The Washington herald., 1911-05-18

New York, May livery considerable
advances We're once more made in almost
every quarter of the stock market to-
day at the very opening Of business. and
were again retained in net prices at the
close. The days dealings were indeed al
most a duplicate Of those of the day be-
fore, with the only noticeable change
that the uprush in particular stocks was
not as violent and that the buying was
of more broad and diversified character.
The impulse enjoyed by the market con-
tinued to be furnished by Mondays Su-
preme Court decision at Washington. and
qualification over the action Of the court
became even more pronounced the more
the situation was considered. Every one
in Wall street realizes that the anti
trust agitation is by no means dead; that
the radical Democrats and insurgent Re-
publicans will doubtless soon come to
the front with proposals to amend the
Sherman law SO as to make II much
more drastic than it now stands, as in
terpreted by the Supreme Court.
Yet. financial sentiment to-day was in
clined to scoff and with abundant rea-
son at the likelihood that either the pres
ent Congress or any later one would pass
law making illegal any and all busi-
ness partnerships in interstate commerce
no matter how small. and beyond this
rested its confidence in the plain decla-
ration Of the Supreme Court that such
statute would be unenforceable and I'M
constitutional
American Tobacco Chances.
A wide diversity of opinion was ex-
pressed as to the chances that the
American Tobacco Company would be
declared Illegal since while there has
been much talk of the oppressive con-
duct of this company the Circuit Court
of the United States in this district, an
appeal from whose decision is now
pending in the Supreme Court declared
that there was nothing in the records
of the case to show that the conduct
of the company had been improper.
1t may be said that the judgment in
the financial district runs to the effect
that under the construction of the law
just laid down by the Supreme Court
the legal position of the United States
Steel Corporation is substantially in
vulnerable; and, of course, under these
circumstances. the idea of a merger
of various large copper producing COM
panies, although by no means all OF
them, or of a sufficient number of them
to constitute a trade monopoly. has
been revived. If there was any partic-
ular feature to the general security
market to-day it was the sustained
strength of the American Tobacco and
Standard Oil shares on the curb market,
which certainly did not indicate that
the stockholders of these companies |
considered their financial prospect a.
all fearsome even if in one of the COM |
panies a reorganization is now abso- |
lutely assured.
Canal Bonds Popular.
Another highly important development
was the high bid made on the curb mar
ket for fairly large blocks when issued"
Of the new Panama Canal 8 per cent
ment of the issue of these bonds was
newspapers, and there is every
sign that the sale of the bonds will be
an immense success. 1t would be super
observers that a large oversubscription
to these bonds at high or reasonably
high prices might very well exercise a
decided influence upon the course busi-
ness and financial developments in the
in the immediate future.
There was nothing but good news in
any quarter. A stronger tendency was
reported in the copper metal market and
reports were that there was
a marked improvement in sentiment III
the iron trade as the result of the Su-
preme Court decision. Crop conditions
still keep extremely favorable, although
the price of wheat is at the moment
in no small degree by the
not altogether favorable news of the con-
dition of growing crops in wheat-produc-
ing countries other than our own. All
dispatches from Mexico spoke of the
of President Diaz as i'm
minent