The Washington herald., 1914-08-01

The answer was given by the manager
! OF one house. He said that rich mer
were enormous buyers Of stocks on thu
decline. This kind OF buying, which Il
for cash, set In Wednesday and CON
tinued all day Thursday. Not only New
Workers but other men OF large wealth
sent In orders for purchases outright
Philadelphia in particular was big pnr-
chaser for cash. One house yesterday
bought $4,000 worth Of securities, payina
for them In full This was but sample
Of what was going on all over the IMAM
cial district. Even small houses bought
az high as 10000 worth Of stocks out
right Some purchasers for cash bought
as many as LOO shares at time sucn
opportunities as these come only once In
lifetime. Many outright purchases
were made by Washingtonians.
Calling for Margins.
An additional reason for the closing
Of the New York Market and the fear
Of a crash In prices was the general
calling for margins. These calls hit pur-
chasers who had thought themselves
quite safe from such embarrassment be-
cause they had bought their stocks on
the every decline Of the past year and
had margined handsomely when they
did so. Everybody believed that the
market had touched bottom and that the
next important movement would be up
ward Nobody had dreamed Of a Euro
pean war. Hence there were any num-
Der Of holders OF stocks who either could
or would not put up another cent in the
way Of unusually large margins. The
only recourse for their brokers was TO
sell them out and this they did. Every
house in the Street had to do that sort
Of selling and the volume in the aggre-
gate was enormous. It contributed pos
sibly the bulk OF the selling.
With the market dropping points at
time Thursday commission houses found
II necessary to ask extraordinarily large
margins on stocks not bought for cash:
The prevailing rate for Union Pacific,
for example, was thirty points against
standard stocks selling around par brok-
ers wanted twenty points while possibly
the maximum was reached in the case
Of Canadian Pacific, for which they
wanted fifty points margin. Oddly enough
Canadian Pacific while weak with the
rest barely broke below its recent low.
1t was the first stock to feel the weight
OF panicky selling and had discounted
war more severely than any other issue.
But it also had recovered sharply so
that It after all broke 1873 points yes
terday.
Local Bank on War.
In a statement issued by the CONNER
cial National Bank of this city yester-
day the evil of war is pointed out and
its effect upon the United States dis
The statement is as follows:
Since writing our monthly resume q
great European conhagration seems inn
The triple alliance seems bent
upon locking horns with the triple en-
be Of considerable Importance to men Of
Il might seem that enormous advantages
such a war. We may expect to have a
very large hand in provisioning the belli-
gerent powers during the continuation Of
the conhict-and this should mean a
good, big slice in the pockets OF our
manufacturers, and exporters.
"On the other hand. no war can ever
be OF lasting benefit to any country
Ind in the present conflict, though Eu-
'ope be the heavier sufferer. America
must look TO share in many OF the
roubles incident thereto. The enormous
of gold from New York
within the last few days and the tre-
nendous unloading of our own securi-
les upon US at a reduced price are evil
iences of the qick response business here
must make to conditions abroad. Again.
At the close of such a war the partici-
oating nations must. of necessity, be ex-
1austed both as to money and men.
Their producing and buying power will
be reduced at one and the same time and