The Threat to Business 65 
of panic, as communicated to business. The state of 
business itself, its condition and prospects during the 
years of the long bull market precedent to the panic, 
need careful and convincing attestment to banish 
doubts as to its fundamental soundness. This will 
be the task of the succeeding chapters on plowed- 
back earnings and the ratio which the ascending level 
of stock prices, culminating in a new plateau, has 
sustained to profits. If it can be shown that business 
was in an extraordinarily healthy condition, taken as 
a whole, during these years and up to the present, it 
will be seen that the new plateau of stock prices 
which remains after the panic higher than all pre- 
vious plateaus, was justified, even though the peak of 
September, 1929, rose too high.