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.





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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<ie.   Under^.theee cixcvjK