Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-04-14
Buying on Larger Scale Than
Professionals Realize.
TRADERS LET GO OF STOCK
Then Buy Back Shares After Prices
Reach Higher Levels.
STANDARD OIL MEN ACTIVE
Have Been Dealing in Colossal Way
Since Turn Six Weeks.
Ago.
By W. g. NICHOLAS.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

By W. g. NICHOLAS.
Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, April 13.-The gravity of
the prospective locomotive engineers
strike has not yet appealed to the gen.
eral public in Wall street, although 1t is
fully appreciated by railroad presidents
and managers and their intimate finan-
cial hackers.
The public has been and is in the mar
ket on a larger scale than the profess
SIGNALS and stock exchange bankers re-
allied. The piungers and pools and syn
dicates were only powerful so long as
they went with the current. Time and
time again during the last six weeks
heavyweight traders, operating either in
dividually or in combination, sold out
their holdings and tried to organize re-
actions. In every case the public took
the market away from them, bought hun
dreds Of thousands of shares on the de-
clines and showed prices up to still high
er levels. And in every such instance
the. professionals who had sold out got
back into the market again at higher
prices than they had realized on their
original lines. They had oyerestimated
their own Importance and underestimate
been moving under the surface. 1t was
the first chance the public had enjoyed
for two or three years to participate in
controlling way in bull market. They
enjoyed the. experience and would not
let go. When the public gets its grip on
stock market it is oftentimes uncon-
trollable, although the hour comes when
1t meets with a staggering blow and sees
the profits of months disappear in a day
or a week. The public has fatal IA.
cility for going too far in its stock mar
ket speculations, and this is one of the
times when there is danger of just that
calamitous finish.
The younger element OF the old Stand
ard Oil group has been active in q
colossal way In, the stock market ever
since the turn began, six weeks ago.
and possibly long before that date. The
buying from that quarter has been very
fled the veteran John D. Rockefeller In
some Of the mghtiest campaigns in the
history OF Wall street. It was the boast
Of men lin the know that when John
D. Rockefeller became really interested
in the market he could buy more than all
Wall street could SELL and sell more than
all Wall street could buy. Something
like that seems to have been going on
In the stock market lately. It was q
force that was making Itself felt II the
ested. Whether any part Of this eAor-
nous concentrated line has been dis
tributed on the advance, the street has
not yet been able to ascertain. There
real inside workings of the mammoth
combine of silent multimillionaires. The
grizzled William Rockefeller and his
dashing nephew. Percy Rockefeller, are
given credit for engineering the back
ground manipulation of the rise.
Refuses Purchase Of Road.
mission of New York to permit New
York Central to buy from the New York
and New Haven road it's controlling in
terest in Ontario and Western throws
that system back on the hands Of Mr..
Mellen's New England corporation. It
was piece Of property bought by New
Haven. to be used as a club to compel
New York Central and other railroads
doing business in New York, Pennsyl-
vania and New Jersey to give the pur-
chasing line a larger share of freight
traffic than 1t was then receiving, and it
has no other use for the little system.
To be obliged to reassume responsibility
for the Ontario and Western Is burden
and an undesirable responsibility. To
add to Mr.. Mellens troubles, Gov. Foss
has set on foot campaign to compel tho
already overburdened New York and New
Haven road to raise and spend 800, 600 =
coo on its properties.
The street is full of stories of stub
born bears who have carried heavy &C
counts up to the advance and continued
to remargin their short sales. Instances
are cited where traders have margined
lines Of 10000 to 10000 shares to a paper
loss of 81 600. 600 to s. O00,OOO Bull leaders
have been cunning" for some of these
big accounts. and few of them have
been run in, but the whales are still at
large.
Orders for new rolling stock have fallen
off sharply from the big bookings of
January. They are now averaging at the
unless great change comes over the sit
uation, car building for the year will not
exceed 125,OOO, instead of 100000 as
anticipated. Railroads are evidently de-
termtned to run their increasing number
of hospital cars as long as they have
is to be given an object lesson In inef-
ficiency.
The Damage to Wheat.
The crop 'sharps" are figuring out that
the damage to wheat in Ohio. Indiana,
Illinois. Iowa and Nebraska more than
offsets the improvement In lower Kansas.
in Oklahoma. Texas and Missouri, and
that there is warrant for putting prices
up. Large visible stocks Of old wheat
are yet to be disposed of. but SPECTATORS
are appalled, at the famine which is to
result from a short wheat crop in the
| middle west. A few weeks hence, when
Chicago, st. Louis. Kansas City and the
deluged with beautiful new winter wheat,
these views may be modified somewhat.
southwestern railroad stocks have been
buoyed up by the good crop news from
| that region, although they have not taken
a lead in the advance
orlx1