crown CU Home > Libraries Home
[x] Close window

Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Use your browser's Print function to print these pages.

The Record and guide: v. 36, no. 924: November 28, 1885

Real Estate Record page image for page ldpd_7031138_002_00000602

Text version:

Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view About OCR text.
Nov ember 28, 1885 The Record and Guide. 1305 THE RECORD AND GUIDE, Published every Saturday. 191 Broadv^av, N". Y- Our TelepUono Call l9 • • •. • • JOHN 370. TERMS: OWE TEAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS. Coimnuiiications should be addressed to C, W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Busiuoss Manager. Vol. XXXVI, NOVEMBER 28, 1885. No. 924 The knowing ones predict that the bulls on the Stock Exchange will not be happy during the forthcoming December. There is to be a telegraphic war, and a cutting of cable rates. Then there may be some hitch in the absorption of the West Shore road by the New York Central. The meeting of Congress and the question of the Presidential succession, are also likely to have a disijuieting effect ou the mai'ket. ---------•--------• While the domestio exchanges show greater activity in business, it must be confessed that the stato of trade hardly warrants the excitement in tho stock market. Take the country through there is more activity in trade circles, and prices are better; but merchants and manufacturers get none of tho big profits in their business which stock operators secure in purchasing bonds and shares. In other words the advance in stock values is far in excess of the improvement in the general business ofthe couutry. Tliis result was, however, to have been expected, as the stock market usually loads the \*iin when there is a revival in speculators enterprises. producer lias had a constant market at the termini of the pipe¬ line. A vast multitude of people who acted as brokers, traders and small refiners, have been obliged to betake themselves to other and more useful avocations. This tendency to organization and the elimiDation of unnecessary workers is one of the chara^tei ttics of the age we live in. It is inevitable that other organizations sim¬ ilar to the Standard Oil Company, will in time come into existence. Individual effort must give way to corporate action. Stockholders of the Real Estate Exchange and Auction Room (Limited), should not surrender their proxies, but should keep them, so that they can vote on election day, December 14, next. Several persons have been soliciting proxies, and it is alleged that certain politicians are eager to get into the Board of Directors for sinister purposes, but all such schemes will prove fruitless if share¬ holders keep their proxies and vote themselves on election day for directors whom they know are all right. There will be several tickets in the lield, in all probability, and tho regular ticket, for there will be one, may not succeed as a whole ; but no harm will come if the sharehohlers vote themselves, and do not allow their proxies to be handled by irresponsible persons. Jay Gould is entitled to credit for acting as a check upon the rampant stock market we have been having. Whatever his motive may be, the way in which he has handled his own specialties has had the effect of preventing the market from running riot. His Missouri Pacific has undeniable merit. It earns the dividend it pays and more. Certain syndicates of operators have offered to buy blocks of M. P. with the view of making a speculative deal; but Jay Gould would not be a party to the operation, though it would have been a very profitable one to him. The street also was desirious of getting up a speculative movement in Western Union, but its owner did all he could to keep down the price of that security. A war of cable rates, it is said, will soon be commenced, the object of which will, of course, be to cripple and, if possible, drive out of existence the Mackay-Bennett cable. Should this war take place, it would be another drag on the market. All business men are pleased to see a better appreciation of stocks in Wall street; but the previous up-rush of prices would be followed by an ugly collapse were it not for the wholesome reactions which follow each sliarp advance, and the drag^ on the market engineered by great operators like Jay Gould. The *'slump'* in the price of petroleum certificates during the past week was a serious matter for a number of very wealthy oper¬ ators. The oil, as a general thing, was in strong hands, and some of the best posted men in the trade were the greatest sufferers. The price of oil fell 21 points within five days. An operator carry¬ ing 50,000 bbls. would lose therefore $10,500, besides the carrying char'^e. There was literally millions of dollars abstracted from bank accounts of wealthy and usually well posted operators. Oil is a dangerous material to trade in, speculatively. The Standard Oil Company have the advantage over the whole body of operators, as