The Great Depression

The Great Depression by Benjamin Roth, James Ledbetter, Daniel B. Roth Page A

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Authors: Benjamin Roth, James Ledbetter, Daniel B. Roth
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Several efforts are being made to care for the needy this winter which is expected to be severe:
    1. The Community Chest will have an extra drive for funds.
    2. The city will issue bonds.
    3. All churches are acting as collectors of food, clothing, etc.
     
    Farm prices are steadily going down. Peaches, apples and plums are selling at 50¢ a bushel.
     
    Banks are absolutely terrible in their insistence on payments on notes and mortgages. It is the old story of lending you an umbrella when the sun is shining and then demanding it back when it rains. If a depositor asks for his money he is regarded with suspicion—sometimes he is sent to one of the officials who wants to know why he wants the money—if they think he is hoarding it they try to shame him out of a withdrawal and only if he becomes unpleasant and insistent does he get his money. It is a good time not to owe money to a bank and many businesses are being ruined because the banks insist on liquidating their loans. Some businesses owe the banks so much money that the banks are afraid to press them too far for fear they will go into bankruptcy and thus avoid the whole loan.
     

SEPTEMBER 8, 1931
     
    The 2nd National Bank of Youngstown is today absorbed by the Mahoning Bank. Popular gossip says this was done to avoid another bank failure.
     
    Reform and dissatisfaction are in the air everywhere. People who are ordinarily moderate predict freely that if things do not get better very soon we will have a revolution in the U.S.A. and some form of Communism or dictatorship. Judge David Jenkins predicted this definitely last week in a talk before the Kiwanis Club.
     
    The N.Y. Times reported yesterday that numerous small real estate bond companies have been formed in the past year to buy up defaulted real estate bonds. There is no open or active bond market and the owner has no way of knowing what they are worth. An unscrupulous buyer can get them at 20 or 30¢ on the dollar even tho they may be worth par. Most of the large real estate bond houses which sold these bonds have gone broke. Lawyers in large cities like New York and Chicago are reaping a harvest in foreclosures and receivership involving large office buildings and apartments which were erected in the years of frenzied finance.
     

SEPTEMBER 9, 1931
     
    The Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. at a directors meeting decides to omit the quarterly dividend. The stock is now selling at $35 per share. This is lower than in the 1921 depression when it sold at 45. U.S. Steel is at 80 as compared to 70 in 1921. Railroads are all down to the 1921 levels—Penn at 34, NYC 64. It still seems to me that blue chip stocks such as AT&T at 165, Consolidated Gas at 90 and G.E. at 40 must come way down before it can be said that the market has been fully deflated.
     
    I am getting weary of depression talk and patent remedies. You hear it on all sides. The favorite remedy is repeal of Prohibition and the bringing back of liquor in the hope that a new industry will give employment and that real estate values will be stimulated. Then there is a great deal of talk about socialism and Communism and revolution. It all seems silly to me. Everything will work itself out without these radical changes. The depression has loosed all the radical thinkers who call themselves “liberals.” The true liberal and conservative has been silenced and is in disgrace.
     
 
    8/29/36
     
    This guess was pretty accurate. In summer of 1932 these stocks were selling as follows: Sheet & Tube at 6; U.S. Steel at 17; Penn R.R. 5; N.Y.C. 8; AT&T 70; Consol Gas 15; GE 10.
     
    Liquor became legal in 1933 but failed to help recovery. It stimulated the imbibers but not general businesses. Today we have 2 or 3 beer parlor lunchrooms in every block.
     
 
     

SEPTEMBER 10, 1931
     
    An item in the financial column today states that the Payne Whitney estate increased $59 million in value during the 1929 boom. It consisted entirely of high grade stocks. Even tho

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