Mr. Watson also told Robert how Durant had become the giant motor magnate and formed the General Motors Corporation in 1908 and had made a great success, accumulating millions before the war days and afterwards. He was in full control of General Motors and was reputed to be worth over a hundred million dollars when the stock was selling at $410.00 in the Spring of 1920. Durant was very bullish and talked of General Motors going very much higher. Deflation started in the Summer of 1920, and all stocks declined rapidly. He remained bullish, continuing to buy General Motors all the way down. The stock had been split up on a ten for one basis and the new stock which sold at $42.00 in March, 1920, an equivalent of $420.00 per share, declined to $14.00 per share in December, 1920, and finally in the Spring of 1922 sold at $8.25. He had refused to sell; in fact had bought all his brokers would let him have all the way down. When the stock declined to $15.00 per share, Durant was ruined. His fortune of over one hundred millions dollars was wiped out. The Morgans and Duponts took over his holdings at a figure reported to be around $5.00 per share, and he lost control of the gigantic corporation which had made him famous. Later Durant organized a new company and came back fast. He went back into the stock market and in the great Coolidge Bull campaign from 1924 to 1927 was again a dominant factor in General Motors and other stocks and was reputed to have made fifty millions, or more. The old man said that Durant was one of the very rare exceptions of men who had gone broke in Wall Street and had been able to come back after they were 60 years of age. Told Robert that Wall Street was a place of ups and downs--mostly downs, and that the time to quit was when you were young and had made your money.