May g, 1003.





RECORD AND   GUIDE





909









^(^^           ^           ESTABIJSHED^(^^iRpH£Li^'^1868.

^Usntess AitoTHEHES OF GEikR^ iK^tufs^;
PRICE PER. YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS

Tablished every Saturday

Communications should te addressed to
C. W. SWEET,  14-16 Vesey  Street,   New YopK

t. T. IpIKDSET, Business Manager                            Telephone. Cortlandt 3157





"Entered at the Fost Offlce at Neio York, N. T., as second-olass matter."





Vol. LXXI.





MAY 9, 1903.





No. 1834.





THE Stock Marliet prospects are not quite so good at the end
ot" this weel; as they were at the end of last week. The
danger of gold exports is more imminent than it has been at any
time this spring, the crops of cotton, corn and spring wheat are
all exceedingly late in being planted, and will be consequently
the more exposed to damage in the fall, and there is evidence of
very persistent selling of stocks just as long as there are any
buyers to take them. These conditions taken together have been
sufficient to bring about a lower level of values, not a very
much lower level, but one that is significant. It is apparent that
large owners of stocks have good reasons for selling them as
soon as they can do so without sending prices down very quickly,
and it may be inferred consequently that in a sense the liquida¬
tion is not yet over. As long as this selling continues, there is
no chance for even a moderately bullish movement, and this
in spite of the fact that railway earnings continue to be truly
extraordinary. There seem to be no end to the increases, which
follow one another year after year, and which enable the rail¬
roads to appropriate large sums out of net earnings for com¬
paratively permanent improvements. It is this great margin
between the amount of money earned and the amouut dis¬
tributed in dividends, which justifies the belief that the railroads
will be able to get over the next period of business depression
much better than they did over 1903. The chances for econo¬
mizing when economy becomes necessary are so considerable,
that on the whole it may be assumed that the values of railway
securities have a much more stable basis than ever before.





TTT HY is it that the Board of Aldermen never seems able to
j^ y      take a wise and liberal attitude toward the various
public questions which come before it for consideration?    Why
is it that it persists in undermining the little public confldence
that it still manages to retain by adopting an obstructive at¬
titude  towards     desirable   public  improvements?    Before  con¬
solidation  it  had  been  stripped  practically  of  all  its  powers.
Under the first charter after consolidation, it received a large
increase of authority, which was found to work so badly, that
when the charter was revised, the Common Council was cut out
entirely, and the powers of the aldermen over bond issues were
curtailed.   At the same time it was left with very considerable
authority  in  certain   directions,   which  it  has  been   faithfully
abusing ever since.   In the case of the contract with the Penn¬
sylvania road, it carried its  obstructive tactics just as  far as
it dared, and showed so clearly the animus which it brings to
bear on municipal questions that it became necessary to diminish
its authority by depriving it of any control over changes in the
city map.    At the present time it refuses obstinately either to
appropriate the beggarly $10,000 which is needed to pay the ex¬
penses of a commission to revise the street plan of New York, or
to sanction the privilege which it is proposed to grant to the
Bronx  trolley  roads to  lay tracks  across  the  Macomb's  Dam
Bridge.   The laying of these tracks is extremely necessary to the
residents of the Bronx, the franchise provides that abundant
compensation shall be paid to the city, and it, has been approved
by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, the Sinking Fund
Commission and the aldermen's own franchise committee,  but
the Board at the instance of a Brooklyn clique stubbornly re¬
fuses to acquiesce.   Its power is used so blindly and with such an
utter disregard of the major public interests, that it seems some¬
times as If Its course were merely a fulfilment of the old Greek
maxim, that whom the gods destroy they first make mad.    That
the Board should prove to be such a constant source of obstruct¬
ion to the city's administrative machine is exceedingly unfor¬
tunate, because it has a very real function in the mechanism of
the city government-the function, namely, of checking the work
of the powerful administrative boards, but a check that consists
merely of persistent and sometimes malicious obstruction is a





check which an efficient and sensible community is bound in the
long run to dispense with. In the case of the Macomb's Dam
Bridge franchise, the offense is all the worse, because it is
Brooklyn members who are refusing a necessary transit im¬
provement to the Bronx, and as we poiuted out last week, Brook¬
lyn itself is being immensely favored over the Bronx in this re¬
spect.





