The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1911-11-13
A BUSINESS REVIEW OF THE
PAST WEEK BY HENRY CLEWS

The most favorable feature of the
| week was the settlement of the Tobac-
co case in the United States Circuit
Court. Upon the whole the decision
of Judge Lacombe appears to be the
best solution that could be offered.
While not acceding to some OF the ex-
IRENE claims of Attorney General
Wickersham and recognizing that a
return OF original conditions is i'm
possible, his decision does destroy the
mOnopolistic power of the company
and insures a return to possible COM
petition, with a just recognition OF
the rights OF all security holders. No
! property has been destroyed; the de-
| mands of the law have been complied
with, and in due time this controversy
should pass into history. Once more
Reason" has been read into the Sher-
| man antitrust law; and it is demon
strated that the courts will not put
drastic Interpretation upon the law.
There was pronounced betterment
of undertone in the stock market dur
ing the past week This was partly
due to actual though tardy recognition
tions; the chief cause of the sharp up
| ward movement being the Tobacco
| decision above referred to. The cleo
lions have slight influence upon the
market. and that little was encourag
! ing. The most significant feature Of
the returns was the spirit of reform
which expressed itself in various sec
| tons of the country. This was espe
cially illustrated in many of the large
cities. Nothing could have been more
encouraging than this expressed in
sistence of the people for better city
government. This is the one bright
spot in an otherwise cloudy political
horizon. The election of Governor
Foss in Massachusetts on the tariff
| issue meant defeat for extreme pro-
| tectionists in that state and will be
important in its bearing on forthcom-
ing ariff legislation. The large in
crease in the Socialistic vote attracted
wide attention, but judging by the
arguments advanced during the cam
paign this was more voice of protest
against bad local government than an
indication of actual gains in number
Of Socialistic believers. Socialism is
unquestionably growing, but not to the
extent indicated by Tuesdays election
returns. In many cases the voters
simply went over to the Socialistic
party in the hope of securing better
government. So much for the cleo
tons, which went off quietly and did
not suggest any new or more radical
movements than those with which
we are already familiar.
| Outside of politics there is dis
tinctly better tone to business in gen
eral. Confidence is growing and bust
ness shows an expanding tendency.
In all parts of the country stocks of
merchandise are much below the nor
NAL owing to prolonged conservatism
in mercantile operations. In many
cases economy has been carried to eX-
IRENE limits. Commodity prices with
few exceptions are declining; so that
conditions are such as to make the
situation particularly favorable to
shrewn buyers. The railroads are al
ready entering the market as large
purchasers of rails and equipment. Re-
Gently orders have been placed for
over $4,000 cars, nearly 100000 tons
of steel rails and over 800 locomo-
tives. Fully 100000 tons of steel will
be required to fill the various orders
recently placed; nor is this all, for
some of the big trunk lines are now
in the market figuring upon still larg-
er orders for rails and equipment.
This activity of the railroads is very
significant Railroad managers can
place their fingers upon the pulse of
business more closely than any other
class of business men. AS shrewd OBJ
servers with exceptional facilities for