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The Green Bag
Vanderbilt. "The True Story of the Great Vanderbilt Fortune." By Charles Edward Russell. Hampton's, v. 23, p. 64 (July). "Mr. Vanderbilt had quietly organized a little pool composed chiefly of members of his own family. He deposited in London $7,000,000 of New York Central stock as security for a loan wherewith to work his purposes. He then drove down the price of the stock from one hundred and thirty-five to eighty-four. This shook out the small holders and he picked up what they dropped, his total purchases being made at an average of ninety. When all the timid ones had fled, he held his secret meeting, declared the cash dividend of seven and two-tenths per cent and the stock dividend of eighty per cent, grabbed his certificates and locked them up in his safe. Up bounded the stock like a balloon." Foreign Relations. "Our Representative in London." By E. S. Nadal. Century, v. 78, p. 467 (July). "Is money essential to the success of an American Ambassador?" asks this author, and answers the question by saying that "The kind of man our representative in London is matters more than the amount of his money." He adds that "perhaps the chief attraction" of the Ambassadorship to England "is the consideration with which the office is regarded in this country. "Many years ago I was talking with the late John Hay about this place and remarked that it was not a particularly great one in England. 'No,' said Hay, gazing reflectively out of the window, 'but it looks very glitter ing from over here.' The greatness of the office in England depends chiefly on what the man makes of it." "Cleveland's Venezuela Message." By George F. Parker. McClure's, v. 33, p. 314 (July). "After President Cleveland had sent his famous Venezuela message to Congress in 1895, he wrote a letter in response to an invitation to deliver an address in Birming ham on Shakspere's birthday, which did much to allay public feeling in England. . . . The reception of this letter by the press was generous and high-minded; Punch joined the chorus with a page cartoon; and it is safe to say that the ghost which had been raised by the Venezuela message was laid by the Shakspere letter written by President Cleve land on March 30, 1896." Investments. "The Little Man and the High-Priced Bond." By C. M. K. World's Work, v. 18, p. 11760 (July). "The truth about this matter is that the education of Americans in matters of finance is badly neglected. While the German, French, or English boy learns in school, as it were, that investment is a necessary science, and even gets a smattering of it in his courses, the American never learns it until he be
comes a comparatively wealthy man. In New York, the savings-bank is held up before his eyes as the one proper means of saving money. He gets to call such amateur pro cesses as the buying of mining stocks through newspaper advertising 'investment,' and re gards it as the one outlet for his slow-growing funds. In a great many cases, he learns the truth only when he loses his money, and goes to a friend to get things straightened out. "A bond dealer in Wall street, who used to laugh at the small investor, and regard it as rather a joke when one of them came into his office to see whether he would help invest a little fund, went to Europe in the summer of 1906, with his eyes open. He came back with an idea that he did not know the bank ing business. At a lunch with a banker in Paris, he was told something about the way the Frenchman buys. He did not regard his host as nearly so important a banker as himself; yet he learned that he had twentyeight clients to one in the American house. He also learned that the French banker was never 'hung up' with any bonds he bought, for he had a list as wide as the country, and there were thousands who would buy a few bonds on his advice." Negro Problem. "Black and White in the South." By William Archer. McClure's, v. 33, p. 324 (July). Mr. William Archer, the English dramatic critic, believes that the only practical dis position of the negro question is to segre gate the negro in a negro state. In such a state— "It might be necessary at first to establish some provisional government like that of an American territory or English crown colony; but as soon as the country was sufficiently settled, and the mechanism of life in full swing, there could be no difficulty or danger in admitting the new community into the Union, with full state rights. Negro educa tion has enormously progressed since the bad old days of Reconstruction; and there is no reason to doubt that the population could furnish a competent legislature, executive and judiciary. Legislative aberrations would be checked by the Supreme Court of the United States." Porto Rico. "Porto Rico under the Ameri can Flag." By Lyman Abbott. Outlook v. 92, p. 447 (June). "That the islanders are in a more pros perous condition than they have ever been under Spanish rule was the testimony of every one with whom I talked; there was not a single exception. . . . "The old-time sugar mills have been sup planted by those of newer and better con struction, one of them being said to be the largest sugar mill in the world. The one monthly Spanish steamer has been replaced by fourteen monthly American steamers. In some agricultural sections land has risen in value from ten to one hundred dollars an acre; in the vicinity of San Juan the increase has
