104 The Stock Market Crash—dAnd After 
industries, locomotives being the exception, the 
“large concerns have gained more than the middle- 
sized establishments.” The report of the Commit- 
tee ‘‘assumes that the advance in security prices of 
a group of concerns within an industry, relative to 
the other concerns in the industry, indicate that that 
group is making more of a success of its business than 
the other concerns.” If this assumption is correct, 
then the advance in utility stock prices, for example, 
is solidly based. Mr. Hoover's Committee discloses 
a situation which, it says, may have any one of 
several explanations. It adds: 
“It may indicate that the large concerns are find- 
ing the economies which the Federal Trade Commis- 
sion figures for several years ago did not disclose at 
that time. It may indicate that the large concerns, 
because of modern methods and conditions of selling 
and distribution, are taking a larger and larger share 
of the nation’s business, as was indicated by the rec- 
ord of individual establishments given above. This 
may be even at a higher cost than their competitors. 
Or finally, it may indicate that the same dogma, which 
expresses itself so often in mergers and consolida- 
tions—the belief in the universal advantages of size 
and large-scale production—is thus expressing itself 
in the valuation of corporation securities” (pages 
199, 200). 
The Committee's further study indicates that the 
“large concern will maintain steadier operation than 
an equivalent number of small concerns.” The ex- 
planation follows: