Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-10-29
BELIEVES BUSINESS
ON CLIMB UPWARD
Authority in New York's Finan-
CiaI District Foresees Sub
stantiaI Improvement.
NOT THOUGHT ENTIRELY
DUE TO "WAR ORDERS"
Given Credit, However, for Starting
Ball Rolling and Aiding Other
Lines of Industry.
BY N. o. MESSENGER.

| NEW YORK, October 29-General
business throughout the country has
started upon steady climb toward
oetterment, and is entering an era OF
substantial Improvement is the opinion
OF competent authority in the financial
district to whom The Stars correspond
ent applied for information
Reports coming to these quarters
from great industrial corporations
wholesale houses and railroads, sub
stantiated by like information from
| the banks, all agree that there is mark
| ed increase in the volume of business
with promise of better for the future.
| These reports have no reference to
speculation in stocks, nor are they
based entirely upon the war orders, y
although the latter are given credit for
starting the ball rolling, and unques-
tlonably have materially affected in a
favorable way many collateral lines OF
industry.
1t is explained that while to the gem
eral public mind war orders signify
mainly shrapnel shell and powder, they
IN reality include scores of other manu-
iactured products of copper, glass,
leather, steel, wood and cloth The
orders are distributed among hundreds
OF large and small concerns in widely
separated localities of the country.
Ine employment of labor in the in
uustrles affected has in turn put in cir
culation money which has gone for the
purchase of food, clothing and the in
Vulnerable items of consumption of
American homes when the bread Win
ners have steady employment al Ameri-
can standards of wages
General Picking Up in Business.
aI IA
to be signs visible to the eyes and ac-
ceptable to the understanding of men
who will have to supply the money to
finance improved business of what they
term a general picking up of many
staple lines of business.
Railroads are buying equipment of
all kinds in volume. Iron is advancing
in price with increasing demand. Wool
en- mills are preparing to work double
shifts, this on account of Russian war
orders for the moment. Western fruit
packers, however, whose business is
not affected by the war, report an i'm
mense increase in the total over last
year.
In Boston The Stars correspondent
was told that the small manufactures
of New England, making a thousand
and one varieties of articles entering
into ordinary trade, are reporting good
outlook for the future.
New 1OrR clty TenectS tne swelling
activity in commercial lines in the
crowded condition of the hotels, pa
tronized by business men and the gen
eral public with money to spend from
every section. One cannot get into the
popular hotels unless reservations have
been made in advance.
All these visitors from the interior
bring hopeful accounts. The farmers
are spending or investing their returns
from the big crops of this years har-
vest.
Car Shortage Imminent.
I was told this morning that one of
the trunk line railroads reports that
at point $50 miles west of New York
there is a congestion of freight. which
the road is unable to move for lack of
freigh cars. and that a car shortage
mey be imminent in the next few
Weeks
Business interests are very much con-
cerned over the lack of transportation
facilities on the high seas, but see no
way to better conditions at present.
Ocean freight rates have gone up
amazingly. both at ports in the United
States and Canada. The necessity for
the prompt movement of wheat to
Europe is largely responsible for the
enormous advances in ocean freights.
Secretary McAdoo's plan for solving
the merchant marine question is not
well liked in the financial district and
will be opposed vigorously by Boston
and New York in the coming Congress.
A joint debate is to be held in this
city shortly between Secretary McAdoo
and Senator Weeks of Massachusetts
over the merchant marine question,
when Senator Weeks will set forth the
views of portion of the bushes world
toward the administrators plans.