The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-29
WALL STREET HAS ]. 2 A ''RECESS CLUB'' Rest For Big Money Kings
 of Wall Street THE OTHER EXTREME Block of New Street Where B0r- rowers Flock to Beg-Southern
 Railroads Increase Their
 Earnings
THE OTHER EXTREME
By PRESTON C. ADAMS

1 with the club rooms opened Ddrely u week
 already there are 13O names on the wait | ing list.
 | The fortunate 250 constitute the very l cream of the financial district, the aggre- | gate wealth represented, if written In | figures. would cause a famine in the
 naught box in any printing office in the land which tried to put the amount in | type. The board of governors Is typical
 of the club It consists of George F
 Baker, Jr., Cornelius Vandebit, c. Led
 yard Blair, William A. Tucker, John E Prentice, H. P Davison, Sampel McRob-
 erts, Mortimer L. Schiff, F. Q. Brown, Walter P. Bliss, J. Horace Harding and
 the officers, are Joseph w. Hartman,
 President: c. Louis Boissevain, treasurer
 and w. W Miller. secretary.
 Truly this is list of names with which l to conjure in Wall street.
 1 The objest of the club is a place where
 the men who run the greatest money
 mast in the country, if not actually in the
 world, may get absolutely away from bus | mess for a few minuates without getting l too far away from the market There
 is not stock ticker within the precincts
 of the club.
 | The club has no rules. and there prob- ply never will be any to amount to any | thing. So that it need worry none, as ii | might if any man were actually forbidden | to worry, about the stock market or great financial operations. There are | some of the lounging and rest rooms l where business is absolutely tabu. The
 dominant note of the club is mental re- I %I,at tae
 reading of editions of newspapers which
 come from the press every few minutes | is discouraged, but there is certainly a | fine assortment of magazines and re- | views, especially foreign ones, because | their point of view is different. When | the news of founding of a club so dis | tinctiye as this became known there were
 many inquiries made concerning 1t i
 the homes of the members and so it Is | that this club of lower New York is mak-
 ing social arrangements for the enter l tanment of women guests. Part of the | first floor is given to a boudoir, a parlor | and dining room for women. all appoint ed in the English types of furniture seen | in the other portions of the establish I ment. There are three private dining
 rooms also on this floor, where members
 may have small parties of friends or where meetings of the club committees
 may be held. There are bed rooms with | baths, also for members who may wish | to remain in the club over night, in order | to meet some engagement the next morn | ing. All the conveniences which 1t pos | sible to have in the club or home or hotel are gathered in this club. which comes as an innovation.
 It is small wonder that the waiting list already is long and Is growing longer. While mparsons may be odious, con- trasts are always interesting. The Re- cess club represents one extreme of Wall street. Here is the other.
 No corresponding length of respectable street anywhere in the world contains so many borrowers of money as that block of New street, between Exchange Place and Wall street, after 12:30 o'clock Sat urdays All the human drift that have failed during the six days to get eNough ahead for Sundays living remain there to borrow it. And when solvent people, who know this, avoid that New street block or hurry along as if pursued, look ing neither to the right nor left, and in- creasing their speed at the sound of fol- lowing footsteps. then you may know that everything is poor. In good times Wall street people rather like to dispen Sc food and room money fin New street on
 Saturday It gratifies their vanity, it is
 lucky, and the wit of the borrower is worth the money. But when bushes is
 so bad that even the brokers at their Saturday lunch look at the prices first and then at the food opposite, borrow ing in New street Is hard. The borrow CTS are accommodating They reduce their demands. One would never have asked for less than a dollar any Saturday in the last five years, now asks for quarter. Some unexpected results are found by tabulating the detailed statements of rail-
 ,,.L Co.,, rttra months of the current fiscal year now at hand Railroad men, as a whole. are complaining of poor statements and an unfavorable outlook. One prominent ex- ecutive official, with a side shake of his head, declared recently that he did not see how things could get much worse.
 Certainly the statement jus1 published by his company was discouraging, but the striking fate is that another road op- erating in the same territory shows in creases in both gross and net.
 Such comparisons are by no means pe- culiar to the two roads in question. For example, New York Central shows large increases in gross for August and for the eight months, while Pennsylvania re- ports heavy losses for the same periods, Fries statement also shows gains in gross, while it's neighbor, Baltimore and Ohio. reports losses. The same Is true of Reading and Lehgh Valley, and of St Paul and Northwestern.
 In grouping the roads geographically it is found that all the southern lines show substantial gains in net as well as gross. In the west, all of the roads show decreases: in the east the results are spotty. Of 20 representative systems taken 10 show increases in gross for Au- gust for the fiscal year. Il show gains in gross. In view of the fact that the railroads were reporting record earnings year ago, that showing is anything but what might be expected from the pessi- mistic utterances of many railway men.
 ''When a man orders a pair of overalls out in Colorado New England mill has to be notified. so that it may start im- mediately to manufacturing them" re- marked the head of one of the greatest banks in commenting upon the wholly unprecedented absence of accumuations of merchandise. The expression of course exaggerates the actual position yet the spirit of 1t is strictly in harmony with the facts. Merchants will not place large orders. In common with contracts they are content to take their chance of being able to obtain supplies from month to month at attractive prices. There has not been a time in recent years when merchantile borrowing by means of com mercial paper was so light as 1t Is today. This Is the right kind of foundation on which to build prosperity, although the building process may not be started for several months. But sooner or later a boom will set in, and it is likely to go far. +.
 Out of the GS4,OOO. GOO reduction. as com- pared with l910 in new security issues for the years nine completed months at I tx, n-ff