Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-01-29

should you leave it to its fate and do
nothing to try to save it?
should an army general turn tail
and run whenever he fears a battle
NAV possibly go against him, or
should he fight until the last hope is
gone?
II YOU are in business and your DO
sition becomes shaky, should you lie
down without a struggle and let your
rreditors shift for themselves?
m course not. Emphatically NO in
all three cases.
Should bankers identified with a
railroad desert 1t when it becomes
weak or stand by it and strain every
nerve to pull it through?
The Interstate Commerce Commits
sion has made the amazing sugges-
lion that they should! Incredible?
Almost but listen to this from the
commissions report on the st. Louis
and san Francisco Railroad receiver
ship:
q,care of the poverty of the Frisco
and Of its difficulties in obtaining
funds
should have been aware!" Great
Scott they WE'RE aware. So was
every American adult knowing the
rudments of finance and business. So
was every French banker who put out
Frisco bonds-at handsome profit.
Is the Commission to lay down a
rule that no banker must supply
funds to any but strong, flourishing
railroads? Apparently THAT code
of banking ethics would please it.
Suppose the Interstate Commerce
Commission had had the power it now
seeks of vising all proposed issues Of
railroad securities and thereby hold
ing in the hollow of it's hands the
so!vency and bankruptcy of all the
countrys railroads, would it have for
hidden the late Edward H. Hartman
TO save" the Erie after J. P. Morgan
& Co. had decided to let the road be-
come a crocker2 Hartman was
aware of the poverty Of the Erie"
He surely was.
Would the Commission have for
hidden this same firm of Speyer &
Co. to extend succor. more than once,
to Edward P. Huntington when he
was striving to keep the Southern
Pacific on it's feet? Speyer & Co
knew full = we'll that the road was
IL Il,,% hOfv
saved the situation.
Should Kuhn, Loeb & Co. have been
forbidden to supply sinews to Hat-
riman to build up the Union Pacific
because it was for long poor as
church mouse? Certainly" says the
Commission.
We're every banker IN the United
States and every Interested banker In
Europe to Immediately act upon the
principle favored by the Commission,
what a melee there would be.
We would have a worse deluge OF
railroad, industrial, mining and mer--
camille failures than ever encountered
even at the height Of the worst panic
IN a generation.
For, take 1t from me, there are
quite few enterprises not exactly
as strong as Gibraltar!
No more asinine statement was
Ever made in a governmental report
than the sentence quoted near the
beginning of this article. the COM
mission was not asked by the Senate
for expression of opinion on the
Frisco affair, but this did not deter
the commission, always anxious TO
besmirch Wall street bankers" and
everybody associated with railroads,
from offering gratuitously more than
one very emphatic opinion.
The serious question raised by the
commisison's extraordinary attitude
is this:
Should bankers desert properties
mat become tUeGk?
Well, should they?
Or should they put their shoulders
10 the wheel and seek by might anc
main to avert disaster, not quitting
until the last chance of saving a
property has gone?
| am we'll aware that the Frisco
was honeycombed with inside Jug
slery | was the first to show up the
Iottenness of the Yoakum regime and
10 call upon the Interstate Commerce
Commission and the Government to
act The Hearst newspapers devoted
columns to the subject before other
newspapers woke up to the facts.
publicly declared that Speyer & Co
could not afford not to have full
lnvestigation made and the whole
ruth laid before the people, as the
circumstances of the last piece OF
financing tended to cast odium upon
them
The facts have since come out, and
not one crumb of evidence has been
adduced rejecting upon the honesty
OF the honor OF Speyer e. Co. Wheth-
er they should have let the Frisco go
broke before they were forced to do
50 Is matter for individual opinion.
Bankers having regard for their rep
u'ation don't usually let one of their
properties collapse until actually
Obliged to. AS a matter of fact, had
' the Chicago and Eastern Illinois sale
TO the st. Paul been contaminated, as
Intended, the Frisco would not have
gone under. Had monetary condi-
IONS throughout the world improved
instead of having grown worse, the
corner uou1d nrnha hlU have been