The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-10
PUBLIC NOT NOW
 BUYING STOCKS  Heavy Drop in Balance of
 Business HILLS GREAT WORK Is Now Using Moving Pictures in His Colonization Work-How Pic ture Men Are Becoming
 Magnates
By ". G. NICHOLAS

By W. c. NICHOLAS
 | New York, September 9.-(SpeciaD The
 public does not come into the market at
 current prices and the volume of trans | actions on the stock exchange has de-
 creased from 1000,OC0 shares day to
 between 300,o00 and 100000 shares daily
 Prices have recovered somewhat from the lowest levels reached two or three weeks ago but the buying has been mostly by the bear contingent, willing to convert paper profits into cash. This has been
 going on for week or more, and all though new short lines have no doubt been put out on the rally the short interest has been greatly reduced, leav
 ing the market in a technically weaker position than it has been for some time past. Earnest effort is being made to have 1t appear that general business con- ditions are improving but the weight of testimony appears for the moment to be on the other side
 Bankers and railroad presidents as well as captains of industry are handing out pessimstic interviews regarding the fu- ture. They are very gloomy over the political outlook and freely express the opinion that there can be no permanent recovery until the politicians realize the mistake they are making in "harassng'' the great interests. Representatives of these great interests try very hard to make 1t appear that business is being per
 secuted and bludgeoned by malicious or brainless agitators and that when the people realize they are being imposed on, tbax- xxil1 oct fhoty. xuto ad advisers. Apparently it does not occur to the great interests that the politicians may be closer to the masses of the peo- pie than Wall street can hope to be- and that the politicians are really following orcers instead of leading.
 Unquestionably an enormous amount of business is being done in the interchange of commodities, its transportation from one point to another and In the exporta- tion of our products, but there Is nothing like the boom which people would be pleased to see. The country is down to bedrock. It is practicing economies wher- ever such thing Is possible, and is saving money instead of spending 1t. | This statement may be hard to under stand by the great mutitudes who are1 barely making living and cannot save anything, yet it is nevertheless true that at the continuation of every long period of depression there is more free money available for investment than at any other time.
 When people get sick and tired of keep
 ing their surplus money idle they look around for place to put 1t where it can be earning something. They are all seized with the impulse at the same time. Of such conditions and clrcum- stances booms are born. There are no indications of this thing happening in the immediate future. There is still cons siderable margin left between the stua- ton as it Is now found and really hard times.
 There will have to be considerable re- adjustment of prices on the stock ex- change before things are eyened up prop erly. Several stocks are conspicuously out of line If we are to assume that prevailing dividend rates are to remain unchanged. There is in harmony in 1S3 for New York, New Haven and Hartford. an per cent stock. and in per cent stocks like Northern Pacific, Great North ern and St. Paul selling at 11S, 124 and 1i6 respectively, while Amalgamated pay ing per cent dividends is held around 60, Union Pacific, 10 per cent stock, bringing TO, Steel common commanding 70 and in some of the non dividend things selling in the market at fancy prices com paratively speaking. Clearly stock prices are sadly out of line In this respect there is nothing on the list quite as mis- shapen as New Haven. There Is talk of a dividend reduction being ordered at the next meeting of the board of direc- tors September 15. but this is earnestly denied by insiders. The talk is of cut to per cent and the tape is the best of +tl Of ottah ton.
 If the directors refuse to make this l cut, the public will have a right to re- gard the failure to perform a manifest | duty as evidence of weakness and lack | of conservatism. The market is quite | as likely to take another plunge on a | dividend maintenance as on a sharp cut | even more, so for a reduction has been discounted. New Haven issvery largely | owned in New England. It Is the pet of the down customers and 12000 of them have their money invested in its shares. | They have seen the stock decline in price from POO to ,3O under the management of MT. Mellen and his associate. MT. 'Tim'' Byrne and it's capital stock increased in volume to S171 0,000. more than 100 per cent. The system has spread out under | the Melleu-Byrne regime until it blank | cts the whole of New England. It has taken over an intricate network of troll | leN lines auueu 10 us SledlnSnlp dSSeIS l and spent vast sums of money in New York terminals. It must spend tens and | scores Of millions more before it can complete it's terminal plans in this city | Both MT Mellen and MT. Bvrne are grad | uates from the James J. Hill school for the education of railroad men. They were too strong for the west and Mir. l Fill let his friends. Nessrs J. P Mor- gan William Rockefeller and the rest | of the New Haven crowd have the pre- cocious pair. Some of the New Haven 1 stockholders would like to sell them back to MT. Hill at cost
 People wonder how MT. Hill Is able to | go on building up and extending his | system throughout the wildernesses of the northwest and keep paying high divl- i dends-more than that, earning the divi- ! dends The secret lies in the fact that | Mr. Hill thinks and works "A hours | day and Is a veritable slave driver in | making others work who are connected | with the organization. A strong feature | of his life campaign in the northwest is | to fill his territory with people. He has | spent tens of millions of dollars coloniz- l ing the country through which his rail- | roads run with the best labor of Europe | IIts colonization schemes are rasnonsihle |