Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

The Record and guide: v. 39, no. 995: April 9, 1887

Text version:

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