http://www.leelanaunews.com/blog/index.php/2008/10/01/1929-stock-crash-quietly-noted/#more-9099Returning to economic matters, there was no reference to the stock market crash in the Enterprise’s Nov. 7 issue, either. Finally, on Nov. 14, news of the now historic event surfaced in the newspaper.
First, an illustrated “canned” item appeared in the lower left-hand corner of page one. Pictured was John D. Rockefeller Sr., flanked by his son and Thomas W. Lamont. Above the picture was the headline “These Men Saved the Country from a Panic.” A caption beneath the picture explained that the three had “bought heavily on the Stock Exchange in order to end the recent decline in prices and thus averted a national panic.”
The market had, indeed, rebounded some, and many observers apparently expected it would soon fully recover, as it had done in the past..
The Enterprise’s caption concluded by stating that “at a meeting called by Mr. Lamont, the decision was made to remedy the worst Wall Street situation in a score of years (since 1907, to be more precise).”
But the “remedy” was not sufficient, for what had happened was not simply another “panic,” but a crash of unprecedented magnitude. It was like Humptey-Dumptey’s great fall and “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humptey-Dumpty together again.”
But that wasn’t yet apparent on Nov. 14, 1929, when the Enterprise also ran the following editorial under the heading “What Happened in Wall Street.”
“The principal sufferers from the slump in the stock market are the business enterprises which purvey luxuries to the newly rich,” the editorial began. “One New York ‘beauty parlor,’ which charged a minimum fee of $25 for a ‘treatment’ has already closed its doors. The ‘exclusive’ jewelry shops where no customer was really welcome unless he had a hundred thousand dollars to spend report a decided falling off in sales. One Fifth Avenue furrier who had imported some Russian sables to make a $50,000 wrap for the wife of a Wall Street gambler has had the garment thrown back on his hands and is now advertising it for sale for a mere $30,000.”
The Wall Street crash, from the perspective of small town “Main Street,” was even seen as constructive. The Enterprise continued:
“Slackening of trade in things like those represents no real economic loss; quite the contrary. The $50,000 which the furrier did not get for his sables is now in the hands of gentlemen who know what to do with the money. It will be invested in something which will enable some great manufacturing establishment to add a dozen workers to its payroll. And that is worth more to all of us than a dozen sable wraps.”
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