Causes of the Panic 
41 
13th to establish such losses, with the intent later 
of buying back the same securities or securities of 
the same class. So the capital gains tax operated 
both to bring on the crash and then to prevent the 
recovery of prices following the panic. 
Excessive Credits 
Craig B. Hazlewood, President of the American 
Bankers’ Association, in his address before that 
body, October 1, 1929, maintained that the market 
values of securities on the New York Stock Exchange 
had increased too heavily “after allowing for 
increases in the number of units listed.” Total 
values, he said, increased from sixty and one-half bil- 
lion dollars January 1, 1925, to one hundred and 
twenty-four billion dollars on July 1, 1929. Mr. 
Hazlewood named as a blamable cause the increased 
volume of credit allowances by the bankers of the 
country which had been employed in carrying stocks 
to those higher levels. These allowances, he said, 
amounted to “too large a portion of the available 
credit of the country.” 
In considering increase in listed values, it is proper 
to recall the $12,000,000,000 of sterling bonds listed 
in the spring of 1928 which is included in this total. 
Only a few millions of these bonds were actually 
distributed in this country. 
Doubtless it is true that the increase of credit 
allowances was too great. This is because the 
enlarged credit structure was altogether too suscepti- 
ble to bear raids—not so much because it boosted