The Threat to Business 65
of panic, as communicated to business. The state of
business itself, its condition and prospects during the
years of the long bull market precedent to the panic,
need careful and convincing attestment to banish
doubts as to its fundamental soundness. This will
be the task of the succeeding chapters on plowedback
 earnings and the ratio which the ascending level
of stock prices, culminating in a new plateau, has
sustained to profits. If it can be shown that business
was in an extraordinarily healthy condition, taken as
a whole, during these years and up to the present, it
will be seen that the new plateau of stock prices
which remains after the panic higher than all previous
 plateaus, was justified, even though the peak of
September, 1929, rose too high.