RICH MAN'S CRISIS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10957, 27 April 1907, Page 5 (Supplement)

RICH MAN'S CRISIS.

NEW YORK. March 14. The "rich man's crisis'' continues m America with unabated intensity. _». B _^ n w-day and yesterday values on the New York Stock Exchange' melted ra J»dly like spring snow. Men who a few monthg ago were multimillionaires have been reduced m the la«t few weeks to a condition painfu.ly resembling beggary. Their safes, which recently bulged with securities, now enclose a horrid vacuum. Rich men loudly accuse the President of^hftving occasioned the almost unprecedented depression by his attitude towards the railways. They declare t, . t thi legislation against the railways passed by several State* together with the threatened Federal Commission to ass.HS tM actual value of railway securities, will compel the companies to abandon il! projects involving large expenditure. Owing to the loss of public confidehce the railways are confronted with th^ im P««>hiHty of finding the capital needed for extensions and improvements ou an unprecedented scale which are de mfthded by the general prosperity and expanding trade of the country. So Ttf y *d I ay directors decl «c m tones They add that unless the present Hj J * »P e <% "topped more than a hundred thousand operators will shortly be Jthrown out of employment. Under these circumstances the conferences which hove been arranged between the President and leading railway m al are a , walte(l with intense interest. ihe railway magnates have informed Mr|Roosevelt that his attitude has encoufaged the State Legislatures to pass measure? which practically amount to confiscation. They say now that thay favOr Federal rather than State control. It is stated on good authority thatth« rre||rtdent is determined to carry out the ,dea of instituting an assessment of the actual value of railway stock. '■{■■Jl '? this determination which is larirely for the rich man's panic and the almost unprecedented slaughtering of prices which marked the course of, to-day 8 market.