STOCKS declined about 5 or 10 per cent in October and it looked as though the depression in business was to be the dominant factor. The recession, though, was brief. Prices soon headed upward once more. Since speculation was becoming rampant and foreign countries had taken all the money they needed, the Reserve banks started to contract the supply ... continued here
The Four Year Bull Market Part 2
THE most serious interruption to the stock market advance came in the early spring of 1926. The conditions which apparently brought it about are worth reviewing because they resemble in many ways those which have prevailed for the last few months. There was no let-up in business activity. The records show that commerce and industry were making sple... continued here
The Four Year Bull Market Part 1
OBITUARIES of the “Coolidge bull market” may be premature but the long and persistent advance in stock prices that has lasted for four years has already become one of the major events in American financial history. To the speculator who trembles when one of his issues drops five or ten points, its course may have seemed erratic at times... continued here
Election By Emotion Part 9
HOOVER has done equally well in speaking of prohibition as “noble in purpose.” To the Puritan American, the motive of an act is the measure of its morality; it is a moral act if it has a moral purpose. Prohibition may be as fiendish as you please in its effects, but as long as it is noble in its purpose it appeals to a sanctified emotio... continued here
Election By Emotion Part 8
To the men in this campaign, two potent emotional appeals are being made by the Hoover managers, and the key-words in the incantation are “prosperity” and “efficiency.” Since the days of the first Puritans, “prosperity” has been a sacred word in the American tradition. With the Puritans, their prosperity was ... continued here
Election By Emotion Part 7
CERTAINLY not among the women. And especially not among the women of the typical American community. To them, such a picture of Smith is a picture of the bad boy, grown up, who used to live “across the tracks.” They would as soon think of voting to put such a figure in the White House as of bringing the bad boy into their homes to corru... continued here
Election By Emotion Part 6
THE doctors answer that in the sub-conscious mind of the average American, the government is Dad. A man’s instinctive attitude to authority is formed in his childhood by his relations with his father. That attitude, set before intelligence fully develops, does not become much more intelligent in later years. By voting dry, the drinker gets ... continued here
Election By Emotion Part 5
IN the typical American community, the Jew, the Irish-Catholic and the foreigner are very much in the minority. They are not received on terms of social equality by the governing majority. They are mildly ostracized and looked down upon. They respond with that mixed emotion of resentment and admiration for the ruling caste which any submerged minor... continued here
Election By Emotion Part 4
FOR this reason, the Ku Klux Klan has been a perfect picnic for them. The Klan originated in a race hatred of the negro; it quickly expanded to include the anti-foreigners and the hundred-percent Americans in general. In communities where there are no negroes, no Jews, no Catholics, and no foreigners in sufficient numbers to authorize a mass moveme... continued here
Election By Emotion Part 3
ALL emotional appeals, whether in wars or elections, are appeals to instinctive impulses. There is no such thing as an emotion arising in the conscious intellect. All emotions are instinctive emotions, welling up from the subconscious mind; and in their origin they are “purposeful to instinct,” as the doctors say. In wartime, of course,... continued here