Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-12-03
ARE WAITING ON CONGRESS
Gary's Testimony Before Senate Com
mittee Arouses Resentment,
TAFrs ATTITUDE DISCUSSED
Modification Of Sherman Law Re.
garded as Probable-outlook
for the Trusts.
By W. q. NICHOLAS.

NEW YORK, December e.-The stock
market is nervously marking time. and
the professional traders are PLAYING
lively music. Price fluctuations are Of
generous proportions, although no de-
cisive tendency; has developed in either
direction. The big people are waiting
for Congress to formulate its program
ana Tor the President to put in record
shape his views and recommendations
rms may take two or three weeks. or
even longer. but in the meantime IL will,
be possible for the public and for the
financiers to get a line on what is to
be expected at the seat of political I'M
rest.
The week has not been without its
Interesting features. There have been
alternate periods Of depression and Of
nope. Good grounds exist for improved
sentiment. but nothing has really oc-
CURED to justify riotous activity on
the bull side of the market. General
trade conditions are looking a little
better, according to the burden of re-
ports coming in from the interior, but
not enough so to foreshadow an I'M
mediate wholesale expansion of either
industrial or commercial interests. East
ern delegates to the national bankers
,,o nvenlion at New Orleans seem to be
very much of the same mind as to
current business conditions. They are
! nopeIui, out not exuberant. They find
niue 10 warrant the widespread feeling
OF encouragement which has been a
shadow on the situation for months. and
lind by interchange of views that the
country at large is doing about the
norman volume of trade, but is content
with smaller profits than usual Rail-
road earnings while not uniformly bet
factory, and register increases in net.
II not always In gross revenues
Gary Produces Cold Chills.
Judge Gary's testimony before the Sem
ate committee Wednesday sent a cold
chill down the spine of the bull specula-
tors The judges candor rather took
his Wall street audience off it's feet. es-
pecially the admission that many steel
manufacturers are selling below cost, and
that If present conditions are continued
some of them will become bankrupt"
Ih1s admission was not relished, and was
regarded by many as being imprudent
although its accuracy was not denied oy
anybody familiar with the steel trade sit
uation. Still, 1t seemed little raw to
have the confession come from a man
VINO is reearded as the present leading
authority in the steel industry Judge
Gary has way OF saying things that stil
up the animals. His outspoken stand for
government regulation of corporations
while not new for him, was put with even
more than his usual directness, and was
full of meat.
The apparently authentic advance in
FORMATION from Washington that Presl-
dent Taft would confine his first mes
sage TO Congress next week to discus
sion OF the trust question and to giving
reasons for the enactment of law au-
thorizing national interpretations was re-
ceived in the street with varying common
and emotions. That the President should
consider these issues of such paramount,
importance that everything else politica.
and material should be subordinated
thereto put Wall street in the center OF
the stage, and more or less on the de-
fensive. The intimation that Mr.. Taft
will advise some notifications of the
Sherman law that will simplify its en-
forcement gave great satisfaction, excep.
in certain circles, where the feeling has
srown up that nothing will save the
country short of absolute repeal of that
statute. This sentiment prevails in great
er force than at any time since the Su-
preme Court decisions in the Standard
Oil and tobacco trust cases. The report
ed action of governors of western states
at their Chicago conference favoring the
same action by Congress is being accept
ed as evidence that the same sort of feel
ing dominates throughout the west, where
strongest opposition to the Sherman law
repeal or amendment has heretofore
sprung.