JttJMrcft 9, 1887





The   Record  and  Guide.





471





THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

'Published every Saturday.

191 Broad^way, 3?T. "IT.





Our Telepbone Call Is





JOHN 370.





TERMS:

ONE YEAR, in adyance, SIX DOLLARS.

Communications should be addressed to

C. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway.

J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager.





plicity of trucks and carts in New York city. It is the most costly
means of transportation. We actually pay as much for carrying
a barrel of flour from a depot-to a store as it does to bring it from
Chicago to New York. Let us have a system of warehouses and
freight steam cars on our river fronts. But of course when it is
proposed alii the fool editors of the tNew York press will be
howling "job" and "corruption," as they do when any needed
improvement is suggested.





Vol. XXXIX.





APRIL 9, 1887,





No. 995





The trade of the country continues good, and the prospects in
nearly every line of business are very hopeful. Real estate is active
in all parts of tho country. Building is going on at an unprece¬
dented rate, and there were never so many changes of ownership
at advancing prices than within the past three months. There is
a speculative feeling in all our exchanges. The stock market has
been active during the past week, and the bulls are confident of a
higher range of values for all securities in the immediate future.





One cause of the better feeling in general trade, and which
accounts for the outbreak of speculation, is undoubtedly due to the
steady increase in the volume of our currency. Within the last
ten months there has been added nearly $60,000,000 to our gold,
silver acd paper currency, and this despite the withdrawal of
national bank note circulation. We are retaining all the gold in
the country we mine, are coining I 2,000,000 of silver dollars
monthly, while we have issued in five months over $20,000,000 of
silver certificates in the forms of one, two and five dollar bills.
The government presses are running to their full capacity in issuing
more of this small note currency, which is very potent in advanc¬
ing prices. It seems to us that every indication points to an active
speculation up to the close of this crop year.





The fire insurance "combine" to charge extravagant rates has
broken down and the companies are at war again. The trouble
appears to be that there are five companies where there ought to
be one. These organizations are called into existence to provide
places for impecunious sons and needy relations. It is computed
that for every two dollars paid into the treasuries of these compa¬
nies less than one dollar is returned to insurers to make up for
flre losses. The whole system is wrong because wasteful. Some
day the government will insure agaiast fire losses. The State can
do it for one-fourth the present cost, and its intervention would
put an almost entire stop to incendiary fires for the sake of
the insurance.





"Sir Oracle" discourses elsewhere on the lesson of the recent
elections, but he seems to have overlooked the fact that the Demo¬
crats have achieved some unexpected victories, notably in Rhode
Islaad and in certain, of the large cities of Central and Northern
Ohio. It really looks as though a reorganization of parties was
inevitable. There was never so much independent voting as
to-day. Party ties and party cries have proved but ropes of sand
in keeping voters in the old ruts. The Prohibition question and
the problems presented by the laboring; people promise to be the
issues of the immediate future. It is gratifying to note that the
red flag Anarchists are being sat upon by the j?reat body of the
workingmen.





The Interstate Railroad Commissioners have practically
suspended for ninety days the long and short haul provisions
of the law. This they seem to have power to do. It is a pity they
also did not have authority to set aside, for a time, the anti-
pooling provisions of the law. The one danger that menaces the
future peace of the railroad world is thafc the weaker companies
may be forced to cut rates in order to secure their share of the
business. This would lead to a '* war to the knife," and in the end
the poorer roads would be swallowed up by their more powerful
rivals. Still, business men generaUy are of opinion that the new
law will add to the flnancial strength of the railroads while guard¬
ing some of the rights of the community.





It will be good news to east side patrons of the elevated road to
learn that a third track will soon be in operation on the Third
avenue, between Ninth street and the Harlem River, to accommo¬
date through passengers. The trains will stop only at the prin¬
cipal stations, and not at all between Ninth and Forty-second
streets. The agitation for new means of getting up and down
town continues, and many people ,who were opposed in former
times to elevated roais now favor one on Broadway. The solution
of the problem of rapid passenger traffic on this island is the
prompt building of the Arcade road under Broadway. With
legal impediments out of the way that great improvement could be
completed within three years' time.





