Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 46, no. 1170: August 16, 1890

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August 16, 1890 Record and Guide. 209 DEVbiED TO 1^ Estate ■ BuiLDijfc AppdTECTui^ ,KcwseHou) DEoa^nori. BUsitlESS Alto Themes of GEjteivl \p^^^ PRICE, PER YEAR IN ADVANCE, SIX DOLLARS. Published every Saturday. TbLEPHONB, - - . CtoRTLANDT 1370. Ck)nununicatious should be addressed to C.W. SWEET, 191 Broadway. J. T. LINDSEY, Bttnness Manager. Vol. XLVI. AUGUST 16, 18S0. No. 1,170 THE tightness of the money market has again brought a chorus of expostulations against Secretary Windom's cautious pur¬ chases of bonds; but, unless money becomes so scarce that some heroic action is necessary, it is hardly likely that the Secretary will adopt a more liberal policy, when the future of the govern¬ ment's finances is so precarious. With money as tight as it is, however, it is not reasonable to expect an immediately advanc¬ ing market; and if this course is not enough to keep prices in a rut for some time, the uncertainty as to the corn crop would be^ sufficient to compass that result. Speculators have, perhaps, over-estimated the effect of the smaller production of wheat and the other cereals. Ultimately the earnings of some of the granger roads will undoubtedly be affected by it; but, if the price of farm products so advances that the farmers can get an equal or larger money equivalent for a smaller amount of product, the trade in other commodities will help these railroads out. It will take, however, either some very good or some very bad news to relieve Wall street of its present dullness. And for the present there seems to be no probability of either. CERTAINLY one of the most depres-sing factors in the present busi¬ ness situation is the uncertainty which tariff tinkering is caus¬ ing in many lines of business. Instances of the disturbing effect of these changes are numerous. The House tariff bill put a duty f>ii the importation of pearl buttons that was practically prohibitory. Europe was immediately ransacked in consequence for pearl buttons ; and in the last two months sufficient stock was imported to last five years without making another button. Prices have doubled at the same time. Buttons which were selling at 22 cents per gross are now being marketed at 50 or 60 cents. Nobody will get any advantage from this, except a few speculative importers. The same game was being played with linen thread, on which the House bill put high duties. Merchants began at once to import linen thread, but when a few of our manufacturers issued a circular stating that they would guarantee, duty or no duty, that the price of domestic linen thread would not advance a single penny in the next four years, the Senate Committee having obtained the circular, saw that an increase of duty would do no good to such an industry and took it off. What uncertainties are caused by this tariff legislation, and who will or will not be benefited by it may be judged from such examples as these. It is not a cheerful matter to think that there are still before us a good many years of this tinkering. IT is to be presumed that at the meeting of an organization con¬ stituted for a definite purpose the leader of that organization will, in his official speech, tell his comrades what progress had been made towards tbe attainment of that end. If this be true, the only conclusion we can draw from Gen. Alger's speech before the Graud Army of the Republic is that that organization has degen¬ erated into d body of pension-grabbers, whose sole aim is to exploit their own services as citizens and their countrymen's gratitude into cash annuities. We say "degenerated," because the Grand Army of the Republic was originally organized with quite a different object. It is natiural and desirable that soldiers who had successfully brought to a close a long and stubborn war should wish to crystaUize the relations subsisting among them by some permanent association. It was with this intention that the Grand Army of the Republic was originally formed, but, if any further proof was necessary. General Alger's speech clearly shows that it maintains its existence at present only to bring political pressure to bear on a parcel of demagogic Congressmen to grant them further subsidies from the Treasury. The present Congress has passed laws which will bring the total pension expenditure up to the outrageous sum of $150,000,000 per annum. Yet, after this. General Alger has been obUged to say: " I am aware that many are disappointed, but the committee has been powerless to accomplish more than has been already done." What in the world do these men want ? The expenditures for pensions a hready nearly triples the total expenditure oi the government before the war, and, if used to borrow money with, would pav interest on a sum two-fifths greater than the whole of the debt incurred by the war. But Gen. Alger has some consolation to offer us for our expenditure. Says he: " Large as this sum is, it is a great gratification to know that it is distributed among our own people. Four times