There is one great mystery worthy of comment; and that is, how such a tremendous scaling down in values could have been accomplished in so short a time without bankrupting a single one of the major banks or brokerage firms. The answer must be that the public stood the loss--as it usually does. And why not? They had every chance in the world to get out with fabulous profits. For more than a year they had the advice, warning and threats of the Federal Reserve Board displayed on the pages of all the newspapers, and dinned into their ears. But whenever these warnings or any other danger signal appeared, the market manipulators showed their contempt by promptly pushing prices up a few more points. They defied and scoffed at every principle of common sense and business economics, and they got away with it so long and successfully that it seemed they were bound by no laws or limitations except those of their own devising. For years the market was under the dominion of a new generation of dare-devil cliques who manipulated it with an iron arm more daring and more dogmatic than the rule of any tyrant in history; and month after month the cool-headed non-participants read the financial pages with gaping amazement. If the weekly bank statement showed that brokers’ loans had increased a hundred millions or more beyond expectations, it was the signal for a new outburst of bullish enthusiasm; if the interest rates were advanced or even doubled, millions of shares were immediately churned back and forth at advancing prices, in order to prove that the laws of gravity and economics had become subservient to the will of the speculative mob. It happened repeatedly that after some large corporation had issued an unexpectedly poor earnings statement, the stock of that company was immediately taken in hand and forced up several points, on the argument that the “bad news is all out,” and had already been fully discounted. And on the theory that a storm-tossed ship is more apt to sink if standing still than if running under full steam, the market was pushed ahead at breakneck speed with compass and rudder in the hands of a reckless crew that paid no heed whatever to reefs or shoals. The Federal Reserve System, instead of being responsible for the crash, was the one agency that saved the whole community, including the banks and brokers, from complete financial chaos by furnishing at the critical moment an abundance of money and credit at low rates.