The Washington herald., 1911-02-06
Increase in Optimism Is Evi-
dent in Many Lines.
UNION PACIFIC IS A LEADER
Natural Impulse Toward Improve
ment Manifest in Extension Of
ing FavOra ble-MOney Situation
Easy-FOreign Trade Satisfactory.

everybody that since the first of the year
optimism in financial and business circles
the country over. There are those who
assert that this optimism is of merely
sentimental character and that :he bette,
feeling is vague and indefinite. But as
to the fact that 1t exists there can be
no doubt whatever and the reasons for II
even il of general rather than specific
nature are not hard to understand.
The popular conviction has gradually
but steadily gathered force that after all
that may be said and done in the way
Of political agitation and in ALARMS raised
over court decisions and the like. this
country is still an improving and devel-
oping land. in the very infancy indeed of
it's Improvement and development and
that after three or four years of Ialt and
reaction following a financial crisis IKE
that of 1907 the natural impulses toward
recovery are too strong to be resisted.
But the strength Of the tide of hore-
fulness and ENCOURAGEMENT was hure
clearly shown than on any other Occa-
sion in the announcement last week BY
the directors of the Union Pacific Rail-
SO1npdny tildI thCy PiopOSCo -
double track their road, not orlv on its
main rfne, but on all its large branches.
This work, il was said, would rake four
or five years and would cost $4,000 800.
Action Taken Ia Timely.
As far as time is concerned the estimate
given seems about right, but there IS
little doubt that much more thaa s75,oOO. =
GO will be expended in the new construc-
ton that is laid out. Pesslm sts en-
davOred to blunt the force of this news
by declaring that the probabilities ;iat
the Union Pacific would do the work Ge-
scribed in the next few years have all
along been evident and that the money
spent will represent no great outlay after
all But such views do not ictract a;
all from the immense economic import of
management, nor are they true in and of
themselves.
For years back. and particularly in
the last twelve months. it has been the
policy of the leading corporations of our
country to DO as litt:" work as possible
in the way of extending and improving
their plants pending the subsistence Of
spirit in the country hostile to cor
pOrate enterprises. knowledge as to the
governmental policy to he adopted con-
cerninS freight rates. and the determi-
nation by the Supreme Court of the
meaning aid extent of the Sherman law.
This led necessarily to reaction in busi-
ness. and a compulsion of equal energy
working in the same direction was the
economic necessity for period of busi-
ness letting down consequent upon the
too rapid speculative expansion of trade
in the preceding year. The corporation
managers. or many of them, declared ve-
hemently that they would not spend
another dollar upon their properties 'un-
til they knew where they stood before
the law, and in the hope likewise that
this cessation of business might perhaps
teach an object lesson to the various
communities as to what the current po-
litical Interference with business meant
Country Is Developing.
But time and the inherent residence
of American business enterprise have
proved too much for these plans. The
population of the ccuLtry is daily in
creasing: money is plenty; stores of
everywhere are small; the
and peculiar value to the
country of its yearly cotton crop has
been emphasized as never before; and
above all. a vase empire in the far West
still comparatively untouched by man
is clamoring for railway and industrial
Another event of the week was the
report of the United states Steel Cor
pOration for the last quarter of last year.
which showed as everybody knew it
would. a large decrease in earnings for
the period. But the steel business is
looked upon by discerning people now
IN the light of the future rather than the
past. The future element may be dis
covered from the fact that through the
month of January the bookings of new
orders by the steel corporation. IRE
spective of the large orders given for
steel rails, were at the average rate of
%. coo tons a day, as compared with 2, 900
.ons in November and December.
AS concerns the past in general. and
he steel corporation particularly, the cir
,umstance that is appealing to a good
many peoples minds is that through a
.elatively long period Of depression in the
rade. during which mills were running
It only so per cent Of capacity. the steel
after keeping up full depre
.iation charges, was enabled to earn and
Jay dividends at the regular rate.
Money Situation Easy.
The money situation still keeps easy.
although it is doubtful IL time money
.ates will go any lower, while on the
'ther side OF the Atlantic they continue
O range at levels so much higher than
hey do here. With the existing disparity
n the price for funds in the two hemi-