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Show A SURGICAL OPERATION. I', is amusing the read the various expiami ' and' surmises as to the cause of the recent n;,;,'. Wall street. When railroad .-tocks slumped -.. astrotisly about ten days ago, carrying down v them some other stocks in the li-f. .-weeping ;r many fortunes, the enterprising now-paper ur;-regaled ur;-regaled us with various eau-es for it. -otue of tl . lurid and picturesque. It was .-aid that II;!; , Morgan were trying to break Ilarriman. thai II. ri ma 11 was puni.-hing the public for goveriimeu; terference. that the Standard Oil crowd had )!,;.... Ilarriman overboard, that Ilarriman wa- .: the stocks to get more of them, and so on. Now that the smoke has, cleared away, the stand out plainly enough. The panic affecti d ..!: holders of Wall street railroad stocks. The goner.-., bu.-iness of the country was not affected in th. 1, -; . . As one Prated States senator .-aid. "It is on!.-game on!.-game of poker 011 Wall strict." The slump foil,,,', ., the publicity attending' Ilarriman's examination ' the Interstate Commerce Conuni-.-iori. When II.', riman testified that he bought the Chicago A- Ab,.-: for $42.0iiO.O(iO. helped himvelf to $(,0( 10.000 o nr ..: the treasury, then watered the stock up to (1OO.O00. f which only $2-2.oo0.ooo was .-pent for be-torments, be-torments, thus leaving himself as profits on the -:! ffl54.00o.ooo. is it any wonder that, the holders that stock began to think that it was not worth ;; 1 market price i The money with which Hamma'a negotiated the purchase was borrowed by mortga ing other railroads which he had previously pur chased with borroweel money, and the whole tliin began to look like a large bubble. John I). Rock. -feller, supposed to he Ilarriman's backer, came o;: in an interview, and stated' that the railroad stock-were stock-were watered, that if was dangerous, ami that th-holders th-holders of the stock would experience trouble soon. ; or later. Naturally the holders wanted to sell, and sell quick, anel the result was a throwing of large blocks of stock on the market, and a material lowering lower-ing of prices. It ought not to require any great financial, intellect to connect such a result with such causes. The healthy condition of the country's busines-is busines-is shown in the fact that the panic was confined almost al-most wholly to railroad stocks. The real business of the country has gone forward without a jar. The railroaels themselves are earning as much money mon-ey as ever, or more, the merchants and manufacturers manufac-turers are as busy as ever, and the banks are per-fctly per-fctly sound. Tt is fortunate that this lotting .f water out of the railroad stocks occurred at. a time of general prosperity. Had it come when general lminess was unsettled, when money was scarce and credits strained, it might have caused widesprei 1 disaster. Uncle Sam is in a very healthy condiri -u right now. and this surgical operation has been performed without affecting his general health. Py letting the water out of the railroad stocks now. an element of grave danger has been averted. The people who have had their money inv.--t.-l in legitimate business enterprises, such as buiU up a country, have not suffered by the stock panic. lr is only those who, called lambs, are unwilling t put their money info legitimate enterprises, reefer to speculate in watered stocks, knowing nothing of their basis, and are merely transferring it to the ; pockets of the Wall street exponents of "high j finance." The result may be an impetus to legiri- mate business, by diverting money from stock gam- bling into those channels. j An interesting feature of the situation is the j complete change of front on the part of the rail- ' road magnates on the question of government eon- trul. Heretofore they have opposed in every way any interference by the government in the management manage-ment of the- railroads, blocking by every ingenuity any investigation of methods, abusing President: Roosevelt for his alleged anarchistic tendencies In enforcing the laws, and threatened all sorts of calamities ca-lamities if they were not let alone. Now. however, how-ever, a change has come over the spirit of their dreams. They are seeking President Roosevelt, and imploring him to tell them what he wants dor., , and to use his influence to have additional legislation legisla-tion enacted by congress for the complete regulatie.11 of the railroads. They are willing, and even eager, to conform to all regulations of the interstate rw merce commission, and in every way arc strong f.r government regulation. This docility is not the result re-sult of patriotism or a change of heart. It is mereb-t.. mereb-t.. escape the worse evil of state legislation. Th-different Th-different states have latterly been .passing law-! much more drastic than any congress had passed, and it was the attitude of the railr ds which caused the states to pass them. The railroad seemed able to defy the national administration and prevent the enforcement..,v the la ws. so the states took the matter into t heir-own ''hands.- Now that the railroads are confronted with the prospect pros-pect of about forty-six different kinds of sate law-, many of them very radical: they realize that the, made a mistake in opposing the national laws, and now express the utmost eagerness to obev them. Ihe way of the wily magnate is certainly peculiar. |