92 The Stock Market Crash—dAnd After 
during 1929, the rate of plowing-back of earnings 
increased faster. The proportion of cash dividends 
to all earnings was $71 for every $100 in August, 
1927, while the market was rising to its record high; 
it was $75 in August, 1928; but in August, 1929, this 
proportion had fallen to $64 for cash dividends— 
although, in that ratio, they exceeded the total of 
1928—that is, $64 for every $100 of the expanded 
total of earnings, the rate of which rose from 7 per 
cent during August, 1928, to 714 per cent during 
August, 1929. 
It hardly needs emphasizing that enhanced capital 
values, reflected by such figures of increased earn- 
ings, justified in large part the increase of the gen- 
eral level of stock prices during 1929. The high 
point for the week ended September 6, 1929, on my 
index of stock prices was 117 points above its lowest 
level after the beginning of 1926, which was the base 
year of the index. Rails were 69 points higher. 
Utilities rose by 167 points. The agricultural equip- 
ment groups rose by 427 per cent; the office equip- 
ment group rose by 407 per cent; electrical equip- 
ment increased by 357 per cent; motors by 269 per 
cent; chemicals by 251 per cent; coppers by 249 per 
cent, while various other groups increased by about 
100 per cent in price for that week. So the general 
decline of 38 per cent in the price level from the 
highest week in September to the lowest week in 
November is a small fall compared with the rise of 
this prosperity plateau subsequent to 1926, a plateau 
of which the foundations stretch down to the recovery 
from the deflation of 1920-1921.