After the Stock Market Crash of November, 1929 by Henry Howard Harper

By way of comment on the great speculative epidemic that spread over / the country and indeed throughout the world the past five or six years, / it may be observed that stock speculation, once considered a hazardous / business, came to be generally regarded as a safe, dignified and / profitable occupation. Of a certainty it became general, if nothing / else. From a once precarious game of chance, to be indulged in only by / daredevils and millionaires, it became so simple and well safeguarded / that anyone with a little capital could in a short time double it and / quadruple it. It was contended that inasmuch as we had successfully / passed the twenty-year cycle in which, according to precedent, stock / market panics are wont to occur, such disturbances had been relegated / to history, and the Federal Reserve System obviated any possibility of / their recurrence. This belief pervaded all classes from millionaires / to house servants, and eventually the entire community became / inoculated with the speculative germ. It got to be the principal topic / of conversation in the clubs, cafes, hotel lobbies, on the street, and / any place where two or more people were congregated. The many thousands / of brokerage offices throughout the country were jammed to the doors / by eager onlookers and participants who devoted themselves exclusively / to the market from the opening to the close. Office boys, elevator / men, manicures, hotel waiters, hairdressers, cab drivers, and even / rural farmers initiated themselves into the game and discussed mergers, / split-ups, stock dividends, and all such subjects in high finance with / more profuseness and profundity than was ever displayed at a bankers' / convention.

Indeed for years it looked as if stocks could only go one way -- up. / Therefore the whole speculative fraternity arrayed itself on the / up-side; and it actually happened that vast numbers of traders who / had formerly bought stocks to sell at only a point or two profit, now / accumulated them to keep indefinitely. The trading element, emboldened / by one success after another, concluded that we were in a new / era -- that the stock market millennium had become a reality. In travel / we advanced from the stage coach to the automobile and the aeroplane; / from the slow sailing craft to the ocean greyhound. The radio and the / telephone had linked the whole universe together in conversation, and / in the art of creating wealth the old-fashioned slow-moving process of / conservatism had become as obsolete as the stage coach. These facts / were all too obvious to be disputed. And to prove there was simply / no limit to modern inventions the stock market, backed by the new / investment trust scheme, supplied a new financial vehicle without / any reverse gears. It was fast and easy riding, the sensation was / thrilling, and it required neither skill nor experience to operate. / In 1924-6 during the try-out period of this marvellous get-rich-quick / machine there were many skeptics who doubted its safety and efficiency; / but confidence gradually increased and one after another became / convinced, until eventually the whole populace clambered aboard.

Business was good, the country was rich and prosperous, and it was / argued that a financial structure built upon such confidence and / prosperity could not be shaken by anything short of a universal / earthquake. Basic values had become so stabilized in the minds of the / people that there was no more reason to expect them to crumble than / there was to expect the Washington Monument to topple over. Even the / gray-haired wizards of Wall Street who had preached caution for two / or three years, finally fell into line with the new order of things, / and not only did they plunge into the market long after it had passed / the point of safety, but they organized more investment trusts running / into billions of dollars, and advertised far and wide for the public / to buy their stock and join them in amassing fortunes. They would / manage everything, and all the people had to do was to furnish the / money.

These cold-blooded Wall Street magnates, suddenly converted / to the theory of universal brotherhood, undertook to espouse the / cause in which everybody works for one another. Verily the Biblical / prophecy was more than fulfilled; for it came to pass that not only / could the lamb lie down in safety with the lion, -- he could feed with / him at the Wall Street manger. The public was thus taken into these / co-operative partnerships and enabled to enjoy all the advantages to / be derived from the superior genius and directorship of the giants / of wealth and commerce. The small investors and speculators, highly / flattered by the opportunity of being admitted into such society, threw / their savings into the melting pot with more confidence than as if / they were putting them into a savings bank. Many of the trusts were / legitimate; others were disguised gambling pools operating on other / people's money, along the lines proposed by the late "Tom" Lawson in / the memorable advertising campaign he conducted in Bay State Gas. / In most cases these gambling ventures were sponsored by names that / inspired confidence; and those who bought participation certificates / would undoubtedly have won if the stock market had never stopped going / up. It was generally supposed that such men could not go financially / wrong -- and they didn't; it was the public that went wrong in buying / their certificates.