America's Money Machine

PART III / DEBACLE OF AN IDEA
the market disintegrated under a volume of 16,410,030 shares, with
leading stocks down 25 to 45 points, and with the collateral tragedy of
bankruptcies and suicides.
Frantic efforts were made by the business community to restore confidence.
U. S. Steel promptly announced a $1 extra dividend and American
Can raised its dividend rate from $3 to $4; banks reduced margin requirements
to 25 per cent;]ohn D. Rockefeller announced that he was buying
stocks; the Bank of England reduced its rediscount rate from 6 1/2 per
cent to 6 per cent, followed by a reduction of the New York rate from 6
to 5 per cent; and the press reported that sentiment in Wall Street was
more cheerful. But despair did not evaporate, stocks continued to weaken
with another big break on November 12, with 6 1/2 million shares traded
in a 3 hour session and a still more disastrous break on the thirteenth
when 7,761,450 shares were traded. By the end of the year $40 billion
had been.shorn from paper values of securities; and the effects were
beginning to spread throughout the business world and abroad.