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The Record and guide: v. 40, no. 1016: September 3, 1887

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September 3, 1887 The Record and Guide. 1123 THE RECORD AND GUIDE, Published every Saturday. IQl Broad^w^ay, IST. "^- Our Teleplioue Call Is - - - - JOHN 370. TERMS: OIVE ¥EAR, in advance, SIX DOLLARS. Communications should be addressed to €. W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Business Manager. 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