Show If the Stock Markets Were Clioset Suppose for a moment that the stock markets of the world were closed that it was no longer possible to lenrn what railways were paying dividends what their stocks were worth how industrial enterprises were faring whether they were loaded up with surplus goods or had orders ahead Suppose that the information In-formation afforded by public quotations on the stock and produce exchanges were wiped from the slate of human knowledge How would the average man how even would a man with the Intelligence and foresight of a Plerpont Morgan determine how new capital should be invested He would hove no guide except the most isolated facts gathered here and there at great trouble and expense A greater misdirection o capital and energy would result than has been possible since the organization o modern economic machinery Mr Morgan or any other capitalist might be expending millions of dollars In building new railways or cotton mills when there was no necessity for them while a hundred other Industries In-dustries beneficial to the public were stagnant for laCk of capital There would be no safe guide as to whether the world needed more railroads and fewer cotton mills or more cotton mills and fewer railroads Great sums would be wasted In bootless enterprises which would prove unprofitable and carry down their owners own-ers to ruin All the capital represented all the labor thought foresight and inventive genius involved In them would be sacrificed to the lack of an effective public for pointing out the direction In publc organ Irecton which capital was needed Charles A Conant In the April Atlantic |