The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-15
WOFACT|ONSARE AT WAR IN STREET The Stock Market Is Hold
 ing Its Own OUTLOOK IS BETTER Wall Street Prefers Harmon, But h. formation Reaches New York
 of Wilson's Growing
 Strength
By ". G. NICHOLAS

By ". G. NICHOLAS
 New York, October 14-(SpeciaD. The stock market, although in a state of dull ness, is interesting. There are two very wide awake parties in the field and everybody is awaiting anXiously the de- velopment of a decided tendency one way or the other The big reaction whien nine people out of ten expected would occur after the 6 to 10 point rally engin- eered by the Morgan party has not ma terialized down to date. On the contrary, conditions seem to have changed Great financiers and captains of industry who were intensely bearish up to two weeks ago are telling their friends that things are looking different to them and that it is no time to sell stocks Cynical cp- orators do not accept the changed express ion at par They have suspicion that tine takers are not altogether sincere, and that they are merely ''stalling.' in order to appear to be giving moral ana market support to the great leader who stepped in and stopped demoraliz tion two weeks ago or whereabouts. It IS not charged that they are actually selling the market short, or that they have re- stunned liquidation, but rather that they have taken a position on the fence and become for the moment quiescent.
 Price changes have not been important this week. The standard issues havo more than held their own, however, and seem to have a good stiff backbone. This applies not only to the rails but to the lndustrials as well. The scare about pros pective dividend reductions seemsAto havc passed away. If there are to be cuts in the rate of distribution of earnings me majority of stockholders and the public appears to be reconciled to 1t. The idea has ceased to be bogee. It no longer takes the form of unmitigated calamity for a railroad or industrial corporation to limit dividends to earnings. The coun- try has passed through many depressions, and is not unacquainted. with hard times. After all, the price decline of 20. to 40 points might be and is generally accepted as having fairly well discounted any div- dend reductions that may take place. Not that prices may not go lower should busi- ness continue to contract through the winter months but the panic seems to be out of the situation. for the time being at least.
 Representatives of "big business who were disturbed in their minds over the awful things that were to happen should the administration persist in forcing the trusts to readjust themselves to conform to the Sherman law, have gotten their feet down to earth again. They do not go about wild eyed and with hair stanc- ing on end moaning over the ruin that would soon overwhelm the country. They find that the public outside of Wall street refuses cJ be stampeded. They have had it driven into them that the population Of the country at large regards their an tics with unholy glee and that takes the unfrendly attitude of wishing the admin istration good luck in it's efforts to com pei privileged special interests to obey the law like common people. One develop ment which confirms the theory that the public looks on the stock market break of July, August and September from an entirely different angle than the profess sional speculators and banking interests is the fact that there has been a big increase in the number of shareholders in a majority of going corporations. Lehigh Valley, for instance, now has 400 more shareholders than it had at the beginning of July. There has also been a notable increase in the number of shareholders
 
 and Ohio, New York Central. St. Paul. the Hill issues, and many other compa- nieS-1n fact practically everything on the list excepting few outfits that are more or less discredited because of bad man agement or i'll fortune. If the public hld been badly scared it would not have gone into the stock market and bought seclri- ties in the face of a semi-demoralized Wall street.
 The truth is the public has become educated in stock market philosophy It no longer buys on the booms and gets frightened out on the slumps as in for mer years. It has adopted the mercantile plan of doing business-it buys goods when they are cheap and sells when they are 6ear. That comes pretty nearly being the ideal way of working the stock raar- ket It is the advice which the market t1psters have been handing out for two generations-that the way to make mon ey is to buy at the bottom and sell ar the top. That looks very easy but trad CTS who have been long in the game say they make money because they are will ing to let the other fellow have the last Iew points or any great market move ment up or down. They are not greedy enough to let their desire to take the last fraction get away with their good Judgment. This seems to be the essence or speculative wisdom. The public was il long time learning it's lesson and paid a high price for its experience, but it has al length become wise-wiser than Wall street. It beat Wall street in the panic of 1907, and it has been beating Wall street ever since Sucker monev,, TOW goes into other things. It played With mining stocks for a good while but is also getting cold feet on that interestily line of adventure and drawing out.
 The report of President Vail of .he Western Union Telegraph company was almost sensational in the candor with which he takes the stockholders and pub lie into his full confidence and tells then, exactly the condition of that great public utilities company. He does not hesitate to admit that the property is in rotten shape and that the stockholders need not look for any increase in dividends for Il long time to come. He says that a large part of the earnings will have to go back in the plant for several years before it can be placed on sound basis. Not That there is any danger of @ reduction in divi- dends below the current high per cent rate, as earnings amply justify distrbu- ton to that extent. but he finds there is urgent need of increasing the reserves and adding 10 expenditures for bettnr- ment. One of the important reforms M-. Vail has inaugurated since he took the mara "ainent was to increase the payroll s'.3O10do. He proposes in the near future '' give form to pension system and 10 'niroduca hrmanc and modern methods into operation. First and last Western nion employs hundreds and thousands CT people. men. women and boys. Ii has peen ''tishtwad'' for 2n years or moro and as entering upon 2 rew life. Western
 mon ea'red about S3.fG0GG0 more gross