THE labor troubles in the building trades have undoubtedly
during the past week become more threatening than at
any time throughout the spring. The dispute between the two
rival unions of carpenters is becoming more rather than less
dangerous, and before it is done may well spread to the other
trades. But this cause of trouble, dangerous as it is, is on the
whole less ominous than the results, which have attended the
attempt of the Board of Building Trades to unionize the building,
material drivers. The Timber and Building Material Dealers'
Associations have heen obliged to unite in order effectually
and resolutely to oppose the demand, and it remains to be seen-
whether their opposition, which has taken the form of a lock¬
out, will be effective. In any event the situation thus created-
presents very alarming possibilities. Should the flght be pro¬
longed it means in about a few weeks the cessation of building
operations throughout the city, aud the indefinite delaying of
many important public and private improvements. That how¬
ever is only an incident, for the consequences of acquiscence
in the demands of the union would be much worse than the con¬
sequences of even a comparatively long cessation of building.
If the building material drivers' are completely unionized, it
would go a long way toward giving the Board of the Building
Trades absolute control over the building business in New York,
The most potent weapon which the unions wield at the present
time is undoubtedly the sympathetic strikes, and if the circle of
the sympathetic strike were enlarged so as to include the build¬
ing material drivers the weapon would become too powerful
to be endured. The employers must offer a stout resistance to
any increase in the effectiveness of a weapon, which has in the
past inflicted so many severe wounds, because if they did not
the inevitable result would be a prolonged and disastrous con¬
flict between the two ends of the New York building trades.
It will be wise for the union leaders to avoid such a conflict.
Skilled labor has of late very much increased its wages and im¬
proved the conditions under which the work is performed by not
making any intolerable demands and thus encouraging a gen¬
eral strike, but the time might easily come when the employers
would be forced to the conclusion that the exactions are be¬
coming so onerous that they can no longer conduct their busi¬
ness with safety and profit. If thtat time should come, it would
be a very bad thing for the unions, as well as for everyone else
connected with the building trades.





IT is settled that New York is to have a new County Court
House, for the Governor has signed Senator Dowling's bill,
authorizing the  Mayor  to  appoint a Construction  Committee.
The selections will surely be made very soon, because the jus¬
tices of the Supreme  Court and the lawyers certainly  have a
great grievance in being obliged to inhabit the preseut ill-ar¬
ranged, ill-ventilated, and over-crowded building, and before the
month is out the commission will doubtless have its work well
started.    It will have the power to select part of the City Hall
Park as a site, provided the area chosen is not greater than the
area of the  old  buildings destroyed;   but the members of the
commission should be warned in advance that, if they attempt
to make use of this opportunity, they will simply be delaying the
construction  of the building.    The  Municipal Art Commission
would be false to the purpose for which it was instituted in case
it consented to the occupation of City Hall Park with another
big building, and it is safe to argue from the known opinions of
the members of the commission  that it  wili  inflexibly oppose
such a selection.    The City Hall Park needs clearing out rather
than filling up with a new building which even if it covered
only  the same area as the  old  buildings,  would  by its great
height and bulk, effectually and finally destroy any chance of
giving the City Hall spacious and dignified surroundings.    But
while the building should not be situated in the park, it should
be situated in the immediate vicinity thereof; and it is too bad
that the selection cannot be  made as a part of some general
scheme,   which   would   include all   the  various   improvements
which will have to be made in that vicinity.





T





HE details of the plans for the new Wanamaker store,
which have been given out during tbe past week, con¬
tain many novel features. A retail store thirteen stories high is
for instance a great Innovation. The Macy store with its nine
stories was supposed to have reached the limit In that respect.