Financial View of Occurrence

Shooting of President Comes When Markets Are Quiet.

          The fact that the leading financial interests in New York at once called a conference to protect the fiscal and industrial affairs of the country is regarded as an assurance that nothing of a demoralizing nature will ensue upon the impending tragedy at Buffalo. The syndicate of magnates—which includes the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, Morgan, the Belmonts and such houses as Kuhn, Loeb & Co. and Speyer & Co.—is of surpassing strength, whose power is practically in control of the monetary situation of the United States. The financiers have worked in harmony for about six years—since prosperity began—and whenever danger threatened the finances of the nation they worked as one man. During the crisis which was brought on by the inadvertent corner of the stock of the Northern Pacific railway the firms in question joined forces instantly and effectively averted what had been the greatest panic in the world’s history. Finances on the stock exchange were in a booming state. Everybody at all interested in the security lists was charged with stocks and bonds, and it is an open secret that if the prices that ruled at 10:30 a. m. on May 9 had prevailed at the closing of the session on that fatal day half of the brokerage firms and many banks of the country had gone into bankruptcy.

Power of the Syndicate.

     But the power of the Morgan syndicate was immediately exerted and by 2 o’clock in the afternoon the markets were lifted to absolute safety. Not a failure among the members of the bourses was recorded. The experience of the association again intervened when it was certain that the corn crop had caused tremendous damage. The final intervention occurred the day following the strike of the steel workers. In all these instances commercial slump was forfended successfully.

Markets Now Quiet.

     It happens that the attempted assassination of the president comes at a time when the markets are quiet. For five weeks there has been a lull in ’change. Business is quiet. There is comparatively little doing. The public has but few securities, and the very large majority of all important issues are in the possession of wealthy pools and syndicates that are in a position to take care of their holdings.
     There is no similarity between the period in which Garfield was assassinated and the present. The country was then in the midst of a financial boom; yet notwithstanding this, the depression that followed was slight and fleeting. To-day the country is on a basis far more solid; it is commercially supreme and has become so naturally without a suspicion of artifice.
     To go back not later than September, 1893, the resources of the national banks have increased from $3,109,563,287 to $5,048,138,499, or over 62 per cent, while the deposits of the savings banks have augmented over $700,000,000, making new capital of about $4,000,000,000.

Predict No Change of Policy.

     Should the worst befall, in a personal sense, it is the opinion of financiers that the administration will experience no change of policy, hence it is confidently believed that the obtaining prosperity will continue uninterrupted.