The New Era

At this point the little guys took a beating. Unable to pay cash for margin calls, the small investors were sold out by their brokers, leaving these erstwhile tycoons with no stock and a bill from their broker for the original loan.

Certainly there were still buyers in the market -- speculators looking for good deals. The bottom of a falling market is unknown until after the last thud. So the game went on.

The beginning of the end came on Monday, October 21, 1929, when fear left the saddle and panic began a ride never to be forgotten. It was the first of many days to come when the stock ticker fell behind as it staggered under the volume of sell orders. "Knowing that prices were falling, but not knowing by how much, produced great fear and led many to sell quickly, before prices dipped further," wrote historian Robert S. McElvaine. "Such sales, of course, added to the price declines."

Two days latter, on October 23, just an hour before the closing bell, a free fall in market prices began that would explode the next day into what became known as "Black Thursday." Many brokers and clerks spent Wednesday night and early Thursday trying to catch up with the incredible volume of sales. These bleary-eyed men went to their posts the following morning without sleep and without hope. The opening bell sounded and a tidal wave of sell orders roared across the exchange floor. Blue chip stocks like U.S. Steel and AT&T lost five to ten points in between sales. By noon the ticker fell behind by close to an hour and selling went on without any idea of the actual price. Some stocks failed to find buyers at any price. All of this happened not only at the stock exchange, but also throughout the country and the world. Telephone lines were overloaded, and Wetern Union broke its single day record for cables.

At 1:30 p.m., amidst the frantic calls to "sell, sell, sell at any price," Richard Whitney, vice-president of the New York Stock Exchange and floor broker of J.P. Morgan and Company, walked onto the stock exchange floor. Silence descended over the crowd. Everyone expected Vice-President Whitney to announce an early closing for the market; instead, as representative of of the House of Morgan, he asked for the latest bid on U.S. Steel. "One ninety-five," someone shouted. Whitney promptly announced he was buying

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