10 The Stock Market Crash—dAnd After
of any month since the War, and, with its total for
the quarter, exceeded only in the preceding quarter.
The market had no ear for such news, because it was
deafened by the stentorian voices of banks calling
upon brokers and individuals to repay their loans,
while a Babel of brokers’ yells and customers’ bellows
 made the financial welkin resound like a supernatural
 jazz band. Deaf, blind, and dizzy, the mar:
ket fell, and then fell some more!
The groups of men and women who watched the
ticker tape unwind as their fortunes dwindled, or sat
dumbfounded in customers’ rooms before the board,
as their riches took wings, were the visible symbols
of silent thousands among the masses of the American
 people who had dumped their holdings into the
lap of the stock market Moloch. One touch of
nature had made the stock market trading world
kin, and the butcher or baker who had lost a few
stocks on margin drew the sympathy of millionaires
who had helped swell the enormous totals of
brokers’ loans and whose margin defenses had likewise
 been shattered.
Each day on the floor of the Stock Exchange the
tumult and the shouting rose to crescendos during the
five hours of market trading, dying only to rise again
as the avalanche of selling orders fell, carrying prices
down with them. Far out at sea the stock break
overworked the radio on the ocean liners, putting the
passengers into the Wall Street flurry. The crash in
the market cut short holidays as hundreds of Ameri-