a year this money goes to all parts of the country. There is not a community which does not feel its influence and to which it is not a help. It pays the necessary bills to the merchant and the farmer, who in turn are enabled to pay their debts, and so on. While these are not reasons for paying pensions, they are a source of consolation to the people who bear the burden." This is the first time we have ever seen it claimed that it would be a " source of consolation" to one person whose money has been (what shall we say) taken from him that it is used to pay some one else's debts. Wall street would be a good field in which to preach this cheerful doctrine. Let Gen* Alger go to Mr. Speculator A., who has been relieved of $50,000 by a philanthropic fiuctuation in sugar trust certificates, and point out to him what a great blessing this little ejum will be to Mr. Specu¬ lator B., who had sold the sugar certificates. Mr. B. can now pay his tailor, his landlord, and the numerous other people to whom he owes money. It is true that Speculator A.'s tailor, etc., might have to go unpaid; but this would be a small matter to anyone not the tailor. It seems a pity that the pension-receivers should not have tbis consolation also. Gen. Alger ought to have urged them to keep the money to pay other people's debts. THE failure of the strike on the New York Central Railroad is pretty certain, once more for a time, to fill the air with the idea that the power of labor organizations is well-nigh broken, so prone are people to snatch at liasty conclusions and accept judg¬ ments from the superficial appearance of things. In this they will surely receive considerable assistance from the daily press. No tmprejudiced person, however, who has followed the history of labor organization during the past fifty years or longer is likely to be fooled into allowing a little fact right before his eyes to cut from his vision the larger facts that are beyond, or permit himself to be made, in Bismarck's phrase, a " victim of current history." Labor, at any rate, is not at all likely to make the mistake. It appreciates to the full the difference, wherein is the quick of the matter, between the failure of organizations and of organization. The Knights of Labor, the Chivalric order of Hodcarriers, the Brotherhood of the Noble Company of Pants-makers,- or by what¬ ever other fantastical appellation organizations choose to announce themselves, may make mistakes, lose authority, coherence, and pass utterly away amid the derision of Capitalists, who have a keen sense for that sort of thing, without to the smallest extent shaking the trust of the '"working class" in organization. The material benefits they have obtained by this means are too manifest, for them at any rate, to question. IT is, of course, impossible to say positively whether the action of the New York Central authorities in discharging certain of its employes, which led to the trouble, was or waa not intended as a broad hint that the managers of the road regarded the Knights of Labor, and other similar organizations as well, with an unfriendly spirit. They probably did, despite the lofty tone of indifference adopted by certain officials; and if this be so, to play at " not knowing" an organization, of consequence enough to be secretly obnoxious to the company, is apiece of foolish affectation, for if the employes of the railroad or a laige number of them, belong to an organization, are guided by its laws, and are willing to loyally abide by its decisions, the open recognition of it or of its accredited representatives is surely merely a matter of form. Despite them¬ selves the company miiat recognize such an organization, if they be merely aware of its existence aud know of its power, for it is only in the nature of things that they will surely deal somewhat differ¬ ently with an employe whose cause may be taken up by an association to the paralyzation of traffic, and a single powerless individual. No corporation is hankering after even a successful strike in which they gain all their " points," and so far as skilled labor is concerned " new hands," however welcome they may be in an emergency, do not and for a long time cannot really fill the places of the "old hands." There is no doubt that labor organizations have not infrequently been imjust in their demands and ignorant and tyrannical in their actions; but this is not sufficient to make a case for their utter condemnation. Employers them¬ selves have not been always exactly saints. If the matter is looked at fairly and without prejudice it cannot be denied that labor organizations have become a permanency in the social system; have on the whole worked for the bettering of the masses and are destined in the future to be of more importance and beneficence than ever. Like other new institutions they will have to meet much opposition and justify themselves to mankind by wisdom and honesty of purpose. Official recognition by this corporation or that is perhaps a secondary matter. In the present case of the New York Central it was not w(»rth the pains taken to attain it. The