The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-05-27

from s122, 17s,OoO to s49Os 900; It's pre- ferred stock from s49, ,6I2, GOO to S116 274, ,OOO; Its common from $5S 183,000 to s117, All, ,00O. Then it was recalled by pessimistic Wall street how 1t had become necessary to reduce the dividend on St. Paul's com mon stock from per cent to 5; how the companyss gross earnings for the three months since January 1 had fallen off $59S, coo, and it's net s2,1S9,OOO.
 Only this week A. J. Earling, president of the St. Paul. explained that the poor earnings for this year were due to un- favorable weather conditions, the worst he had ever experienced in his 52 years of railroad. As for the future, he said the crop and business outlook was prom ising
 Wall street, as a whole. does not know to this day that 1t was selling by St. Paul's largest shareholder in shifting to the liberty bonds that caused the low prices recently touched. But the point of this story is; Will time prove that Will liam Rockefeller was wise in parting with investment stocks such as St. Paul at prices where the income return is now around per cent to invest the pro- ceeds in tax-exempt bonds offering an income return of only S1a per cent
 No outsider can tell what William Rockefeller paid for his St. Paul. all
  for many years he has been the largest individual shareholder. But whatever he paid for his original holdings, if he sells them now he will have to buy them back "at the market" Who knows how long the war will last? What is going to happen to railroad shares stock mark ket-wise when freight rates are increased, as they must be to offset the increase in wages inn I,xy ha dor Ia GnnnnSA those shares were to advance rapidly on such news and the war would then suddenly end? With such unknown factors no actuary, however versed in the science of arithmetic, can actual ly figure out whether Mir. Rockefeller Is making the right move in selling good railroad stocks down to per cent basis to raise funds to invest on a 31a per cent basis.
 In that connection it is worth recall Ing that 15 years ago Wall street leaders, including B. H. Hartman, ar rived at the conclusion that money had permanently settled on @ 4 per cent basis. One of the largest insurance companies, after employing actuaries and carefully soliciting views of f1nan- cial experts, made a complete shift of its investments at that time. With ing a decade railroad presidents like Samuel Req of the Pennsylvania, Dan iel Willard of the Baltimore and Ohio, E. P. Ripley of the Atchison were com blaming bitterly that money could not be borrowed except at prohibitive rates. in some cases per cent or higher.
 But William Rockefeller. with all of his wide experience, has been known to be wrong stock marketwise; as wrong as a rank outsider. He was long of stocks at the very top prices of 1906 and, when the panic of 1907 broke, called on Brother John" for help. H. H. Rogers did too but ac- cording to the Wall street gossip heard at that time. Brother John," who only buys securities having investment merits and then never parts with As result Rogers was forced to pay through the nose" for funds which had to be raised to protect his inter- ests.
 All of which Is by way of saying that those who follow in Brother Johns" footsteps stock marketwise will average a balance on the right side of the books. And these are times when 1t behooves a man or wom- an with unemployed funds to look out for a steady income large enough to help offset the high cost of living. When 1t comes to patriotism buy 1ib- invested wisely just now in good rail- road stocks or bonds or in the pre- ferred shares of industrial companies.