228 The Stock Market Crash—dAnd After 
York Central stock was selling around $65 a share. 
It was paying § per cent dividends, and at the mar- 
ket price the yield was nearly 8 per cent. After 
1920, capital was accumulated, gold was pouring in 
and enlarging the basis of credit. By the middle of 
1922 time loans on mixed stock exchange collateral 
were down to 44 per cent and call loans much of 
the time lower. The average renewal rate on call 
loans for the whole year 1924 was 3.1 per cent. 
“The public is quick to take advantage of such an 
opportunity as that to borrow money on a 3 or 4 per 
cent basis and carry New York Central stock on a 7 
or 8 per cent basis. That was the first impetus to 
the stock market. And when a market gets well 
under way it travels on its own momentum. It is 
able of itself to attract support. Of course, such 
movements go too far. More people do things be- 
cause other people are doing them than because they 
know the reasons, and that is progressively so of a 
bull market. The market had occasional back-sets 
in 1925 and 1026, but on the whole gained confidence 
on the recoveries, until in the fall of 1927 something 
happened.” 
That something was the withdrawal of the half 
billion dollars gold to Europe. Mr. Roberts shows 
that the New York City banks withdrew their sup- 
port of the growing account of brokers’ loans 
and were not responsible for its growth from 
October, 1927, to 1929. The high interest rates 
of the call loan markets attracted funds from