The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-19
DOES HONESTY AND !. SUCCESS EVER M|X?. President Brown Says Busi-
 ness Integrity Is High STREET" REASONING
How Speculator Reasons Out Effects and Actions of Market-Cotton Pool Impracticable Says
 Cotton King" Sully
By PRESTON c. ADAMS

 Can a man be successful in business and be absolutely honest? This seems to be an absurd question to anybody familiar with American business men and meth ods, but it has been raised by a visiting English preacher, who. by the way, is dn- der suspicion of heresy, and has created a good deal of discussion and some little heat.
 William c. Brown. president of the New York Central lines. a self made man, whose father as well as his grandfather was Baptist clergyman, does not hold to the views of the Rev. MT. Campbell.
 During the last few years undertaking magazines and many public speakers have united in criticising almost every form of business activity; the evidence of energy. zeal and success in any department of commercial, manufacturing or financial business has been met by the charge that the country has given itself over to a spirit of sordid commercialism, and the standard of business morals and ethics has been lowered.
 Tt seems to me that this view Of the situation is the result of overlooking the good and magnifying the evil
 The assumption seems to have been that wrongdoing constituted the norma, condition of our business affairs, while. as matter of fact, the wrong is only an incident compared with the orderly, honest conduct of business that is and all ways has been the normal condition of the business of the country.
 Mine hundred and ninety-nine business concerns may transact their business hon. ond xt-ff mat a1C ,l,f o,1, but the detractors will. if it be for the moment popular. seize upon the fact that the thousandth concern has been guilty of wrongdoing. and by vehement and in discriminate denunciation discredit the 999 innocent enterprises with the guilty one.
 For something more than Ss years I have been closely associated with the business men of this country, both cast and west. I count among my friends many merchants. manufacturers bankers and business men of New York city.
 Tn all candor want to say that in my opinion the standard of business integrity and commercial honesty was never higher than it Is today, and it Is no higher among the business men and farmers of Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa or Illinois than it is among the bankers, the merchants and the manufacturers of New York and New England.
 A more interesting and pertinent uucs- ton would be can any business man be permanently successful unless he con- ducts his business honestly?'
 T believe the records, if carefully searched, would prove that the only an. swer to this question would have to be in the negative"
 A speculators reasoning is very simple
 
 lay minds were perplexed by the imme- diate and violent rise of the market, be- ginning the day following the first effect or the governments Steel suit, not on snort covering alone, but on the buying or spectators and capitalists who were Wiling then to take positions on the
 pull side.' Their reasoning was that tnc stock market could not go down twice for the same reasons It has gone down very rapidly in anticipation of inc governments action against the United states Steel Corporations there were other things. too but that was the one DIE thing which the bear element had counted upon, the thing more than my other that had been a restraint upon b,v Ing, and, from any point of view the climax to the governments campaign against trusts. Therefore as the stock market, led by Steel common. had de clined in anticipation of that event if would not decline again for the same reason. It would be much more likely to go up than to stand still, because specula- tors. In their own way, had over-discount- ed the news they awaited. As there was no reason for the market to go down. and as he reasons for it's having gone down were become apparent to everybody. the only logical thing for a speculator TO do was to buy stocks.
 Wall street cpao,,yot1~. imagination The average succession speculator has just enough imagination 10 get himself living: the few specula- tors Who grow rich have so very little more mat one wonders what would ham per IT there ever came to Wall street a speculator whose imagination was equal to the verities. Ten years ago Steel com mon was distributed to crazy trading puphc around 50. and the big sellers sat up nights signing their certificates for de- livery, everyone thinking it a miracle that the stuff could be sold at so absurd a price. Three years later the stock sold at Ses. Five and half years after that IL sold at 947a, and last week, after a de- cline of 30 points in a very short time on the governments dissolution suit. the stock touched the promoters distribution price and Wall street held it's breath 10 see if the investment holders were not Sc'he to 5tdIipeue. And at that pro- moter's price the stock yields the buyer 10 per cent on his money
 The effort of IS governors to encourage a pool of the cotton of the south. in the opinion of Daniel J. sully. one time Got ton King" is not practical and utterly unfeasible.
 Human beings cannot control nature" says MT. Sully. land nature controls the cotton production. It makes no difference what the acreage of cotton may be, the production depends upon the elements. venture to say that the cotton acreage Of this country has not increased 25 per cent in the last quarter of century. and the production has been, on occasion. greater when the acreage was smallest. remember when cotton sold as low as cents pound. That was in 1893. and at that time the acreage was greater than 1t was in subsequent years. when the price or cotton reached as high as 20 cents a Improved methods of cultivation have resulted In greatly increased produce tior of lint to the acre in the statea of Georg1a and North and South Carolina where 1t has reached as high as 25o pounds, while in Texas, the greatest cot- ton producing state in the country. the average Of 10 bounds to a n acr> p