September 3, 1887





The   Record   and   Guide.





1123





THE   RECORD   AND   GUIDE,

Published every Saturday.

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Vol. XL.





SEPTEMBER 3. 1887.





No. 1,016





The first days of the fall months open auspiciously. The stock
market gives signs of renewed vitality ; the settlement of the
Transcontinental, Baltimore & Ohio, and telegraph matters,
seems almost assured, and this has given the bulls courage to take
advantage of the low plain of values recently established. General
trade is active ; the railroad returns continue good, and there are
no labor troubles to speak of. The real estate outlook is excellent.
Considering the season there is a good deal of trading. The only
cloud in the financial sky is the high rates for money. This will
check speculation and will attract gold from Europe, both of
which are good things in themselves.





The usual fall political campaign opens rather languidly. There
is some show of vitality in the new outside organizations, but
neither the Republicans nor the Democrats seem to know what to
do. Their platforms have little significance. In Ohio the conven¬
tions of both parties have endeavored to conciliate the labor vote
and have agreed as to the necessity of some restriction to immi¬
gration. The Democratic convention of Pennsylvania was con¬
trolled by Congressman Randall. Not a word was said about Civil
Service Reform, and the tariff plank was evasive. There is so little
point in the party platformr that the average citizen would find it
difficult to say why he voted for one ticket rather than another.





One of the clouds hanging over the stock market seems to be
clearing away. For some time past the Baltimore & Ohio road,
one of the great trunk lines of the country, has been on the verge
of bankruptcy. Only a few years back it was one of the most
important and prosperous railroad properties in the country, but it
came, by inheritance, into the hands of a singularly maladroit
person, who has succeeded in making it almost worthless. Its
condition was so bad that there has been danger of a collapse for a
year past. It is now understood that Mr. Robert Garrett has been
relegated to private life. The property is to be brought into
harmony with the other railway systems of the country. While
Wall street has been foolishly supposing that Jay Gould has been
the controlling spirit in the financial circles of the country, the
correct history of our times will give the credit to tbe firm of
Drexel, Morgan & Co. as being the most potent influence in putting
the railroad and telegraph business of the nation upon a sound
foundation. It is that great firm which settled the conflict between
the New York Central and West Shore i-oads. The successful
Reading reorganization is their work, and now it seems they are to
undertake the work of getting the Baltimore & Ohio road into
shape. It is they who have been supplying money to Jay Gould
to pay for the Manhattan stock, of which he had bought more than
he could carry, for it is a curious fact that during the time Wall
street was crediting Gould with smashing prices on the Exchange
he was in financial straits to pay for the stock he had bought of
Cyrus W. Field.





The land speculation craze acts like a contagious disease. At
first we hear of it in one part of the country and then again in
another. It broke out in several distinct places in the Southern
States, but was most particularly noticeable in Birmingham and
the uew iron regions of the South. There was a virulent outbreak
at Wachita; Kansas City has not yet got over the lunacy, nor has
Los Angeles in Southern California. The San Francisco papers
united in warning the public of the Pacific coast about what was
going on in Loo Angeles and neighborhood, but at last accounts
the craze had broken out in San Francisco itself. Between that
city and the Pacific Ocean is a stretch of shifting sand, a part of
which has been converted into Golden Gate Park, According to a
Tribune correspondent, a year ago, a block near the park could be
had for |600 to $1,000. Recently these same blocks have brought
$10,000 and $12,000. Real estate agents are cutting up these blocks
into 25 by 100 feet lots and are getting from $200 to |300 for each
of them. A similar boom is raging in Oakland across the Bay, and
San Jose, a quaint old city south of Han Francisco, has caught the
f©ver> and prices have   increased   fivelold   ^ilhin  »  fortnight





Women, it is said, are the moat reckless purchasers of theae extrav¬
agantly enhanced properties.





This is but a sample of what is taking place in different parts of
the country. There has been an abatement of the speculative fever
near Birmingham, Alabama, but it looks as though this mania
must run its course, and it is liable to make its appearance here
East at any time. We are doing a great deal more building and
trading in real estate than in former years, but, as yet, there has
been no nnwholesome boom in unimproved property, at least not
in New York and its neighborhood. Undoubtedly the tightness of
money in the centres of business is largely due to this abstraction
of currency to supply the wants of those who are purchasing this
high-priced real estate. This state of things cannot continue with¬
out a crash coming sooner or later. There would be eome excuse
for a speculative outbreak in New York real estate as the soil of the
island is limited, being hemmed in on every side by water; but the
cities in which the booms are raging have unlimited amounts of
land near by which are available for settlement.





It is difficult to say why this land speculation has been started,
or what was the excuse for it. It may be that people with specu¬
lative tendencies have been disappointed in so many different
directions that they have now fallen back upon land as giving an
appearance of greater stability. Mining ventures have turned out
very badly in California, the people of the West have lost money
by Chicago grain deals, while speculators in New York have fared
very badly in the Stock, Cotton, Produce, Petroleum and other
exchanges. Hence, in every direction there is a tendency to go
back to land and get out of it the *'unearned increment" which
Henry George tells us of. A land speculation in this country is
usually an indication that a cycle of speculative activity is nearing

its close.

----------«----------

There are certain theorists in political economy who argue that
an excess of currency is a primary cause of undue speculation.
But there are facta that do not seem to bear out this theory. Time
and again has there been vast accumulations of funds in the banks
without provoking speculative activity. Money on call was to be
had at from 1 to 2}4 P^r cent., but no one cared to embark in busi¬
ness. France has the most abundant currency of any nation in the
world. It employs as much gold and silver as England and
Germany put together, but the French people never speculate and
never have panics. Our wildest atock speculations have been in
the face of tight money, and the real estate craze, now under way
in so many parts of the country, has to face an abnormally difficult
market for securing loanable funds.





In addition to the Labor people and the Prohibitionists we are to
have a new political organization, based on the principles of the
old native American party. Among the aims they have in view
&re the restriction of immigration, the enactment of temperance
laws, industrial education of children in the schools, the reserva¬
tion of the public lands for the Americans alone, and the devoting
of the surplus in the Treasury to the improvement of our rivers
and harbors. It is remarkable that all the new parties, including
the Prohibitionists, call upon the government to take on new powers.
A telegraph postal service is demanded, also postal savings banks,
though as yet nothing has been said of government insurance.
Clearly the country has outgrown a conception of the powers of
the central government, which would limit them in every pos¬
sible way.

---------«---------

The Evening Post, New York Tribune and New York Times are
all apparently interested in the business prosperity of Messrs. Olm¬
stead and Vaux. On every possible occasion these gentlemen are
eulogized and the impression given that no other firm is competent
to do the landscape gardening of the public parks. Every Park
Board New York has had for the last twenty years has been criti¬
cized in the interest of these gentlemen ; indeed, all the attacks on
the various Boards were apparently inspired by the friends of
Messrs. Olmstead and Vaux. Now we frankly admit that New
York is indebted to these gentlemen for a great deal that is good in
our Central Park. They certainly understand their business and
are successful as well in getting the good will of public journals.
But they are not the only landscape artists in the United States.
They have large businesa interests in the parks of other cities, and
this warm advocacy of their professional interests is, to eay the
least, strange.

-----------------------------»■---------------------------

When improvements are needed on any of our public works why
should not the Park Board call for plans, as in the case of a public
building? Let there be free competition, and then let the Board
Hccept the best, cheapest and most practicable plan. Perhaps it
may he found that there are others in the United States who oan
design park improvements as well as thn able and respectable firm
to whQm W9 have referred.    There is one comfort ^bout the new