President Truman had thundered about the "privileged Wall Street gluttons." The "gluttons" last week looked more like frightened rabbits. As the G.O.P. defeat* became certain early Wednesday, panicky stockholders jammed the wires with orders to brokers to sell. By the time the New York Stock Exchange opened at 10 a.m., sell orders so far exceeded buy orders that initial transactions on many key stocks were delayed for as long as three hours.
When markets were finally made, prices were down anywhere from 2 to 6 points. General Motors, which had closed at 65¾ the day before election, opened Wednesday at...
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