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CHAPTER XVIII 
COPPER STOCKS 
LTHOUGH today Boston is not exactly 
the home of all coppers, yet it was until a 
few years ago, and is still to a limited 
extent. As our Pacific railroads were originally 
financed from Boston, so has the large copper in 
dustry of our nation been financed from the same 
city. On the other hand, as Boston has now lost 
her grip on the transcontinental situation, it having 
passed to New York in conjunction with the great 
telephone industry, so the new copper properties 
are now being financed from New York rather 
than from Boston. 
The transcontinentals were financed from Boston 
because that was the investing center of the coun 
try fifty years ago, and whether railroad bonds or 
government bonds were to be sold, they were first 
offered to New England people through established 
Boston firms. The telephone industry was started 
in Boston probably because Mr. Bell, the inventor, 
was a New England man. The first telephone 
company was organized in a little office in Boston. 
The huge profits made by these early investors in 
telephone stocks were sufficient to cause them to 
hold the industry for many years and continue to 
raise funds for its great expansion until it became 
so tremendously large that it was of necessity a 
national rather than a New England enterprise.