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 determined to have some part of it.

So we put what eggs we had in our basket and went to Wall Street where we put them up as margin for exciting expectancies called stocks. Bonds seemed so dreadfully old-fashioned.

Bolder people followed. Industry waxed fat, dividends fell like over-ripe fruit from towering industries, and stocks boomed.

In the thrill of winning—and the envy of seeing friends winning—we were like the Scotchman who won his first bet at the race track. How long, indeed, has this been going on?

Powerful brokerage houses which for decades had confined themselves to the larger cities on the Atlantic seaboard opened branch offices in Pawtucket, Houston, Emporia, Kansas City, wherever there was money for the market. And brokerage houses grew in inland cities the population of which once distrusted even the savings banks. And if these brokerage houses were too poor to buy membership on the exchanges themselves, they tied up with firms privileged to deal there.

On December 15, 1866, the New York Stock Exchange had its first million-share day. For years after its volume fluctuated between four and five hundred thousand shares a day. In 1927 the Federal Reserve’s low rediscount rate, 3 1/2 per cent, close to the lowest level reached since the War, lent impetus to the market. On August 16, 1928, for the first time in its history, the Stock Exchange had its long-awaited 5,000,000-share day.

Now even that record is ancient history. A few days ago the head of one of the most conservative brokerage houses in New York told me that a return to the old levels would have to be regarded as a national calamity.

As he talked, I became aware of a singular disquiet in the attitude of the bootblack shining his shoes. His eyes hungered after the tape rustling behind his shoulders. Finally he could control himself no longer. He grabbed the tape.

“Are you interested in the market?” I asked, amazed.

“Me and me brudda,” he answered ecstatically, “we gotta da Steel.”

Source: The Outlook, 18 September 1929