The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-10-30

One of the largest mercantile banks in ] New York finds that business is, to use 1 the phrase of a high officer, "conserva-
 lively good" No great activity is noted 1 from day to day, and certainly no new
 records are being achieved, yet when &C., | counts are made up at the end of the
 month if is usually found that the turn
 over has been fairly satisfactory in | volume.
 There are widespread complaints, how ever, that the profits have to be kept down to narrow margin in order to secure
 business. The strongest firms are not en- countering difficulty in securing accom-
 modation: the usual discount rate for a | prime six months bill Is 512 per cent with occasional transactions at 5A per cent. Merchants of slender resources do not fare so well; even at six per cent they cannot always prevail upon either bill brokers or local bankers to grant accommodation, although there Is a fair demand for this kind of paper out of town.
 The disposition is to look for a more or less prolonged period of quietness until the political sky becomes less clouded and until the supreme court decides the | trust cases that are to be taken up on
 January 3. "An institution or an individ-
 ual having s1,Oo0OO0 available for use is
 not disposed,' remarked this banker, ito
 go ahead until the Sherman law has been | strengthened out
 | This tends to restrict enterprise. The vice president of an industrial cor | poration located in St. Louis and hay ing representatives all over the United States, in course of conversation recently said this company has taken special pains sometime ago to ascertain the facts concerning the purchase and use of automobiles in all parts of the country This investigation was prompted by the allegations that all sorts of irresponsi- ble persons were buying machines for
 which they could not pay. But the unani- nous verdict of this company's men
 was that in the great majority of cases the cars purchased were utilized for
 economic purposes more than for sheer
 pleasure. Country doctors found them less expensive than horses, farmers used
 them freely for hurrying supplies to the market. and so forth.
 T recall he added, that there was at one time a great outcry about the
 millions of dollars extravagantly spent
 on pianos, but do you ever hear a word about this today, notwithstanding that the piano business has increased enor- mously? Surely more use can be de- rived, in the strictly economic sense, from
 motor vehicles than from pianos By
 
 and you will hear less noise about
 wasteful expenditures for automobiles" Matt C. Smith, treasurer of the United States and Mexican Trust company, one
 of the leading international trust compa-
 nies with offices in Kansas City Mo, Mexico City, Mexico; London, Amster- dam and Holland and himself an un- | usually well posted and keen observer
 of underlying conditions, expresses him
 self emphatically that the coming year
 will prove one of unusual prosperity.
 "Pessimism stif remains at the tag | end of the depression we have witnessed during the year." said Mir. Smith, "and 1t does us great deal of good, too, when
 we have to face such conditions, curbing | our bounding enthusiasm. which carries us sometimes beyond the lines of pru- dence. The bad times, as short as they | have been, enabled us 10 put our busi- ness house in order. Now that it is
 in order we can take full advantage of
 our great harvest. which will fully reach
 J J. Hills estimate of $9,00O, 100000.
 This new and great wealth is so pow | erful d leayen for prosperity that in the | end it will circumvent all the superficial adverse influences, such as political agi- ! tation and traffic problems. The crops must be moved, and from their moving
 the new wealth disturbed will radiate as | a strong tonic to the remotest arteries | of commerce, and we may look for bet
 ter times as the result"
 The announcement of the transfer of
 the stock exchange membership of Wash | ington. F. Connor to H. B. Coombs is | taken to mean the practical retirement of MT. Connor as factor in stock market | operations, MT. Conner, who became a
 member of the stock exchange on Octo- | ber 1871, was prominent as the broker
 of the late Jay Gould after Black Friday. | MT Conner was connected with all the speculative deals that MT. Gould had for | a number of years including stock mar
 ket operations in Missouri Pacific, Texas | Pacific Western Union and Wabash.
 Following MT. Goulds retirement from speculation MT. Connor became promi-
 nent by reason of important stock mar
 ket operations for his own account Jay Gould made his headquarters in Mr. <. fr,.