instead of let ting their brokers and commission houses handle the business and make scalp on the interest.
 The accepted theory in Wall street is that overloaded banks out in the prov inces finding themselyes unable to col lect from other borrowers or realize on farm mortgages and other property of that kind were forced to get rid of se- curities in their vaults for which there was a quick market.
 This great outpouring of stocks from the scattered banks was the unknown quantity in the situation which had not been looked for and which was responsi- ble for the deadly sacrifice in several is-