Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-09-17
MARKS DOGGY: MAN
SPECTATORS Still Shy at Trust
Case Decisions.
UNABLE TO SEE RELIEF
All Lines of Business Reported to
Live in Dread.
BOSTON SICK OF COPPER
Heavy Liquidation Represents Many
Millions of Dollars Loss to New
England Investors.
By w. G. Nicholas.

By w. G. Nicholas.
Special Correspondence of The Star.
NEW YORK, September 16 1911.
The news vendors in Wall street have
been harping on the Moroccan dispute as
one of the principal reasons why in
vestors and spectators should be dis
turbed about the prices Of American
securities. 1t is probably true that con-
siderable foreign liquidation of American
stocks has resulted from the diplomatic
sparring for points between France and
Germany, but the stocks which came In
from abroad on, that account have not
been drop in the bucket compared to
liquidation by home people and by short
selling for professional account.
The real reasons are to be found nearer
home The fog that has enveloped the
situation for weeks past is lifting and
the actual sources and causes of the
slump in the New York and Boston stock
markets are becoming discernible. The
worst of 1t is, there seems to be no near
prospect of change for the better, al
though. prices have smashed to such low
| levels that real investors with real money
ought soon to be coming into the market
and securing bargains.
Boston Selling Coppers.
One recent and present cause of weak
ness is to be found in the tremendous
liquidation of copper securities in the
Boston market. New England has long
Specialized in copper stocks and it has
overeXtended itself in that direction. The
amazing profits realized by stockholders
in Calumet and Hecla turned the heads
of the staid New Englanders and led
them to investments in endless copper
promotions, some of which turned into
producing mines and many others into
disappotntments. The failures proba bly,
outnumhered the successes in the pro-
portion of 1D to L. Consequently, while
the shareholders lin Calumet and Hecla
have taken down S11O.OOOOOO- or there
abouts In profits, investors in other cop
per properties have lost five times that
amount in the last five or ten years
There has been Il violent slump in the
prices of nearly every copper stock dealt
in on the Boston market. which is the
head center of speculative activity in
| that mining and promotion specially.
There has been general collapse in
many of the New England favorites
within the last six weeks. and the i'm
mediate losses to Yankee investors has
mounted up into the tens Of millions Of
dollars. Boston and other New England
banks have been in the habit for years of
loanng money heavily on copper min
ing securities.
The collapse came so suddenly that it
has left the banking institutions of that
section loaded to the guards with a mass
of unsa la bic junk. and the bankers of the
rest of the country are looking askance
at them.
New York Fares Better.
The New York copper share market has
not suffered as badly as that of Boston.
Amalgamated. Utah. Nevada CONSOLIDATE
ed, Chino, Ray Consolidated and other
New York copper stocks have gone down
with the rest of the market. but no fast
er. Those who keep in close touch with
the copper situation look for what they
call Il secondary liquidation in copper
They prophesy smash in the New York
copper stock list to correspond to that in
Boston. and they also predict a break of
cent or two pound in the metal. Ii
that should occur. it would probably put
copper on a sound basis. 1t would certain
ly close a lot of mines which are now
barely paying their way. and would re-
duce production to reasonable limits.
The greatest of all the causes of I'M
certainty in the stock market and BUSH
ness situation is the chaos that rules
with regard to the status of hundreds Of
industrial corporations. The Supreme
Court decisions in the Standard Oil and
Tobacco trust cases has been construed
as applying to a very great majority OF
the Incorporated industries OF the land
Their representatives by the score have
visited the Department of Justice at
Washington. and tried in vain to obta in
from the Attorney General some general
plan by which they could conform to the
law without being compelled TO go
through the Ordeals and losses of litiga-
ton. Mr. Wickersham has prepared or
approved of form under which Standard
Oil Will dissolve as trust. and he is at
work on a plan for the tobacco trust.
His experience with these two corpora
lions makes him fearful that it will be
impossible to get up plan that will fit
the hundreds of other Incorporated COM
bines that would seem to be in violation
of the anti-Sherman law. This leaves
the organized industries of the country
in a state of uncertainty as to what they
can do and just what they must do to
set themselves within the law. AS mat
ters now stand. they feel that they are
virtually outlaws and liable to all sorts
or government harassment. They have
worked themselves into state of mind"
and are either becoming panicstrlcken or
Stimulating acute alarm for effect.
Alarm Appears Real.
The latter hypothesis will not hold
water. The perturbation has every ap-
pearance of being genuine 1t accounts
for much that is being said by the big
people of the financial and industrial
world that is discouraging. The worst
of it is the men Of affairs see no way
out Of the troubles they are in until
Congress meets, threshes out the whole
situation and does something to enable
business to go ahead unhampered. 1t is
very serious situation and It's gravity
Is being borne in upon the business world
more and more every day. The longer
the problem is discussed and the deeper
business men go into it the more worked
up they become, and the more uncertain
the future appears to them. This is the
real gigantic trouble that "hangs over
the market" in comparison with which
every other trouble dwarfs and assumes
insignificant proportions.
\ banker, discussing the practical eff
fects of the broad-spread application of
the Standard Oil and Tobacco trust de-
cisons to the generality of industrial
companies. said to the writer: Every
banker in the country knew about Stand
ard Oil stock and would take the shares
of that corporation as collateral on loans
Split up into thirty-five parts not FIVE
bankers in the United States can form
any idea as to the collateral value of the
several parts or fragments. They do
not even have the remotest idea what