Fifty years in Wall Street

by Henry Clews

It gives me no ordinary pleasure to address an audience of Pittsburg bankers, for Pittsburg is the hub of our iron and steel industry, and as it has no rival in the manufacture of iron and steel, it may well feel proud of its supremacy. It is no exaggeration to say that the rise and progress of that industry in Pittsburg is one of the marvels of the age. A few years ago Pittsburg was known in New York as the Smoky City. A little later she became known as the City of Steel and Coal. Now, through the alchemy of the brains of your wise men, she is known as the place where smoke and coal and steel are in some mysterious way mixed up in such a form that they fill your pockets with pure gold. To the millionaire of to-day we bow in deference to his wealth. But to the grimy sons of toil, who planted the seed and bore the burdens of the earlier days, we take off our hats with reverence. The founders of your city chose wisely in selecting this spot for settlement, at the river’s junction, in the midst of rich deposits of coal and iron. It seems rather odd that your two greatest products should be glass, which is brittle, and steel, which is tough. You also excel in producing cork, which is light, and iron, which is heavy. Surely extremes meet in your city as well as rivers. Down our way we wonder what you do not produce when we learn of the diversity of your wares. It certainly seems to me that a man could learn a whole lot if allowed to visit all your various foundries, factories and mills, but it would take him nearly as long as to go through college, as their name is legion. The welcome which you have given me touches me deeply, and I assure you that in future I shall preach the doctrine that there are others in Pittsburg whose mission it is to dispense happiness besides Mr. Carnegie.

If we glance at the history of steel manufacturing in the United States, we find it centered in and very largely confined to Pittsburg, and if we recall the enormous fortunes made in that industry by Mr. Carnegie and many others, under the protection of high tariff, we see one of the greatest wonders of trade development and modern enterprise.

Yet it was not until after the beginning of the war between the North and the South—the great conflict waged from 1861 to 1865—that any large or even considerable amount of steel was manufactured in the United States. But now we lead the world in making it, and Pittsburg is our great source of supply. At the same time, we can justly say that the march of invention and modern improvement in other directions has kept pace with the growth of Pittsburg and our marvelous progress in iron and steel-making.

This reflection is particularly gratifying in view of our recent financial crisis, in which New York was the storm-center, and Pittsburg almost as stormy for a time. But both cities, like the country at large, stood up bravely and made the best of the situation by all the means at their command. Both fortified themselves by a good emergency measure and issued Clearing House Certificates, according to their needs. Pittsburg, however, went one or two better than New York, and, like many other cities, issued scrip; and better still no one in Pittsburg refused it, not even a car conductor for fares. Here was public spirit rising almost to the height of patriotism.

Now, Pittsburg in common with the rest of the country is again about on an even keel financially, with its banks on a cash basis, its cashiers’ certificates and scrip redeemed, and its Stock Exchange reopened. But unfortunately the crisis gave industry a blow from which it has not yet recovered, although conditions are steadily improving all over the United States. The iron and steel industry received the hardest blow of all, and from a feast you quickly passed to a famine, which is a way the iron trade always had. It is proverbially, however, as quick to recover as to collapse; so all we have to do is to keep up our courage and wait, and we may feel assured there is a good time coming. But whether it will come soon, or later, is a question about which iron-masters, financiers, and trade doctors generally are much divided in opinion at present. It is a good sign, however, that work has been resumed in fully three-fourths of the entire Duquesne works of the United States Steel Corporation in Pittsburg, although it is admitted that only 46 per cent of all the Corporation’s works are running.

In September, 1906, when stock and bond prices were manipulated abnormally to a 3½ per cent basis, while six months’ money was loaning at 6 per cent, it was evident that one or the other was too high; and considering the growing demand for the use of money it became quite apparent it was not money that was too dear, but securities. At that time I persistently advised every one to get out of stocks and out of debt, and keep out for a prolonged period.

Since then security values went down prodigiously—$3,500,000,000 would scarcely cover the depreciation at its lowest point of those dealt in on the New York Stock Exchange alone. Our financial situation is vastly different, however, from what it was in any of our previous great panics, of which there have been a number, since that of 1857, which began with the failure of the Ohio Life & Trust Co. at the time of my advent in Wall Street. I have been in all the subsequent panics, and the present conditions differ from those of all the other great financial storms because the wealth of the nation has become so vast as to make it the richest in actual wealth and productiveness of all nations. As a matter of fact, our wealth-making developments have been so extensive and excessive as to have forged ahead of our banking facilities. This has had much to do with our recent setback. Wise and sagacious capitalists saw the handwriting on the wall in Wall Street and elsewhere, and those who did unloaded their securities in 1906, dumping their stocks at top-notch prices, amounting to at least $1,000,000,000, upon weaker-backed people.

This unloading, together with the San Francisco earthquake disaster, which wiped out $350,000,000 of property, struck the staggering blows which did more than anything else to pave the way to the recent panic conditions. The selling out by big holders was followed by all the large railroad systems in the country selling huge amounts of bonds, stocks and short-term notes. These being offered to stockholders of record at apparently tempting prices, were floated. But this great mass of new securities coming on the market was an indigestible one, and absorbed the capital of a very large number of the rich men of the country and put it in fixed form; and most of these heretofore very rich men have ever since been in the position of a man who, having had a “Sherry dinner,” is urged to accept another dinner at Delmonico’s immediately afterwards—his wish strong but his capacity lacking.

What produced the panic was a number of adverse factors happening one after another in rapid succession.

I summarize, briefly, the causes as follows: