AFTER THE STOCK MARKET CRASH
OF NOVEMBER, 1929
A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER
TO THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF SPECULATION
ISSUED IN 1926
BY
HENRY HOWARD HARPER
PRIVATELY PRINTED
BOSTON—MDCDXXX
THE TORCH PRESS
CEDAR RAPIDS
IOWA
AFTER THE STOCK MARKET CRASH
OF NOVEMBER, 1929
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.