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A momentary hero during the break was John Davison Rockefeller, who said he and his son had been buying stocks. When prices continued to go down so did Rockefeller's glory. But when last week Standard Oil of New Jersey was selling at 50¾, the market was electrified by an order to buy 1,000,000 shares at $50 and Rockefeller became a permanent hero.
Wags. Wall Street has long had its own private store of wisecracks, but not until this year did stockmarket gags glut the revues and become current at U. S. dinner tables. Upon a tense, avid public, the market break released a flood of cracks, good & bad, new & old, clean & smutty. Foreign visitors, expecting a glum, panic-stricken people, were amazed to find a new joke for each new catastrophe. Among cracks more or less good, new, clean:
Actor Eddie (Whoopee) Cantor confessed that when he had heard of Mr. Rosenwald's offer to protect his employes' accounts, he had wired for a job as office boy. The confession was in Caught Short, humorous story of his market troubles.
From the Ritz jumped two men hand-in-hand. They had held a joint account.
Room clerks at Manhattan hotels asked each new arrival whether he wanted a room for sleeping or for jumping.
Sages. Many were the self-proclaimed sages who declared they had predicted the break. But outstanding Wise Man was Roger W. Babson who, after a record of much unsuccessful seering, publicly forecast the decline, although instead of his break of "60-80 points," the industrial average dropped 183 (according to Prof. Irving Fisher's index of 50 most active industrials). Quickly capitalized was Seer Babson's accuracy, as were Wag Cantor's losses. Newsstands displayed for $3 a pamphlet giving Babsonic market recommendations. A long silent sage, John Moody, late last week predicted the break was over, that 1930 would provide a slow rising market with small volume, easy money. A broken sage was Charles Amos Dice, famed market student, who early in October published New Levels in the Stock Market, showing prices would fluctuate around the then current prices, never dropping below the Dow Jones average of 300.
Winners & Losers. From a mass of rumors, little could be definitely learned about the course of individual fortunes. Paper losses of such stockholders as George Fisher Baker and Andrew William Mellon were estimated. On the other hand it was known that the State of New York had profited from the heavy transactions. A tax of 2¢ a share on no par stock and 2¢ per $100 of value on par stock, netted New York $4,884,427 in October. Thus can the state build better roads, broader bridges to bear the increasing traffic of U. S. prosperity.
Generally suspected to be a heavy loser was the Vatican, known to be an investor in U. S. securities. First Vatican sales were said to have been made early in the break, the rest at sacrifice prices. Plans for the establishment of a Papal bank were temporarily abandoned.