Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1913-07-29

New York, July 29.-Wall street is
sick-sick unto death. The stock ex.
change is suffering from a pronounced
attack of incurable anaemia, and the
contributing cause, according to the
diagnosis of old timers, is education.
The public is wise to Wall street.
There's the rub. The stock exchange
is still at Broad and Wall, and trading
opens at 8 a. m. and stops at 8 p. m.
Railroad, steamships and manufactur.
ing shares and bonds change hands
daily as in former times, but the pub.
lie does not care. Prices fluctuate and
the ticker whirg out its song of profit
and loss as of yore, but the public is
not interested. Desperate bear bait.
ing and equally desperate bull fighting
occurs on the street as in former times
but the public takes no interest in the
game. The public has learned that the
doings of Wall street should not con-
Germ the public. The lamb has learned
at last that the path Of speculation
leads to the shambles sooner or later
The money made. on Wall street is
made by the holders of stocks and
bonds, not by the gamblers. 1t dawn
ed on the lamb some time ago that
every dollar made by anybody on the
street is lost by some other body, and
that the public was always that some
other body. We"
Education is responsible for the pres
ent stagnation of Wall street. Con-
gressional investigations of the money
trust, the adverse railroad legislation
and a lot of other things are blamed
by some for the decline Of the street,
but the fact is that the public, through
the newspapers and magazines, saw
what made Wall streets wheels go
around, learned what made Wall street
tick, and the public promptly lost in.
terest. There is nothing so deadly to
a pastime or amusement such as Wall
street furnished as a thorough under.
standing of it.
"And you wouldn't know the old
place now," might be sung with unc.
tion by the brokers today The
"crOOked little street with a cemetery
at one end and the river at the other"
hardly knows itself in these troublous
times. An old.time broker who has
made and lost several fortunes in the
street was heard to hum thusly;
''1 feel like one who treads alone
some banquet hall deserted, whose
lights are fled and garlands dead and
all but him departed" Some of the
wise ones profess to believe that Wall
street will never "cOme back" while
others just as well versed in its ways,
predict confidently that the present
lethargv, the wide berth that the pub
lie is just now giving the exchange and
bucket shops is just a temporary thing,
soon to pass away. These poiny nope.
fully TO 19O7.0S as an example Of ten.
porary depression But there is no an
alogy In those years there was panic.
Today there is nothing Of the kind.
Wall street is doing a healthy, legiti'
mate business. Shares are changing
hands normally. What is missing is
speculation The public is not playing
the game, not because of hard times,
but because the public, knowing it is
bound to lose at the game, does not
want to.
Five hundred Wall street clerks have
been discharged, and all the survivors
have stood for huge cuts in salary,
Telegraph operators who used to enjoy
'tips" on "good things" and make
ga nice piece Of change" no longer re.
celve these favors. Messenger boys
who used to get IS bills gratuitously,
now jump at dimes. The brokers
gather around the ticker with sem.
blance Of their old vigor, but they are
watching the baseball scores. Floor
men spend their time figuring the cost
Of summer vacations.
A singing evangelist tho other day
tried to start a street meetings near
the curb market and was told curtly
to Ego and save 'em up in Central
Park " A newly discovered tenor who
says he outsings Caruso, went down to
the street the other day to sing in an
effort to attract rich banker, a thing
not uncommon in the old days, and was
promptly arrested.
| VUb.taver tho angwer. tbingR arc NOT