The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-02-06
OPTIMISTIC FEELING
 IN BUSINESS CIRCLES
Crops Gathered and Sold and
 Everybody Happy
NO COMPLAINT HEARD
About Reduction of Salary of Head of Steel Corporation-Nevada Mines Producing $40 O,O0O, ,00O in 1910
 Securities Pouring Out
By PRESTON C. ADAMS

New York. February 5-(special)-Th second month in the new year opens with a decidedly more optimistic feel ing in business and financial circles and there's reason, in fact several of them. The crops have been made, gath cred and sold, the farmers and interior merchants and professional men depend- ent upon them are prosperous and happy. They have money and are spend- ing it. This inevitably reacts on the big distributing centers and transportation companies and they too are beginning to take a brighter view of the future.
 Our foreign trade returns have had no slight influence upon responsible bank CTS. The December exports reached the unpareleled total of s227, ,000, and this following $2o7, ,7Oe, 900 in October and $206, 620. 900 in November, served to turn an excess of imports into a balance of exports to the amount of s301, GOO for the calendar year. The 1910 shipments totaled $1s64, All, 900, or less than $60, GOO below the high record of 1907, while our aggregate foreign trade for the twelve months reached $3.427 .219.0Oo for the first time in our history.
 or course, these returns must be con- sdered in conjunction with collateral circumstances; unusually heavy ship ments of cotton at extremely high prices were accountable for an abnormal share of the expansion in exports during the final three months of the year. and nat urally only comparatively small amount of the staple remains to go for ward
 | Yet the tendency is now in the right direction. and as Europe is taking our | securities there is scant danger of em- barrassingly heavy exports of gold dur ing the next two months.
 Our flnanciers are also more hopeful concerning the forthcoming decisions of the Interstate Commerce commission and the Supreme court. Lawyers who have closely watched events in Wash | ington state that several signs have | been discernible that the reconstructed Supreme court is more inclined to bring | out points that might have a favorable bearing upon the defendants position than was the case during the original hearings
 As for the question of railroad freight rates, it may be stated that the granting | of moderate concessions. will probably be received with good gfdce by the rail roads and that there will thereafter be | manifested a strong desire to stimulate | a resumption of business activity, espe. cially if in the meanwhile large amounts of new capital have been raised for ex tensions, improvements, equipment, etc
 It is to be feared that Acting Secretar, of Agriculture Hays was right when h' said recently:
 "It Is useless to expect that there vii
 -f1 To-, -t,. ,.N. ae pjahs ipd the coangnffEcXX cXXrttra haX lands has gone up. This may be a sur prise to those who talk about the deser 2 tion of farms for the city. but it is fact, nevertheless"
 Fear, perhaps, Is not the right word t. use in this connection, for when income. adjust themselves to these new condi tions, as they must, there is no cause for fear.
 Stockholders will not complain oyer the reduction in the salary of the stee trusts president from s100Oo0 to S50,00t per annum. If the information could be obtained-which it couldn't-it would be | found that very small percentage ot | those owning steel stocks have an in- come of one-tenth of that sum- The | salaries of heads of corporations and f. nancial institutions have not been in- | creased in anything like the same ratio as the wages of the ordinary employees Indeed, one organization which formerly held the record in the way of paying | enormous sums to its head officials has systematically curtailed it's expenses in | this direction. Very few men in the United States or elsewhere, for that matter, receive more in salary than the new president of the steel corporation is to get
 | The record salary ever paid is under stood to have been that received by { John Hays Hammond, from the Guggen- | helms. MT. Hammond earned a reputa- | tion as a mining engineer in California | and then. in common with many others l there, he gravitated to the newer gold | fields of the Kitwaterstand Here he quickly rose to the very top of his pro- | fession, and 1t was commonly under | stood on the Rand that while there he made comfortable fortune. Troublous 1 times broke out When pr. Jameson ven- l tured upon his ill-starred armed revolt | against the Kruger regime, and MT | Eamomnd was actually sentenced to death and placed in prison to await ex- ecution. Tremendous influence was brought to bear. however, upon the Transvaal government, not only by the United States but by Great Britain, and finally MT. Hammond was released after large sum had been paid by way of a ransom. Thereafter he betook himself
 
 SAYS PEKTN TC