The spectacle of a $100,000,000 “trust” unable to get hay
for its horses on credit was seen recently in Sault Ste.
Marie, where the Consolidated Lake Superior Company went into
liquidation. The liquidation resulted from the failure of the
directors of this big concern to raise $5,000,000 to pay a loan
from the Speyer syndicate.
Here is a corporation which was paying seven per cent dividends,
and which began two or three years ago with a capital of
$102,000,000, so destitute of liquid assets or working capital
that it can not pay a loan of $5,000,000, for which its very
existence was pawned. Nothing appears to be left.
Lake Superior Consolidated, like all the other trusts, was
organized under the Connecticut corporation act, which, like
that of West Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware, and other States,
was expressly drawn to relieve all concerned of responsibility.
No one was responsible for anything in the prospectus. No
one could be held, in the promotion or direction, for any
statements, promises, or representations. The sidewalk vender is
more responsible for the razors and remedies that he sells in
the flare of his gasoline lamp than the promoters or directors
of an American trust to which millions of dollars flow.--New
York _American_.
(1680)