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’ bel- 
lows made the financial welkin resound like a super- 
natural 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 Ameri- 
can 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 like- 
wise 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-