THE HARDWOOD RECORD. 



13 



The Macn About Town. 



WHAT AILS THE STOCK MARKET ? 



About ii year ago the Record publishea 

 an article comparing J. Pierpout Jlorgan 

 to John Law. Law was a financier of the 

 Morgan type, who lived something lilie 

 three centuries ago, who blew up great 

 financial bubbles, operating contrary to all 

 accepted and conservative ideas of finance, 

 but wliose success was so undoubted and 

 indisputable for many years that it seemed 

 that all the old-fashioned ideas about pro- 

 ducing wealth by labor alone had been 

 overthrown. But in the end it was proven 

 that all his prosperity was fictitious and 

 that all the issuing of stocks, bonds, shares 

 and other credit tokens, running into un- 

 told millions, had not added a penny to 

 the actual value of things. And when 

 Law's schemes started to tumble they 

 brought ruin to the whole French nation. 

 There is this difference between Morgan's 

 end and Law's, however. Law fooled every- 

 body in his generation; Morgan has fooled 

 few, if any. Law correctly gauged the 

 intelligence of his prospective clients and 

 Morgan proceeded on tlie same lines, over- 

 looking the fact, evidently, that the world 

 has progressed enormously within tlie past 

 three centuries. 



But tlie situation is more serious than a 

 good many know or care to admit. A lit- 

 tle liquidation in Wall street is not going 

 to end it by any means. We may escape 

 a general panic and I believe we will, 

 but even at the best much evil will come 

 from the present situation, and, as we 

 said a year ago, the time will come when 

 the people will curse Morgan and his 

 pirate crew with heartfelt bitterness. 



It is my opinion that Morgan and his 

 crew should be in jail and it wouldn't sur- 

 prise me greatly if they should get there 

 before all is done. They are a gang of 

 bunko sharpers, operating with millions, it 

 is true, but bunko sharpers just the same, 

 and for the evil they have brought and 

 will bring upon the country and the peo- 

 ple they could not be too severely punished. 

 Fortunately, they have not been able to 

 deceive many people into investing in their 

 various and assorted gold bricks. As the 

 matter stands to-day Morgan and his mill- 

 ionaire confederates stand to make the 

 principal loss themselves; but they have 

 brought disaster to many a fine industry 

 and have impaired the confidence of the 

 entire country in the stability of things. 

 Everywhere there is doubt and uncertainty 

 and uneasiness. 



The great industries of the country, the 

 railroads, the steel works, the mines, the 

 shipping have been seized by these ruth- 

 less operators and have been juggled and 

 organized, and reorganized and merged, 

 until the people have lost confidence in .ill 

 such classes of investment. Old and con- 



BY C. D. STKODE. 



servative and well-managed institutions 

 have been seized, such as the Illinois Cen- 

 tral, L. & N. and others, whose securities 

 have been considered as safe as a real 

 estate mortgage, and exploited until the 

 people have lost confidence in every sort of 

 an enterprise of which control can be se- 

 cured in the opep market. 



Sui-prise is expressed to-day that some of 

 the best stocks, good dividend-paying stocks 

 are selling far below their value, and offer 

 this as evidence that the present slump in 

 the market is unreasonable and therefore 

 can only be temporary. To my way of 

 thinking, tlie loss in these good stocks is 

 only a logical result of present conditions. 

 Other fine properties have been seized and 

 wrecked, and no property is safe from 

 the pirates. The people have lost confi- 

 dence in all such properties, and all this 

 clap-trap, bunko business will need be 

 dropped, the industries of the country will 

 need be placed on a solid foundation of 

 conservatism and be given good and care- 

 ful management for many years before 

 that confidence is resored. 



Therein lies the harm that Morgan has 

 done. He has not been able to unload 

 much of his watered stock upon the gen- 

 eral public. It is, most of it, still in the 

 possession of himself and his millionaire 

 confederates, and if the evil of it all could 

 be confined to those who are responsible 

 for it — if all there was to it was to sit 

 about and watch the sharks caught in their 

 own trap — the people would enjoy it 

 hugely. Nothing brings a man more pleas- 

 ure than to see a trap set for him sprung 

 on the one who set it. But, sad to relate, 

 that isn't all. For, while the pirates are 

 meeting their just deserts, they are bring- 

 ing ruin and desolation to the finest prop- 

 erties and industries in our country. 

 * • * 



Nothing in the business world is more 

 pitiful than a "busted trust." If a firm or 

 an individual fails that firm or individual 

 begins at once to build up again. An agree- 

 ment is reached with the creditors, the 

 business is reorganized, the plant over- 

 hauled, bustle and activity resume their 

 sway and thrift begins anew the careful 

 placing of one penny upon another. But 

 when a trust fails it is different. 



If a man has spent his life building up 

 a business he has a pride in every part of 

 it; and if it falls he will struggle like a 

 giant to rebuild it. 



And his reputation among his friends 

 and neighbors for ability and integrity' 

 How dear that is to him no man will put 

 in words, but every man can understand 

 by examining his own heart. And the 

 giant I'fforts he puts forth to retrieve it 

 would move mountains. 



But a "busted trust" is a different prop- 



osition. No one has any interest in it. And 

 the chances are that those concerned in its 

 management before it failed have pro- 

 tected themselves. Ownership is vested In 

 a lot of people who have no interest in it 

 or pride in it — men who never saw a plant 

 in operation and whose only interest in it 

 was to have it pay dividends or interest. 

 And that ownership is represented by some 

 printed slips stuck away in a pigeonhole 

 and which make a man cuss every time he 

 sees them. 



* * * 



There is a plant in Chicago, which I pass 

 frequently, which belongs to a "busted 

 trust." And to one who knows the his- 

 tory of the plant the desolation of the 

 great, silent buildings, with their sealed- 

 up doors and broken" windows, brings a 

 heartache. 



More than sixty years ago the little busi- 

 ness, which was the germ of the great 

 plant, was started by two young men 

 whose chief capital stock was hope and 

 faith and industry and thrift. Gradually 

 the business grew and expanded, safely, 

 solidly and conservatively. And the dingy 

 little shop grew and grew until it was 

 eight stories high and covered half a block. 

 And the two young men grew to be mid- 

 dle-aged and then to be old; and from 

 doing all the work themselves they came 

 to employ thousands. And finally they 

 quit work altogether and left the manage- 

 ment of the plant to their sons and their 

 confidential men, and they did nothing but 

 wander about the plant patronizing the old 

 hands in a benevolent, fatherly way, or 

 swelling with pride as they showed their 

 friends or strangers through. 



Then the promoter of the trust came 

 along and talked to the old men of the 

 wonderful new scheme of finance. How 

 expenses could be reduced b.v combinatloB 

 and prices advanced by monopoly. And 

 wouldn't they go into the trust? 



But the old men looked at one another 

 with wonder and incredulity in their fail- 

 ing eyes and shook their heads. They 

 couldn't grasp it — it couldn't be done, they 

 said. 



But the promoter was smooth and in- 

 sistent. The world was advancing, he said, 

 and those who failed to keep up with the 

 ])rogrcss must be run over. And if they 

 wouldn't enter the trust, wouldn't they 

 sell? Surely they would sell? And the 

 promoter named a price. 



But the price was too much, they said; 

 the plant wasn't worth it. 



Not under the old system, maybe, the 

 promoter urged, but under the new system 

 they could afford to pay it. 



And finally, because the price was so 

 high, and because their sons advised them 

 to sell, and because they were grown so 

 very old and the world was moving so very 



