Now let us consider. Does all this expansion of bank loans outside of New York and all this tremendous increase of building operations show that the Samsons of “Wall Street” were pulling down the temple on their own heads in order to slaughter the Philistines, as alleged, or does it show an indifference and lack of readjustment to the growing stringency of money, as revealed by the Stock Exchange in its liquidation of March and April? “As a rule,” said John Mill, “panics do not destroy capital; they merely reveal the extent to which it has been previously destroyed by its betrayal into hopelessly unproductive works.”[71] There would have been no such “betrayal” had judicious reflection and a measurement of facts followed Wall Street’s warnings. A shrewd man, one of the old school of New York City wholesale merchants, who has nothing whatever to do with Wall Street or the Stock Exchange, yet whose trade arteries extend to many parts of the country, has long governed his business by the published reports of Stock Exchange transactions. If he sees there revealed a wholesome, normal, and conservative expansion in all lines of business and a money market that betrays no uneasiness as to the future, he presses on into new lines of endeavor, confident that the immediate future is serene. If he finds an urgent liquidation on ’Change, with the coincident phenomena of impaired credit instruments, he draws in his lines and waits. It makes no difference to him who is rocking the boat, nor why; experience has taught him that if it rocks, the time has arrived to go ashore. And this steady old merchant, I have no doubt, is but one of a numerous type. Those who ignore the economic tides that ebb and flow through the medium of the Stock Exchange as they did in 1907, do so because they do not understand that these great market movements are really but expressions of natural laws. If there is a rising tide--a boom--it is attributed by thoughtless people to speculation and gambling. If there is a bad break, it is caused by panic-stricken repentant sinners, or by the activities of the bears. The essential point that is missed here lies in the fact that, while bulls and bears alike may have their brief hour, sooner or later, regardless of them, the market responds to actual conditions and discounts the future of those conditions.