Columbia University Libraries Digital Collections: The Real Estate Record

Real estate record and builders' guide: v. 66, no. 1691: August 11, 1900

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August II, 1900. RECORD AND GUIDE. 177 ESTABUSHED^I DpAritb ID Riaj.E:sTAji.BuiLDir& /^RCi{rrE(mii¥.HousafoiDDEecnjin4 Bilsnfess f^ Th£I4es of QqtEJi^ ItfiER^I,^ PRICE PER YEAR IN ADVANCE SIX DOLLARS. PubUslied every Saturday. Telephone, Cohti-andt 1370. Commuuications should be addressed to C. W. SWEET, 14-16 Vesey Street. /. r. LINDSEY, Business Manager. "Entered at the Post-Office at New Tork, N, 7., as accond-class matter." Vol, L,XVT. AUGUST 11, 190&. 1691. IN order to discover the view of the moneyed public on the out¬ look, especially as it is influenced by the political campaign just opened and its probable results, it is best to look at the in¬ vestment rather than the speculative market. If the minds of this public were perturbed by fears of political consequences reacting upon flnancial and commerical pursuits; it is in the in¬ vestment market that this would be revealed. So far, however, it does not give any sign of trouble being anticipated. In fact rather the contrary. Not much new money is being invested, aside from the generous subscription to the British loan which was made under special inducements, but the prices of invest¬ ment issues generally maintain strong, even those of bonds of comparatively recent issue, in spite of dull business and disre- gardless of the dips that the speculative market takes now and again. This difference in the two markets has been apparent ever since the reaction began fourteen months ago, during which period, while speculative issues have suffered heavily, some as much as fifty to sixty per cent., securities esteemed for their in¬ vestment qualitiQp have declined but little; so that even the new¬ comers like Atchison and Northern Pacific 4's retain values with¬ in three or four per cent, of their highest figures. This week's buying of Northwest common, coming as it did immediately after the Indianapolis meeting, is a pat illustration of the confidence of investors in the outlook. Up to this time there is evidently no scare among investors and those who counted upon one to provide an unsettled market to sell on have been disappointed. It may be asked, why if capital is so confident, it does not come in and buy? The answer is found in the very facts just stated and in the subscription to the British loan. Our prices are high. Wherever concessions are offered buyers are willing enough to take securities. People who would not buy U. S. Government bonds were willing to take the British because of the two per ' cent, discount and the extra one-fourth or one-half per cent. Even the speculative side of the market is bettered by recent events. So far as the fact is ascertainable it appears that the supply ot floating stock is distinctly less than it was. Testimony is unani¬ mous that brokers are carrying fewer stocks than they have done for a long time past, and, although the practice among custo¬ mers of making their loans directly with the banks is becoming commoner as tbe period of drug-rates for money extends, it is obvious that there is no inclination to sell on the part of holders and no disposition on the part of loaners of money to discourage that position. These attitudes of stockholders and banker de¬ pend for continuance on the extent of the gold shipments and their effects on money rates, but as our supplies of gold and of idle capital are so abundant, there is little likelihood of a con¬ tingency that will change them. THE Department of Buildings has recently displayed com¬ mendable zeal in the interest of sound construction and Inflicted a lesson thai ought to be, and doubtless will be, a warn¬ ing to those who feel tempted to evade the laws and regulations created for the protection of life and property interests in this city. The facts are that a five-story flat on the southwest corner of Amsterdam ave. and 131st St., which was started in February of last year, was found to be out of plumb when the walls were Incomplete, and remonstrances were made with the owner in the usual way. The latter explained that his contractor had failed to deliver the iron beams for the first tier on time, and the masonry was carried up without them, the beams being put In ,.