Evening Star Newspaper, August 9, 1925, Page 36

i) FHE SULANDAY STAR, W. B. HIBBS, BUSINESS LEADER, PROCLAIMED “CANNY” PROPHET WASHINGTON, D. ¢, AUGUST 9, 1925—PART Prominent Washington Stock Broker, Familiarl Known as “Billy” Is Subject of Complimen- tary Sketch in Saturday Evening Post. | gl ! Kann’s Secures 450 More BY CHAS. P. SHAEFFER. W. B. Hibbs has come into his own, | That worthy individual, leading busi ness man and citizen of the Nation's Capital, has at last been stripped of | the proverbial bushel, and his star, nc longer obscured, now shines brightly | 3 0N S—1 wherever Post Is read. affectionately 3illy E | has been “‘vic | | termed by his | timized or st that is what he would call it. Iver refusing the spot- light, never presuming to make him self conspicuous, al g th he be spared w copy” makers shed 1 as his legion of some s know him has nullified all | n the bit in his ¢ “told the world.” all about Wil on stock broker The article apps Eveni th niche, voted us facts about the great and the s doubtful if Mr. knows the ic to one | of a trium ing’ contribu tors, eacn of is frequently seen in and around his ¢ | The article, made conspicuc = one-column halftone re ol ub- Ject and captioned ¥ Hibbs, purveyor to Wall Street of the low- down in Washington places him in the catego of those who know a great deal but divulge little. “Uncanny” as Prognosticator. Mr. Hibbs could undoubtedly measured by ha n and rise atness by them all, but the author of the article gives as the | reason for his effort the former's canny qualities future events Scout” The subject, the article sz be recognized by his pink chee white hair, his neat white and his immaculate necktie. sociation with Washingtonians for so | many vears has made of him a con- | noisseur of humans on their source. Probable value, purchase price, if any. depth of veneer and patina, period of manufacture, school of thought and | architecture, and probable ultimate | destination, continues the story | His carly bovhood days are then sketched, begining with the never- | to-be-forgotten period when he sold newspapers on the site now « cupied by the handsome 10-stol business edifice which houses offices, together with his on the top floor, and conc ding when | he actively took up his present busi- as a bo: alk boy at the princely sa weelk Evening Post It is then of dors, consu governors, railroad presiden r's, manufactu and wh at in his b front room, 10| stories above Fifteenth street, and un- burdened themselves of portant pieces of wrapping the around his tes and or drop- ping the Metropolitan Club cigarettes on the rug; and as a result almost any chair in the room could be sold at a staggering price as the chair in which Senat rbolg wrote his famous attack on Senator Crumbell in Which Henry G. Blank | first told the complete tory of the | manner in which he received the p idential nomination, in which Secre ta Beeler drafted section t the income tax law, preciatively and so on, and so forth Perfect Score in Political Predictions. “As a further result he has been able to piece two and two together and get four, after a series of vis have concluded their remarks, instead of getting three or fi most of rest of official ington is| gularity. Until presidential election any statement «the foregoing would have been purely a matter of opinio Prior to the there w into the and the sible naming of I¥|‘1Jt)\ov" arley Bryan as President of these| United States. The La Follette crowd clafmed this and that; Davis crowd claimed thus and the Coolidge crowd, with tremors in their voices, claimed these | and those. Wall Street, not knowing | whom to believe, but f convinced | by the fierce bellowings of the La | Folletteites uas to the large uumlmr} of Western States they were going to carry, moaned like a stricken | thing and feared a panic. i “At this juncture it occurred to the | New York correspondents of William | B. Hibbs' banking house to cry al cry of distress to Hibbs himself. - “On receipt of the cry he accumu- | lated information from a number of | prominent sources, added them to- | gether und telegraphed his quaking New York corr spondent: that La Follette and Wheeler, in spite of thelr claims, would be unable to carry more than three States. Wall street reporters got hold of the tele- &ram and blithely sent it to all parts of the coun: “He telegraphed his Wall Street cor- respondents what the vote of the electoral college would be—and, it might be added, he called the vote to a man—and the Wall street re- the information and ad craphed further that the Re- publicans would carry several border it had been generally con- ceded to the Democrats, and when this telegram arrived in the New York office the Wall Street reporters were Waiting to get it. Hibbs Quickly Responds *“Telegraphic queries from New York goncerning the chances of John W. Davis caused