Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 41, no. 1051: May 5, 1888

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May 5, 1888 Record and Guide. 5fi9 ESTABLISHED ^ i\AKCH 21 De/oTEO to RfAL ESWE , BulLDlf/c AjlcHlTECTUl^E .HoUSElJOLD DECOfy,T10tl. BlIsiiJess ArbThemes ofGeHeraI I;^T£Fi,£s-r PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday, TELEPHONE, - . - JOHN 370. Ciomnmmcations should be addressed to C.W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. /. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. Vol. XLI. MAY 5, 1888.- No. 1,051 To insureprompt compliance to their request, subscribers ordering their address changed must be careful to send us the old address as well as the new one. A halt was called in the *' bull" campaign in stocka on Wednes¬ day last, and the market has since been somewhat uncertain. "When prices are advancing a great number of timid operators put in stop orders, which always encourages the " bears" to make raids in order to reach these "stops," which are always a standing menace to the " bulls." But the latter have not yet done with the street; they will soon find sometliing to encourage them, and the market wiU probably again advance. StiU, we do not tliiuk that very much higher prices will be scored. Should the government stop buying bonds or the foreig^rs realize, stocks would fall back five or six points; but if the Ti-easmy sui-plus is poured into WaU street and foreign investors keep on their purchases, the "bull" campaign will be resinned. The busiuess of the country is not good. The iron and steel market is torpid, the crops do not promise weU, and the buying power of oui- own public is limited. Apart from the foreign buying, the buoyant condition of stocks in Wall street is largely artiticiai. The real estate market is on the whole duU, for while there is a good deal of bargaining, there are not many sales. The newspapers have very generally commended the action of the President in his recent appointment of Chief Justice of the United States, Yet the real calibre of the appointee is unknown to the vast mass of the American people. He seems to have been a successful local lawyer, and is a man of high character, but his principal backers, such as Senator Farwell of Ilhnois, would iden¬ tify him with the great corporations. Then he is an admirer of the kind of Democracy taught by the late Steplien A. Douglas, which the country has certainly outgrown. The speeches published as showing a specimen of what he can do in that way are of a very ad captandum character, and it is to be hoped he will have another style for Ms judicial decisions. It does not look quite right to iiiok up an obscm-e lawyer, without judicial experience or national repute, and put liim at the head of trained judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Chief Justiceship sliould have been given either to Justices Field, ]\IiUer or Grey. In the annual report of the Chamber of Commerce it is suggested tliat perhaps it vrould be w^ise to consolidate all the populations sur¬ rounding New York Eay under one municipality. The Record AND Guide has time and again urged this matter upon the attention of our citizens. We have favored the annexation of Brooklyn, Staten Island aud the inhabited localities joining us on the north and east. We beheve that every interest of the populations in¬ volved would be benefited by organizing this metropohtan district under one government. Properly they all belong each to tiie other; their interests are tnter-related. The present separation is unnatural and leads to waste and misgovernment. If we were the imperial city, wliich our population and position entitle us to be, there would be a development of civic pride which would show itself in the character of the municipal officers we would choose for om- i-ulera. So far the local politicians of both New York and Brooklyn have opposed all propositions looking toward a consolidation, because instinctively they know that the metro])olis of the future would not tolerate tbe kind of people as leaders who are now all powerful in local ]Dohtics. Our great exchanges, especially the Real Estate Ex¬ change, should move in this matter, and keep in line with the Chamber of Commerce in trying to fulfill the manifest destiny of New York. •■ —------•---------- That the politicians and newspapers should denounce trusts and corporations without any reservation might have been expected, but sober-minded citizens would naturally expect that a dignified, influential body like the Chamber of Commerce would not join in an uni-easoning and prejudiced clamor. Whoever prepared the laat annual report of the Chamber inserted a paragraph about trusts which reads hie an editorial tn a sensational newspaper. The writer and the Chamber seem to overlook the fact that the trust is an evo¬ lution from existing business conditions. It is primarily a labor- saving organization in certain great industries. By its meana wealth is massed to do business in a wholesale way, and thus better serve the community. To argue that a trust is an organization in¬ tended primarUy to exploit