126 



COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



movement, which has already proceeded so 

 far that fifteen companies have in their direct 

 possession or under their indirect control fully 

 one half of the total length of railway in the 

 United States, have been described oftener than 

 has the advantage that, owing to the unifica- 

 tion and better systematizatiori of the business, 

 and to mechanical and technical improvements 

 which the employment of ready capital has 

 facilitated upon roads that had been crippled 

 for lack of means, the cost of transportation has 

 been reduced on an average 40 per cent. The 

 extension of railroads during the year was un- 

 precedented. About 7,150 miles were built, 

 against 4,721 in 1879. The corporations which 

 added most largely to their mileage were the 

 Chicago and Northwestern, which operated at 

 the end of the year 2,624 miles ; the Chicago, 

 Milwaukee and St. Paul, with 3,627 miles; 

 the Northern Pacific, which had extended its 

 length to 991 miles ; the Union Pacific, with a 

 total length of 3,126 miles ; the Wabash, St. 

 Louis and Pacific, operating 2,487 miles ; the 

 Missouri Pacific, with 731 miles of road ; the 

 Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, with about 

 2,800 miles of rail ; the Atchison, Topeka and 

 Santa Fe, with 1,501 miles ; the St. Louis and 

 San Francisco, with 596 miles ; the Texas and 

 Pacific, with 550 miles; and the Central and 

 Southern Pacific, with 2,586 miles of road. 

 These eleven companies control together nearly 

 22,000 miles of railroad, the total mileage of 

 the country being 93,637 miles, as estimated 

 by the " Railroad Gazette." The extraordinary 

 changes which were brought about in the char- 

 acter of the corporations, by the extension of 

 the lines, the buying up of other roads, and 

 coalition of separate companies under one char- 

 ter, the issue of scrip dividends, etc., are such 

 that no fair comparison is presented by rang- 

 ing together the quoted values of the stocks 

 for 1880 and former years. The gross earnings 

 of forty-three railroads for the twelve months of 

 the calendar year amounted to $193,036,245, 

 against $152,056,126 in 1879, an increase of 

 about 26 per cent. The roads taken operate 

 about 32,500 miles of rails, or about one third 

 of the total mileage of the United States. The 

 operations in railroad stocks and bonds in the 

 year 1880 far exceeded those of any previous 

 year. The reported sales of railroad stock on 

 the New York Stock Exchange amounted for 

 the year to 100,000,000 shares, the number 

 sold in 1879 having been about 75,000,000. 

 The sales of railroad bonds footed up $570,- 

 000,000, against $413,000,000 the previous year. 

 Many new stocks and bonds were admitted to 

 the list. The extraordinary depression in 

 stocks which occurred in May and June car- 

 ried down the price of nearly every stock on 

 the list 20 or 30 per cent. In the late summer 

 and autumn a remarkable buoyancy and rise ot 

 values set in. 



The most noteworthy financial events of the 

 year in the stock market were the transfer of 

 New York Central stock to the syndicate, by 



Vanderbilt; a sale of $10,000,000 Central Pa- 

 cific stock, by Huntington and associates, to 

 another syndicate ; the acquisition by Jay Gould 

 of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the St. Louis 

 and Iron Mountain, and other roads, until he 

 controlled every important through line west 

 of the Mississippi and south of the latitude of 

 St. Louis, except the Atchison, Topeka and 

 Santa Fe and the Atlantic and Pacific ; the 

 suspension of the Philadelphia and Reading 

 Railroad and Coal Company, which took place 

 in May ; the contest for the control of the 

 Western roads between the Chicago, Burling- 

 ton and Quincy company and Gould's Wabash, 

 St. Louis and Pacific combination, which com- 

 menced in August and was settled in October ; 

 the fall in Western Union Telegraph stock on 

 the publication of an alleged decrease in earn- 

 ings in December. The Louisville and Nash- 

 ville and the Chicago and Rock Island railroad 

 companies each declared a scrip dividend of 

 100 per cent., the total amount of stock divi- 

 dends distributed by these and other railroad 

 corporations during the year summing up near- 

 ly $40,000,000. Three vast combinations were 

 formed to force up the prices of staple commodi- 

 ties, which produced mischievous effects both 

 in the money and in the goods markets. These 

 were : the attempted corner in wheat, in Chi- 

 cago, by Keene and associates, which broke 

 down with great loss to the manipulators ; the 

 coffee syndicate, which ended in the disastrous 

 failures of B. G. Arnold & Co. and Bowie, 

 Dash & Co., of New York, in December ; and 

 the corner in pork, managed by Armour & Co., 

 of Chicago, the same operators who had at- 

 tempted to obtain a monopoly of the same 

 article the year before, but had been obliged to 

 close out their transactions with a heavy defi- 

 cit. This year the scheme was conducted, with 

 larger means at command, to a successful issue. 

 The combination obtained the complete com- 

 mand of the market, and controlled the supply 

 for months, winding up the operation in the 

 fall with very large gains. 



The money market in the first months of the 

 year, and at its close, presented the natural 

 phenomenon, in such times of activity, of an 

 abundant general supply with high rates pre- 

 vailing, and occasionally great stringency. From 

 January to May the rates for call loans were usu- 

 ally four to six per cent. ; prime commercial pa- 

 per was discounted at five and six per cent. ; and 

 in March and April one sixteenth of one per 

 cent, per diem was the common price for ad- 

 vances to meet engagements in Wall Street. 

 The fall in the values of many commodities, 

 and the sudden decline in stocks and severe 

 depression in the stock market, which was fol- 

 lowed by a period of lassitude, continuing long 

 after the upward turn in prices had again set 

 in, left the money market very slack. The ordi- 

 nary rates for call loans until the October elec- 

 tions were two and three per cent, while prime 

 notes were in good demand at close rates, four to 

 five per cent, being the prevailing rates up to 