Hibbs to seize a tele- graph blank and reply tersely that John W. Davis would be unable to carry his own State of West Vir- ginia—a reply that was particularly | rioteworthy because of the fact that William B. Hibbs himself was born in Virginia, and no Virginian is ever fupposed to admit defeat for a native son until after the defeat has | taken place, and frequently not even then “Prior to the publication of these ! dispatches contributors to the Repub- | lican campaiga fund had dwindled to | a pitiful trickle. Wall Street’s fears had made it so lght that it squeaked | whenever it stoaped over, and not a | Republican - was able to start the zolden stream to flowing again. But | with the publication of the Hibbs pre- dictions confidence returned to perch on the old nest and gayly preen ust i House of Representatives feathers, while contributions again poured musically into the Republican treasury. “On_the morning after the publica- tion of the Hibbs prediction concern- ing John W. Davis official W tonfans came to Hibbs in companies and regime him a hat that he di he was talking about. He ‘.ug,-mll @ll bets and is now in a position w | ance of Wall Street, he immediately | the American people. | Street” | fect or wrong, but he has said clearly | breath for the Morgan lightning to {low?" he would have had to make | Ginning Slightly Above Estimates. | closed | of the Government crop report. which | averaging a condition of 66.4 and a W. B. HIBBS. open one of the best equipped hat stores east of the Mississippl, pro- vided that he can collect the hats, in- asmuch as all his predictions proved to be correct. “Because of hisuncanny success at makinz election predictions he was urged to continue his observations on men and things. To the deep annoy- obliged with a number of tart dis- patches in which he took a-series of rough slaps at Wall Street bankers who are bringing large amounts of miscellaneous European securities to America and gayly passing them to Somebody, he predicted, was going to be handsome- ly stung, and that somebody wasn't going to be a resident of Europe. Hoarse shouts of rage promptly arose from the bankers, whose delicate sen- sibilities were cruelly bruised by these unkind words. Horrifles Wall Street. “William B. Hibbs Street’s Washington worship of is highly may be Wall scout, but his epted Wall Street gods distressing to _all Wall religious zealots. On several occasions he has actually not only im- plied that J, P. Morgan can be imper- and distinctly that such is the case. Wall Street has waited with bated strike William B. Hibbs in the exact | center of his immaculate necktie, but nothing has struck. Times change ind the customs of the times. Those who once read Horatio Alger now read Pippy Storieg. Hibbs was right about the election, they whisper. (an he be right about—well, about other | things? If Horatlo Alger, jr.. had essaved to write a truthful history of Bill the | Newsboy with William B. Hibbs as 1 model, he would have run up against a_severe obstacle before he had fin- | ished; for when he made the benevo- | lent pickle manufacturer with the side whiskers pat him on the head and say, ‘How would you like to come and live with me, my fine fel- Bill reply, ‘That would be nice. but whiskers are insanitary and it gives | me a pain to be called a fine fellow. That would have rulned the book. however, would have been jus- COTTON TRADING QUIET, WITH DECLINES AT CLOSE Market Session Ends Before Gov- ernment’s Crop Report Appeared. By the Associated Press. NEW YORK, August $.—Cotton, spot, quiet; middling, 24.35. Futures! arely steady, 9 to 16 net lower. October, 23.8% to 23.90; De- cember, 24.10 to Ja H to 23.61; March, 23. Forenoon trading aine y quiet, but prices eased off from 24.32 | to 24.10 for December. The tone was easy at net declines of 9 to 16 poi vhen the market closed at 1 15 minutes before the publ estimated the condition the indicated yield 13,5 compared with recent pri at 65.6 and 76,000 bales, te reports crop indication of 13,645,000 bales. | The ginning reported to August of 373 bales was slightly above re- cent private estimates ranging from ,000 to 150,000 NEW ORLEA August 8.