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 down dale, are its hyper-sensitive nervous system.

Tchkt, tchkt, tchkt,.. . the tape spurts endlessly and inexhaustibly into the tall waste basket; and in Harlem, Bangor, Denver, San Diego and Atlanta, men hang breathlessly over the story it tells, and lustfully or bitterly decode its personal meaning.

Here, surely, is something that none of the old buccaneers, who regarded the public as a necessary — but avoidable—evil, ever dared predict. Indeed, one may count on the fingers of his hand the few authoritative men who predicted it ten years ago. And there are still men in Wall Street—brokers and bankers— who must from time to time pinch themselves to restore the conviction.

But the transition is here, and has been for five years. The public is in Wall Street, and Wall Street is in the public. And this merging of personalities has produced the most spectacular thing that this nation—or the world—has ever witnessed.

Source: The Outlook, 18 September 1929