by Mr. Lidderdale in the rehabilitation of the firm. - Amazing gratitude of the benevolent friend who assisted Lord Revel- stoke with the five million dollars. The future money center This panic one of the most far-reaching and most disastrous in its consequences. It was a surprise, and hence its great power for mischief, especially at a time when prosperity was just under way. An utter collapse of credit, both foreign and domestic, aggravated by foreign holders returning our securities. -The Monroe Doctrine, and how President Cleveland con- strued it. Simply an outburst of honest but overweening patriotism on his part. His misapprehensions regarding the nature of so-called international law, and what constitutes a The President's just cause for offense at Salisbury's hauteur, but the Monroe Doctrine not applicable to the case. - How the message and its consequences played into the hands of the free-silver faction and helped to make the candi- • 1272 Why should not this credit, as illustrated in the market value of our bonds, be on as high a plane as the credit of other nations? A plea for the Sherman Silver Law, and how it was instrumental in tiding the financial world over the Baring panic. THIS BOOK Es Respectfully Enscribed TO THOSE ABLE STATESMEN, POLITICIANS, FINANCIERS, AND MEN OF AFFAIRS, TO WHOSE CONSTANT GUIDANCE IS DUE THE ADVANCEMENT OF OUR COUNTRY ALONG EVER-WIDENING PATHS OF PEACE AND PROSPERITY THE WALL STREET POINT OF VIEW. PART I. WALL STREET ITSELF. CHAPTER I. WALL STREET AS A GAUGE OF BUSINESS PROSPERITY. What it is: its area, population, and institutions. The difference between natural and artificial conditions, the latter being the false standard of judgment by outsiders. People decry Wall Street speculation without a correct knowledge of its character. -The Street is not a gambler's paradise, but a place where hard, honest work tells.—It is a public benefactor and once, at least, saved the country. The center to which the surplus money of the world flows for investment. THE 'HE district known as Wall Street embraces more wealth in proportion to area than any other space of similar dimensions in the world. Considering even the mere thoroughfare known by that name and extending from Trinity Church to the East River, the same assertion holds good. This latter limit is the one mentally placed by the great majority of our people upon the financial heart of the country, that throbs with the daily ebb and flow of millions, infusing life into all our vast enterprises. The Wall Street region includes in its wealthy grasp the large majority of New York banks and other financial institutions, including savings banks. It is the great center of the insurance companies, life, fire, and marine; of the great Trust Companies which command thousands of millions of capital, and are the custodians of many of the largest and most wealthy estates in the country. Finally, the region known as Wall Street has virtually a contingent population of three millions, which is just about the census record of the thirteen original states when they cut loose from Great Britain and asserted their independence. In addition to the financial institutions as above stated, Wall Street has banks with large capital connected with all foreign nations. China, no less that the comparatively contiguous London, is represented by banking institutions here. It has been the habit of too many people — well-meaning people, too—to decry Wall Street as hurtful to the morals of the country and injurious to our best business interests, - all of which is mistaken. Wall Street has been very aptly described as the "business pulse of the nation," and that is what it is, in the truest sense of the term. As the mercury in the thermometer denotes the degrees of heat and cold, so do the fluctuations in the Wall Street markets show the rise and fall of the business activity of the country. Let there be any activity in mercantile or manufacturing circles, and it is immediately reflected in the Stock Exchange and the other exchanges where values are dependent upon business activity and financial confidence. On the other hand, causes that influence the outside world unfavorably have a depressing effect in Wall Street, and the prices of securities and products take a lower turn. These are the results when natural conditions are allowed to prevail. Of course there are times when speculative syndicates get control, and by their manipulations create artificial conditions and artificial results. Then it is that panics are liable to occur; in fact, I doubt if there has ever been a panic in Wall Street that was not due to the work of such manipulations. Wall Street is a place where the laws of cause and effect are conspicuously potent, and it is as impossible for any combination of men to resist these laws without making trouble as it is for a human being to defy the forces of nature. An irreverent operator in grain speculations, commenting once on the failure of a pool to put up the price of wheat and maintain it in the face of a big crop, said, "It is of no use trying to buck against God Almighty; he can upset the bulls every time." To the student of affairs there is more suggestive truth expressed in these few terse words of a disappointed speculator |