—Spot cotton closed quiet, 15 points down, sales on the spot none; to arrive 100; low middling, 22.80; middling, 23.80; good middling, 24.30. The cotton mar. ket rallled moderately after the first hour of trading owing to belated covering of shorts in advance of the Government report. October traded up to 23.45 and December to 23.65. Towards the end of the session prices broke again and December made a new low at 23.47. The market closed showing a net loss for the day of 15 points on near position and 6 to 7 points on more distant months. WALL STREET BRIEFS. By the Associated Press. New building contracts in July were the highest on record for that month, a compilation by F. W. Dodge, “orporation, consisting of 36 States which include about seven-eighths of the country’s construction, making the total $529,000.100. In only two previous months, April and June this Ve has this figure been exceeded. The increase over July, 1924, was more than 53 per cent and only 2 per cent under June, 1925. The seven months' total was placed at $3,189,179,000, a =ain of nearly 20 per cent over the same perfod last year. Members of the New York Stock Exchange are cireulating a petition requesting the board of governors to appoint a day on which to vote on a proposal to make Saturday, September 5, preceding Labor day, a holiday. International Combustion Engineer- ing Corporation has entered into an agreement with the North American Co. to construet plants for low temperature distillation of coal which ill greatly reduce: the fuel cost of ¢ electric power stations. The 1 plant will have a daily capacity of 210 tons and will be erected at the Lakeside plant.of tite Mibwaukee Elec- tric Railway and Light Co. This stem distills the pulverized coal they now use and the pulverized coke obtained will be burned under: the boilers. The other by-products will be motor spirits, tar and gas. The week's bank clearings through- out the country complied by the Com- mercial _and ~ Financial ~ Chronicle reached $9,033,046,448 an increase of 11.7 per cent over the $8,088,352,077 a year ago. New York City gained per cent nd. expects to spend $6.- 250,000 five-year program to abolish all level railway crossings. Victrolas to Sell at HALF or Less! —This Time, Direct From the Factory at Camden, New Jersey! This May Be Your Last 4 Chance to Get One They’re Getting Scarce! —The whole country is clamoring for Victrolas at Half Price! There never was an opportunity like it before! As a result, it is almost impossible now to find a store where there is a large variety of models to choose from. And it is still more difficult for a store to replenish its stock. —Kann's has hunted everywhere! For the third time it has had to go out and get more Victrolas to supply the unending demand. Unexpectedly, we were able to make a purchase of three carloads di- rect from the Victor factory! Four hundred and fifty machines in all! But even these won't be enough, and yet we don't know where to look for more when these are gone! —Tomorrow you will have this one more—perhaps the last—opportunity to secure a Victrola at Half Price or less than half. —Six of the many styles offered are illustrated here, among which we want to call particular at- tention to the Model 240, Formerly $125 = Now $62.50 Model 210 at $55.00 In Beautiful American Walnut —One whole carload of this big purchase—130 machines—is of this attractive Console Victrola, that formerly sold for $110.00. We want to par- ticularly emphasize the surpassing beauty and warmth of coloring in the American walnut finish. To those who believe that mahogany is best, we say just come and see and compare them! See if you aren’t convinced that the rich) mellow beauty of the American walnut isn’t prettiest after all! —A few of the Model 80, also at $55, are shown in walnut, too! —Any model Victrola in the entire collection can be secured for In American Walnut— Model 210, Formerly $116 5 Down Model 220, Fo Now $100 Balance in 10 Monthly Payments With No Interest Charges —Therein lies the other remarkable feature of this opportunity! Not only do you get a Victrola for Half Price or less—but you get it on terms that are within the means of any home! —Mousic is a beautiful and refining influence in any home. Victrolas furnish the finest music obtain- able—the kind you want, when you want it, as long as you care to have it. Nothing interferes to mar its beauty. And now there is no reason in the world for any home being without it. —The opportunity is here! But it is fleet-winged! It may be gone before you realize it! Come to- morrow ! . . rmerly $200 Kann’s—Fourth Floor. Model 215, Formerly $160 Now $80 And Here Are 20,000 More New Victor Single- aced Red Seal Records dt the Same Low Prices 43¢ For the 12-Inch 30¢ For the 10-Inch 10,000 From: the Factory in Camden, and We Had to Go as Far as Buffalo for the Other 10,000! —Kann's has already sold more than 28,000 of these Records at these ridiculously low prices. But now, like the Victrolas themselves, they’re getting ex- ceedingly scarce. Soon, it will be impossible to get them at all, for there seems to be no end to the de-. mand. —And no wonder! Here are the finest Records made, offering selections by the world’s most On Sale, Street and Fourth Floors ahead! —Again, we say, “come tomorrow”! most of this opportunity while you can. famous artists, at prices never dreamed of a few weeks ago! A mere fraction of their former cost! So, who wouldn’t buy a large number of new selec- tions in preparation for the long Winter evenings Make the Penna. Ave. 8th and-D /