The Rapid Transit Commission, now in session, should be
careful to authorize no system of elevated roads that would inter¬
fere with the construction of freight railroads along our river
fronts. We want a system of warehouses over which should run
cars propelled by some swift motor for conveying freights from
the railway depots to the ships at the piers. It costs as much to
t ruck a hogshead of sugar, for instance, as it does to convey the
saoiie a thoaaaad miles by water.   Wa must get ^rid of the molti-





The depression in trade in Europe brought about by the gold
standard of value is again piling up unused money in the banking
centres so that it goes begging in the loan market. As people are
afraid to employ capital in new industrial enterprises, because of the
steady lowering of values, there is a temptation to use it in specala-
tion in dangerous enterprises. There is just now an extraordi¬
nary increase in the share companies of the two principal gold unit
companies, Great Britain and Germany. In the latter country the
Commercial Bulletin states that during " the past six months
sixty-eight companies were formed, with a capital of 67,166,600
marks, and during the whole year 116 companies, with a capital of
104,483,900 marks. The number for 1885 was seventy-four (capital
55,534,700 marks); for 1884, 165 (capital 123,052,600 marks), and for
1883, 183 (capital 167,643,428 marks). The companies formed were
for the most part purely commercial companies, though the textile
and brewing industries claimed a large share. During last year
the capital of thirty-nine companies was increased, the amount of
increase being 33,473,500 marks for thirty-five companies (the other
four furnishing no return); while the reduction of capital num¬
bered twenty-six, the amount represented by sixteen of these being
11,688,400 marks." A collapse will be in order in time, all due to
the adoption of the gold unit of value which takes away all the
profits of legitimate business and tempts capitalists into dangerous
enterprises, such as those described above.





Jay Gould, it is reporfced, is aboufc to establish an industrial city,
similar to Pullman, at some point to the south of St. Louis. His
object is, it is said, to have a great depot for the cars and engines
of his Southwestern system established in a community where no
labor organization will be allowed to exist. He desires to avoid
another such loss as that incurred by the labor disturbances of last
year. Pullman has been very successful in every respect. It is a
lown which has been constructed after the most perfect sanitary
plans. It is beautiful to look upon. Nuisances and rum shops are
unknown and the laborers contented because well paid and fairly
treated. There is no political corruption, for all local officers are
appointed by the PuUman Car Company. Then, it has been a very
profitable investment to all who had the founding of the town as
well as the company whose cars it builds and repairs.





It does not seem that Mr. Jay Gould, in imitating this enterprise,
has any intention of looking out for any one's interest but his
own. So far as the public is aware he has-never given a dollar for
any merely beneficent object. It has been in his power to build
hundreds of towns like Pullman, which would have paid him
handsomely, but he has never seen fifc to do so. His present object
is to control a community that will protect his property in case of
a great labor disturbance. He is quite justified in trying to do so,
and the result of his experiment will be watched with a great deal
of interest.





We regard Jay Gould as responsible in a great measure for the
increasing strength of the Knights of Labor, for the heavy vote
given to Henry George and for the introduction of the labor
question into the politics of the country. It was the way he met
and fought tho strike on the Missouri Pacific road which created
so wrathful a feeling among the working classes all over the
country. Pending that struggle we said over and over again that
the matter could have been easily settled by a iittle tact, sense and
a spirit of compromise. But Gould is a born fighter, and he had a
lot of rough, ignorant men to deal with. He won and got the
applause of the unthinking and shortsighted newspapers. But he
created the labor party. Outside of Chicago, where PfaU. Armour
imitated Jay Qould, the managers of the other great corDorations
avoided conflicts with their employes.   The Vanderbilt system, for