its managers are the first to know of new wells or the opening of fresh districts. They control the certificates, and are kept posted a.5 to the actual consumption and production; hence prices are at their mercy, and those who enter into competition with them are pretty sure to lose all their money in the long run. The prime cause of the fall in oil, was, however, the discovery of a new oil region iu Kane County, Pa. There is wild excitement out in that country, and the prospecting is very active. The opening of a gusher would send tbe certificates down to 80, There is a very bitter feeUng against the Standard Oil Company, because of its monopolizing tendencies. It has ruined thousands of traders, and prevented other thousands from making any money in the petroleum business. But after all. has not this great organiza¬ tion incidentally in mauy ways benefitted the community? The oil business was a chaos before the Standard Company was formed. AU was confusion worse confounded. There was a deplorable waste of money and labor in the mining, refining and distribution of the oil. Since this great monopoly has come into existence al fee worW bai> been supplied witb oil at very low rates, while, the What may be in the President's Message. Before the next two copies of tho TiiK Record and GuiDii: will bo published, Congress will have met and President Cleveland delivered his annual message. The newspapers will attempt to throw some light on this import¬ ant document, but it is tolerably certain that its recommendations will not be known until the message itself is read to the Senate and Ilouse, It is safe, however, to assume that President Cleveland will devote considerable space to tho question of civil service reform. His devotion to a reformed method of administering the govern¬ ment is undoubted, and his deliverances on this vital matter will have no uncertain sound. The tariff will, of courde, be discussed iuthe message. The Presi¬ dent is known to be very liberal in his views, btit how far he will go in the disclosure of them naturally excites a good deal of anxiety on the part of the protected industries. Recommenda¬ tions will undoubtedly be made to liberalize our system of impost duties. No matter how urgent Mr. Cleveland may be on this point, we question if any large measure in the way of tariff reform can bo carried through the Congress about to meet. The Republicans wull control the majority of the Senators during President Cleveland's term of office, and then there are a sufficient number of high tariff Democrats who will oppose any large reductions being made in the tax on foreign goods. It is not imposible, however, that some minor reforms may be carried through; and then, doubtless, addi¬ tions will be made to the free list. We have always held that the interests affected are so powerful that no general measure reducing impost duties had much chance of passing through au American Congress, but that something might be done in the way of piece¬ meal legislation. Indeed, our tariff is very much changed since the close of the civil war; but it has been by a series of legislative acts extending over twenty years time, dealing with special enormities in the tariff enacted when the civil conflict was raging. Not much is to ba expected from the President in the way of recommendation looking to the building up of our merchant marine. He will not favor any government help, such as other nations give, to maintain steamship lines connecting home with foreign ports. From the influences about him, it must not be expected that President Cleveland will change his attitude towards the silver problem. Last February, before he took his seat as President, he wrote a letter to the Democratic members of Congress, asking them to vote for the repeal of thesilver coinage act. In thatdocument,'he pi'edicted, if the coinage was continued, that it would lead to tho displacement of gold by silver, and its ultimate expulsion from the country. He added : " Such a financial crisis as these events would certaiuly precipitate, were it now to follow up^u so loug a period of commercial dt^pression, would involve the p?ople of every city and every State in the Union in a pro¬ longed and disastrous trouble. The revival of business enterprise and prosperity, so ardently desired and apparently so near, would be hope¬ lessly postponed. Gold would be withdrawn to its hoarding places, and an unprecedented contraction in the actual volume of our currency would speedily take place." Subsequent events show that the President was wholly mistaken. There has been no displacement of gold by silver, nor has the yellow metal been expelled from the country. We not only retain all tho gold we mine, but there is over one hundred millions of gold duo us on the other side of the Atlantic Oceau, Hence, there has been no panic ; but, on the contrary, a very genuine and general revival of business, which is the more remarkable as the gold unit countries Still suffer from severe depres&io» in .tva