Please note: this text may be incomplete. For more information about this OCR, view
About OCR text.
June 25, 1910
RECOUD AND GtJIDE
KTABUSHa)-^ttARf.H2lii>1868.
BlfSnfeSS AftoTHEHlES Of GEfiER^L iKioifsi.^
PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE BIGHT DOLLARS
CommuQlcations should be addressed to
C. W. SWEET
Pabtished Everg Saturdag
By THE RECORD AND GTIIDE CO.
President, CLINTON W. SWEET Treasurer, F. W. DODGBJ
Vice-Pres, & Genl. Mgr., H. W. DESMOND Secretary, F. T. MILLER
. KoH. IX to 15 East 24th Street, New York Citr
(Telephone, Madison Square, 4430 to 4433.)
"Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as srcoiid-closs matter."
Copyrighted. 1010. by The Record Sc Guide Co.
Vol. LXXXV.
JUNE 25, 1910.
No. 2201}
SINCE March last there has been witnessed a remarkable
reversal of form in the general business situation. At
that time commodity prices exceeded on the average
the previous highest level that had been reached in the
Spring of 1907. The range of industrial and railroad securi¬
ties was also exceptionally high. Our imports were larger
thae they had ever been before in the history of the country.
The export trade was hampered by the high range of com¬
modity prices, and for the first time in about fourteen years
the balance of trade was running heavily against the United
States. The sale of securities to foreign bankers was doing
something to counteract the resulting tendency to export
gold, but that metal was nevertheless going out of the country
in large quantities. The domestic demand tor capital was
being much increased by the necessity of flnancing specula¬
tive increases in the price of western agricultural land. In
every respect the situation looked dangerous and threaten¬
ing, because the business of the country was being con¬
ducted on the expectation of a prolonged period of great
prosperity, whereas it was only too obvious that the condi¬
tions which had warranted such prosperous years as 1901 and
1906 were to a considerable extent lacking. It looked as
if the only result could be a severe setback and possibly some
years of acute depression. Since March, however, many of
the unwholesome aspects of this general situation have been
gradually mitigated. Commodity prices have steadily fallen,
and have of late reached a level that has stimulated a better
export demand. The einormous pressure of importation has
been relieved and the United States is again beginning to
enjoy that excess of exports over imports, which its flnancial
responsibilities in the foreign markets require. The prices
of securities have declined until they have reached a level
which may again tempt investment buying. The 1"eal estate
speculation io the West has been checked. All these results
have been brought ahout without any panic or any severe
business depression. There has simply been a general
slowing-down all along the line. The business community
came to realize quickly that its expectation of a continued
expansion of business was false and dangerous, and that
preparation must be made against a year or two of busi¬
ness contraction at least in certain lines. The average
American business man is certainly to be congratulated on
the good judgment and the self-control which he has shown
in the face of what might have become a serious crisis.
THE future of busiuess during the coming year depends
upon the way, in which a certain number of contin¬
gent conditions develop. The most important of these is of
course the amount of the crops and the price at wbich they
are sold. Any marked failure of the wheat, corn or cotton
crop, particularly if it were accompanied by good crops
abroad, might convert a year of moderate into a year of bad
business. On the other hand, great abundance both here and
abroad and correspondingly low prices, while it would relieve
consumers, in the East, would deal a severe blow to business
throughout the West. What is needed is an average crop,
sold at average rates, so that business will not be dislocated
by either a renewal of high commodity prices, or by a
material reduction of the income of the agricultural pro¬
ducing district. It looks as if somethiog of this kind might
well happen. In any event, a conservative business policy
is imposed upon tbe whole community during the coming
year. Any considerable speculation, either in stocks or in
real estate, would mean the diversion of capital from the
uses to which the national economic interest demands that
it shall be put. The fundamental problem of American
business, not mainly during the next few years, but during
the next few decades, will be to finance a period of eco¬
nomic readjustment; and-for this purpose a constant supply of
additional money saved out of the earnings of all classes in
the community, will be necessary. This economic readjust¬
ment is necessitated by the fact that the supply of best arable
land, contained in the public domain, has been practically
exhausted, and that the country will have to depend for the
increase in its agricultural product not upon new land, but
oiu the more efficient use of land already under cultivation.
More capital and labor will have to be applied to the existing
farms of the country, and this capital and labor, in case it is
to be profltably employed, will have to be used with more
knowledge and intelligence. A similar requirement will have
to be faced in the industrial world. What the country will
need will not be so much new railroads as double tracks, more
equipment and larger terminals, for railroads already in
existemce; and improvements of this kind will be hampered
both by their comparatively heavy cost and by an increasing
severity of public regulation. In the same way the need
will not be for new factories so much as the increase of
efficiency in the established manufacturing plants—a greater
efficiency that will be imposed by higher raw materials,
higher labor cost, aud, if not, by a lower protective tariff, at
least a constant agitation for tariff revision. The peculiar
conditions that startled and alarmed the business world last
spring were merely a preliminary symptom of the impending
period of economic readjustment—a period that will demand
an increase of thrift, self control, efficiency and patriotism
on the part of the whole business fabric.
A CORRESPONDENT of the New York Sun suggests that
the city has an excellent opportunity of relieving some
of the congestion in Greeley Square. The owners of tbe
block front on the east side of Broadway from 33rd to 34th
street have announced their intention of improving it with a
twenty-story hotel. Before this building is erected the city
should run the curb and building lines parallel to Sixth
avenue and so obtain some relief from the pressure of traffic
at the smallest part of the funnel. After the hotel is
erected the cost of such a change would be prohibitive. The
suggestion is a good one, but there is not the slightest dan¬
ger of its being carried out. Our American machinery
for condemning land for puhlic purposes works so
slowly that it cannot possibly be used in am emergency.
Then, no city official has ever shown the least conception
of the intolerable congestion of traffic which is sure to occur
within a few years in this locality. The opening of the
Pennsylvania Terminal will easily double the numher of
vehicles using the streets in the neighborhood, and their
number will be further increased by the expansion of local
business which will result from the opening of the Terminal.
A flrst-class hotel, for instance, such as the one to be built
on the McAlpin property, will bring hundreds of vehicles into
the square in one day. Some years ago, when the building
of the Pennsylvania Terminal was flrst announced, it would
have been possible to have condemned enough real estate
oai the square to have changed its plan and facilitated the
movement of trafflc, and the Record and Guide pointed .out
this fact at the time. Now, any such improvement has
become totally impossible. Every block front stretching
out from the corners of 34th street either has been or soon
will be improved with a modern building. The same fate
has overtaken the frontage on the west side of the Square
between 32nd and 33rd street, west, A similar trans¬
formation. sooin awaits the west frontage on Broadway be¬
tween 35th and 3Gth streets. The former site of the Union
Dime Savings Bank has increased in value so much that with
or without a new building the city cannot afford to buy it.
The authorities will be absolutely helpless to relieve the
congestion, when it becomes intolerable, except . by means
of subway or bridges, and undoubtedly the husiness avail¬
ability of the Square will be hurt by this fact, A manifest
public need cannot be ignored without causing loss to asso¬
ciated private interests. Business will be driven away from
the Square and the region immediately to the west will prob¬
ably reap the benefit.