The raid was a body-blow to the small Western mine owner who needs
capital to develop his properties and has no affiliations with
capitalists. Since the raid I do not know of a mine owner of any of the
great Far Western States who has successfully financed a mining
proposition in the East except by delivering his property in its
entirety into the hands of some big interest, which has taken it over
for a sum insignificant by comparison with what the public may
ultimately be expected to pay for it when the stock is finally marketed
on the curbs and exchanges.
I BUCK THE WALL STREET GAME
After I had conducted the big camp publicity campaign of Rawhide, which
I had done with a view to centering the attention of the American
investing public on the speculative possibilities of the stock of the
Rawhide Coalition Mines Company, and in that way endeavored to finance
the proposition--after I had failed by this method, in the teeth of the
bankers' panic of 1907-8, to dispose of enough stock to finance the
company for deep mine development, mill equipment and the payment to
the original owners of the price for the control agreed upon, I came to
New York, late in October, 1908, bent on trying to succeed in the
encompassment of my original purpose both by direct appeal to the
public through display advertisements in the newspapers and by making a
deal for part of the enterprise with the "big" fellows.
I found Rawhide Coalition stock listed on the Curb, and the market
quiescent. Public interest in the East had been aroused to some degree,
but the market was not absorbing stock. An effort to induce leading
stock brokers to mention the issue favorably in their market letters
failed. Those who were willing to give the stock some publicity exacted
either a "call" on stock at a low price or an out-and-out reduction
below the market quotation for such stock as they disposed of.
Such concessions were not to be thought of. It was the intention of
Nat. C. Goodwin & Company to support a rising market for Rawhide
Coalition. My Goldfield experience with mining-stock brokers convinced
me that few might be expected to protect the shareholders' interest in
such an enterprise. Commission mining-stock brokers of that period, who
put their customers into a stock at, say, 30, were tempted to advise
profit-taking when the price advanced to, say, 50, because by the
operation they made another commission and often earned an additional,
or third, commission by getting their customers out of the stock at a
profit and into another one, levying a commission on each transaction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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