-later. He asked to be allowed to remedy the defect and he was told to go ahead. What he did, in the opinion of the Depart¬ ment, made the huilding more insecure than ever, and they ap¬ plied to the Supreme Court and obtained a precept requiring the building to be taken down. By this time the building was en¬ closed and the owner on an ex parte affidavit obtained an injunc¬ tion restraining the Department from interfering with it. Two days later the injunction was removed and the Department waa directed to proceed under the original order, which they did by taking down the building. This seems to be a case parallel to that of the Rothschild's Building in Brooklyn which was ordered taken down because a menace to public safety and was taken down and replaced by a sihaller one. Severity of this kind is, of course, only justified by absolute necessity, but where neces¬ sary to uphold the dignity of the law and to protect the public, the Department would be as criminal to withhold it as they are commendable in having applied it, even though, as in the two cases cited, there does not appear to have been any direct in¬ tention on the part of tbe owners of the several buildings to do wrong. Errors of judgment or ignorance of the law cannot, how¬ ever, be allowed in mitigation of penalties when they endanger life or limb, or are in conflict with the requirements of good busi¬ ness principles. The Fatal Omission. NOT a;t all unusual is it, but on the contrary quite an ordi¬ nary circumstance, that great contests are nominally waged for other causes than those that are really at the bottom of them. In the war of the Revolution the denial of the right to tax masked the desire to achieve independence; in the Civil War, the right to secede masked the right to own slaves; in China to-day a Boxer movement masks an attempt of the Government to throw off foreign intrusion and interference in their affairs; and, in our own country the other day, at Indianapolis, the issue of imperialism was conceived as a mask to cover an intended attack upon a currency system based upon scientific principles, though still failing to satisfy its friends, educed from the experi¬ ence of the world beginning with its earliest days of civilization, and which is the only bulwark we have to keep out the disas¬ trous infiuences of the currency manias that have given this country so much trouble in the past. Though, as we say, characteristic of the initiatory movements of great struggles, there is something very childish in the policy of Mr. Bryan. He practically tells the electorate that he is going to fool them into electing him. By absurdly omitting, from^ his formal acceptance of the nomination, all mention of the 16 to 1 idiocy, for whose presence in the Kansas City platform he made himself conspicuously responsible, a fact that no schoolboy could forget, and confining his remarks entirely to Imperialism, we are to understand that he drops the free coinage of silver at 16 to- 1 as a vital issue-—with a wink aside to his supporters in the free coinage ranks'—and is going to centre his whole endeavors on putting this country back to the position it occupied prior to the war with Spain—to turn back the tide of history and evade the consequences of events! By and by Mr. Bryan is to turn bis at¬ tention to other issues and in a manner spread his acceptance of the platform over the whole campaign; that is, he is to take up or drop its several planks as recognition or overlooking will meet the exigencies of his canvass. Mr. Bryan cannot do anything secretly, but he has undertaken to fool each of the discordant elements that make up his heterogeneous following in sight of the others. He will be for free-coinage here and anti-imperial¬ ism there, and for both in combination in another place. All the while the section that goes for imperialism and free coinage will know what he has said' to the other section that is against imperialism but very much for sound money. Did a candidate for office ever take up a more difficult, absurb or childish task? The business man, whether republican or democrat, after read¬ ing the Indianapolis address and the comments of the press upon it, may be impressed with it as a great literary and oratorical achievement, as the wayward Evening Post calls it, as well it may seeing that it was probably composed from clippings from its own columns; or he may condemn it as rant as the more rabid of republican papers do. But, whatever impression he may have of the address itself, there must arise in his mind the question, "Is it sincere?" Had Mr. Bryan himself not been directly responsible for the 16 to 1 plank in the Kansas City plat¬ form, had it been the demand of a bigoted section of the con¬ vention only, he might have been allowed the' credit of some ex¬ pediency 'in its admission or in his omission of It in his address of acceptance. But being so directly responsible for its presence in the platform, his overlooking it later, on such an important and carefully prepared occasion, must raise doubts of his honesty of purpose and be fatal to any hopes he may have entertained of winning votes among the thinking business communities whether from the ranks of the employer or employed. As soon as these give it due thought they must see, if they do not already do so, that the battle of '96 is to be fought over again and thafi the great issue—the Issue—of the campaign must again be whether as a nation we are sound in business morals. I