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The Truth About “The Truth About the Trusts”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2010
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- Copyright © The Economic History Association 1971
References
1 Moody, John, The Truth About The Trusts: A Description and Analysis of the American Trust Movement (New York: Moody Publishing Co., 1904).Google Scholar
2 Outlook, LXVII (1904), 185–6.Google Scholar
3 See reviews in Ibid., Current Literature, XXXVI (1904), 499–502Google Scholar; Arena, XXXII (1904), 218–220Google Scholar; Overland Monthly, XLIV (1904), 93Google Scholar; Political Science Quarterly, XIX (1904), 305–7Google Scholar; and Annals of the American Academy, XXIV (1904), 387–9.Google Scholar
4 For example, Moody's statistics were cited many times during Congressional debates over the “Money Trust”; see Congressional Record, XLII (1908), 3794Google Scholar; XLVII (1911), 192; and LI (1914), 14217.
5 Hacker, Louis M., The Course of American Economic Growth and Development (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1970), p. 249.Google Scholar
6 Nelson, Ralph L., Merger Movements in American Industry: 1895–1956 (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1959)Google Scholar; Markham, Jesse W., “Survey of the Evidence and Findings on Mergers” in Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, Business Concentration and Price Policy (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1955), pp. 141–212Google Scholar; Weston, J. Fred, The Role of Mergers in the Growth of Large Firms (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1953)Google Scholar; Nutter, G. Warren and Einhom, Henry A., Enterprise Monopoly in the United States: 1899–1958 (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1969), pp. 1–54,95–149.Google Scholar
7 “Exhibit A,” Congressional Record, XXXVI (1903), 1848–1854Google Scholar, compiled by the Congressional Information Bureau, Washington, D. C. contains 453 industrial and 340 “natural” trusts, but the only financial data presented relate to authorized capitalization. Similar information is presented for 565 Trusts found in the United States Investor, X (December 30, 1899), 1759–1763.Google Scholar Considerably more information was included by Holt in his list of 265 Trusts; see (Holt, Byron W.), “Principal Trusts in the United States,” The World Almanac, VII (1900), 120–23.Google Scholar Holt's relationship with Moody is discussed below. Also, no information could be found on the nature and purpose of the Congressional Information Bureau. Better-known compilations are discussed in Markham, 146–150.
8 Moody, The Truth …, p. xxii.
9 See fn. 3.
10 The publishing history of the Manual is obscure. It was published in 1885 by the Financial News Association. By 1891 its publisher was the Investors Publishing Company which sold it to Nicoll & Roy in 1893. By 1895 Charles H. Nicoll had become publisher; he was succeeded in 1902 by the Manual of Statistics Company. Some time after 1918 the Commercial Newspaper Company assumed publishership. In 1923/24, the last year it appeared, the Manual's title was changed to the Bankers and Investor's Manual. See Manual of Statistics, various volumes; United States Catalog Supplement, January 1918-June 1921 (New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1921), p. 1206Google Scholar; and American Institute of Accountants, Accountants' Index: Second Supplement 1923–27 (n.p.: n.p., 1928), p. 90.Google Scholar
11 Larson, Henrietta M., Guide to Business History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1948).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The one exception is Cleveland, Frederick A. and Powell, Fred W., Railroad Promotion and Capitalization in the United States (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909), p. 296Google Scholar, wherein-the Manual is included among various railroad statistical sources. Chandler refers to- the Manual in a footnote comment: It “was the closest thing to a competitor (to Poor's) before Moody began publication.” Chandler apparently did not examine the Manual because he confuses title page descriptive statements with its actual contents; see Chandler, Alfred D. Jr., Henry Vamum Poor (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1956), fn. 10, p. 342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Dates indicated in volumes at the Library of Congress.
13 Moody, John, The Long Road Home: An Autobiography (New York: Macmillan Co., 1933), p. 88.Google Scholar Moody (1868–1958) indicates a corporation was formed to publish the initial Moody's which consisted of $5000 cash (provided by Eliphalet Nott Potter, a fellow Spencer Trask employee) and $20,000 “good will.” Success followed immediately; it paid a 20 percent dividend after its first year.
Moody's subsequent career is curious. Despite his financial expertise and Wall Street knowledge, he invested in “several get-rich-quick schemes”: a brick-making plant, Nevada “bonanza” fields, and Canadian silver mines. He founded a financial magazine which would “cater honestly to the private investor … and incidentally make a pot of money for me.” Finally, he spent and loaned considerable funds supporting New Jersey political reform and the single-tax movement.
He lost everything, including control of the Moody corporation, in the Panic of 1907. Saddled with debt, avoiding speculation and causes, he continued compiling the Moody's and slowly recovered. In 1931, Moody came to the end of “the long road home”: he embraced Catholicism. His later writings consist of ruminations on this experience.
14 Railroad Age Gazette, XXXVIII (1905), 596.Google Scholar In various reviews the Gazette consistently refers to the Manual as a concise, condensed, or convenient handbook, covering “a very wide range, and this is its chief value.” Ibid., XLV (1908), 368. On the other hand, Moody's and Poor's are described by such terms as: well-known, complete, indispensible, and standard; Ibid., XLV (1908), 989; XL (1906), 481; and XXXVII (1904), 119,551.
15 Jr. of Accountancy, IV (1907), 475Google Scholar; see fn. 14; and United States Investor, XIII (1902), 889Google Scholar; XIV (1903), 878.
16 In Kroeger, Alice B., Guide to the Study and Use of Reference Books (Boston: American Library Association, 1902), p. 24Google Scholar, the Manual is listed with Poor's; in Ibid., 2nd ed. (1908), p. 43, Moody's, Poor's, and the Manual are included; in Ibid., 3rd ed. (1917), p. 83, Moody's and the Manual are listed. Cannons, H. G. T., Classified Guide To 1700 Annuals, Directories, Calendars ir Yearbooks (New York: H. W. Wilson Co., 1923), p. 37Google Scholar, includes all three manuals. Also the Manual was in the Crerar Library: The John Crerar Library, A List of Books in the Reading Room (Chicago: Printed by Order of the Board of Directors, 1900), p.64Google Scholar, and Ibid., (1909), p. 114. Finally, it was “among books which must be included in a complete financial library”; see die Financial and Investors Manual, XLI (Sept. 11, 1912), 11.Google Scholar
17 See fa. 15.
18 A Manual of Statistics for 1920 was found during idle browsing at the University of Oregon Library. Curiosity dictated further inquiry. The Manual is currently being exploited for my dissertation, “The Rise of Large American Corporations: 1896 to 1905.”
19 Each Federal Reporter from LXXXVIII (1898) to CLXX (1909) was examined.
20 Sources examined: Who Was Who, National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Dictionary of American Biography, and New York Times Obituary Index.
21 Nelson, pp. 17–20. Nelson assumed Moody relied upon the Financial Chronicle (fa. 8, p. 13), yet he never questioned how it was possible for Moody to include information Nelson, himself, was unable to find in the Chronicle.
22 See fa. 7
23 “Holt, Byron W.,” Who Was Who In America: 1897–1942 (Chicago: A. N. Marquis Co., 1942), p. 582.Google Scholar Holt (1847–1933) was secretary of the Reform Club's Tariff Commission. In 1899 he wrote “Single Tax Applied to Cities,” Municipal Affairs, III (1899), 328–49.Google Scholar In 1905 he and Moody formed the magazine.
24 Ibid.