the pubhc and crush out opposition is simply preposterous, and the newspapers which claim that this is their whole object, affront common sense. Like all human institu¬ tions and devices the trust is liable to certain abuses whicii pubhc opinion should denounce and the law should as far as possible correct. But the main object of the majority of the lately organ¬ ized ti-uats is a useful and beneficent one. The aim is to produce economically by getting rid of superfluous and unnecessary manu¬ factories, merchants and go-betweens, and to disti-ibute products with less waste than uuder the chaotic system of imiversal compe¬ tition. In other words, the design is to produce and distribute gooda to the consumer at the lowest possible cost and of the best quahty. Of course when these organizations are perverted so as to charge extortionate profits or to oppress labor, they become objectionable and should be dealt with by public opinion and the law. But the trusts and what they represent bave become a part of the modern machinery of doing business, and they have come to stay despite the clamors of the ignorant newapapers. The newspapers that have been supporting Governor HiU as a Presidential candidate are to be commiserated. It now seems doubtful whether he will be renominated for Governor. Tiie dis¬ closures connected with the aqueduct deal have injm-ed iiim in the eyes of all vpho have the good of the State at heart. He is unques¬ tionably a man of ability, but he does not seem to liave a particle of pohtical or personal honesty. The jiassage of the Mgh license law puts Mm " in a hole," If he vetoes it he wiU deeply offend the moral sense of tens of thousands of good Democrats, while if he approves the hquor interest wiU be alienated. If the Democrats wish to carry this next Presidential election they must make sure of New York State. Hill is not the kind of candidate to attract votes in a close contest. If he ahould be nominated it will mean that we will have a campaign of corruption, for he will not scruple to use auy means to re-elect Jiimself. Tins accounts, too, for the opposi¬ tion of the State Democrats to the needed electoral reform wluch would follow our adoption of the Australian system of voting. The almost unanimous opposition of the Democrats in the Legislature to this reform would undoubtedly lose them the State were it not for the bad reputation wliich the Republicans have acMeved in other matters. In the disgraceful aqueduct deal the Republicans are as deep in the mud as Governor HiU and the Democrats are in the mire. Notwithstanding the outpouring of the Ti-easury into the bond mai-ket, it is an indisputable fact that there is a steady siu-inkage going on in our available currency. The bonds cancelled represent about so much currency, in the way of national bank notes, per¬ manently withdrawn from circulation. Up to date there has been a shrinkage of national bank circulation since 1883 of about $185,000,000. The place, however, of these retired bank notes waa very largely taken by the emission of sUver certificates based upon the coinage of silver dollara. In October last we published the fol¬ lowing table: 1883. September 24, 1887. Treasury notea.....................8176,681,010 $316,7.30,468 National bank notes ............ 356,815,570 171,566,589 Gold certificates outstaudinj^....... 59,807,370 fifi,343,fi60 Silver certificates outstanding...... 72,630,686 151.054,044 Total circulation................f 835,924,643 £759,803,653 Bhrinkag-e sioce 1st July, 1883..................................... S96,iao,fl90 Or exclusive of silver certificates.................................$155,174,348 In 1883 our population was only 35,000,000, it is now 62,600,000. Tliat is to say, wMle our currency is conti-acting we are adding 3 per ceut. to our population per annum, and in potential wealth over 4 per cent, per annum. In other words, at a time when we need more money with which to transact business we are cutting down the supply. How absurd it would seem if the head of a great manufactory should add largely to its working force, and at the same time withdi-aw from its shops a large proportion of the tools to be used by Ms employes. Yet this ia exactly what we are doing as a nation, and for this Congress is not reaUy to blame. The Senate, by an overwhelming vote, gave its opinion that silver certifi¬ cates should be issued for an amount equivalent to the bank notea cancelled. But Secretary FairchUd persuaded the Houae Fmance Committee to pigeon-hole the bUl to wMch this was an amendment on the part of the Senate. TMs was to save Presideut Cleveland the necesaity of vetoing it, whicii he felt it would be his duty to do, and that would have been resented by the so-called silver States of the South and West. Our entire Eastern press, as well as oui- bankers, insists upon the pohcy of steadUy contracting our currency. Hence they favor bond purchases and oppose sUver coinage. AU tMs is ominous for the future buainess of the country. Aa the annual increase of om- population is about 3 per cent, we ought to add at least an equivalent amount to oui- cii'otilattng medium;