Wall Street 1929 Part 7

Three great houses on Wall Street concentrate on filling these “odd lot” demands alone. These houses are dealers to the millions, they are their key to Wall Street.
When Tom, Dick and Harry go to their brokers to buy 10-25-50 shares of Prosperity, common, their brokers notify their men on the floor, who seek out the [...]

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Wall Street 1929 Part 6

On a 5,000,000 share day on the Big Board, nearly $200,000,000 worth of buying and selling pulses through these steel highways. This is not the total business. Merely the 30 per cent that the citizenry removed from Wall Street contributes to the day’s volume as a rule.
By itself this fact impresses as to the extent [...]

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Wall Street 1929 Part 5

IF ONE REALLY needed proof of the enormous participation of the public in the stock market, there is no end to the statistics that may be conjured up. Let us contemplate the physical membership of the Stock Exchange itself. In 1895, out of the 112 branch offices which its 1, 100 members then maintained, only [...]

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Wall Street 1929 Part 4

In Paris a banker announces that America, because it controls the world’s wealth, must become the center of world culture, its opulent patron. In Texas, an oil man, recouping $25,000,000 that Wall Street took away from him five years ago, serves notice he is through with the market forever. And one of my friends, a [...]

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Wall Street 1929 Part 3

PROSPERITY is the match-maker that inspired this mating which, twenty years ago, would have been damned as miscegenation. When the World War ended, you and I and our neighbor heard considerable talk about this singular quality. It seemed to be something intrinsically American. It stood for money in the pocket—in the bank. And we were [...]

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Wall Street 1929 Part 2

Today Wall Street is the nation and Main Street is more Wall Street than Wall Street ever was—or probably ever will be. Wall Street is a state of mind; 20,000,000 men and women—investors and speculators—are its corporeal being; and the chattering tape that runs under the glass domes of 12, 000 tickers, up hill and [...]

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Wall Street 1929 Part 1

HOW quickly indeed do we lose the feverish faiths and passions of our fathers. The memory of the average American is short, and shorter still the span of his conscience. In this it would seem he differs quite sensibly from the elephant. His capac-ity for sustained hatred is very largely modified by its immediate convenience.
We [...]

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The Golden Ball

I used to carry happiness
Like a golden ball,
I had to walk so timidly
For fear I’d let it fall.
But someone snatched it from me
And threw it to the sky -
Now my arms are empty
There’s none so brave as I.
Elizabeth Hollister Frost
Source: The Outlook, May 23 1928

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