ADMINISTRATION OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 465
closing the Stock Exchange at the psychological and economic
moment.
Neither are such occasions when instant and expert action
is needed only to be found at the outbreak of wars. In the
everyday conduct of the Exchange there must always exist
authority, complete and unhampered, to act without a second’s
delay. There was no war in the fall of 1920, nor any epoch-
making international crisis. Yet at noon on September 16,
1920, a tremendous explosion occurred only a few score yards
from the Stock Exchange building, which shattered the win-
dows throughout the heart of the financial district and killed
some forty men, women, and children. Only the lowered cur-
tains in the lofty Stock Exchange windows prevented possible
casualties upon its floor. At once the news of the explosion
was flashed over the tickers to all parts of the country. In the
light of the subsequent severe but gradual- decline in security
prices, it is not unreasonable to imagine that, had the Exchange
attempted to remain open that day, an avalanche of selling
orders might have swept into it from all parts of the nation,
and a narrowly averted panic might well have occurred then
and there.
Fortunately, the President of the Exchange almost instantly
rang the gong and suspended trading, and shortly afterward
the governors, convened in special meeting, voted to close the
Exchange until the morrow. Had the authorities of the Ex-
change, who handled that dangerous and wholly unexpected
crisis so effectively that today it has been almost forgotten,
been restrained by the restrictions to which, by the terms of
their charters, many incorporated bodies are subject, there
might have been a very different story to tell. The Stock Ex-
change members heartily share with the public a distaste for
panics. It is small wonder that they do not agree with the
recurrent proposal to incorporate the Exchange.
In the panic of 1929, the whole community benefitted by
the freedom of action possessed by the Stock Exchange
