APPENDIX 
669 
was a momentous step. Not since 1873 had the Stock Exchange 
suspended except for a few hours. Even the panics of 1907 and 
(893 had not halted its operations. Yet to have attempted to maintain 
trading in New York, and thus invite the tremendous selling orders 
in which the whole world with its billions of American securities 
would undoubtedly have participated, would have been sheer folly. 
On the other hand, it was almost equally important that the maximum 
amount of liquidation comparable with national safety should be 
permitted to run its course there, in order that the reopening of the 
New York market might be effected the more speedily and the more 
safely. The able manner in which the governing committee of the 
New York Stock Exchange rose to meet this difficult dilemma has 
been dramatically related by H. G. S. Noble, then president of the 
Exchange. A few minutes before the usual opening hour of 10 A.M. 
the governors voted by a large majority to close the Exchange until 
further nctice. Subsequent events wholly confirmed the complete 
wisdom of this step. If, as has been so frequently asserted, the war 
was eventually won by the individual initiative’ of the American 
soldier, sailor and business executive, it is equally certain that our 
then debtor nation owed its avoidance of a panic to the ability of the 
rovernors of the Stock Exchange to meet on their own responsibility 
an unparalleled crisis with an expert knowledge of its possible con- 
sequences and of the exact minute at which to terminate dealings on 
the floor.” (Brigham in the Boston Evening Transcript, Oct. 20, 
1020.) 
(XVIIIf) During the war and post-war period, many prices marked 
“S 30” (seller thirty days) appeared on the tape and in the daily 
financial reports. Such transactions are usually assumed to be sales 
by European holders of our securities back to American purchasers, 
‘hrough the machinery of the Stock Exchange, for it usually requires 
2» European seller thirty days to liquidate any securities in our markets, 
owing both to the fortnightly term settlement system in vogue on 
European stock exchanges and the time required to send the certificate 
cross the Atlantic. These “seller 30” transactions in recent years on 
the New York Stock Exchange were the outward and manifest sign 
of the gradual lifting of the vast mortgage previously held by Euro- 
pean investors on our leading railroad systems and industrial estab- 
lishments. 
(XVIIIg) The annual Report of the President of the New York 
Stock Exchange for 1929-30 (p. 81) summarized the issues listed 
Joon it as of January I, 1930, as follows: