Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-28
BY MARK SULLIVAN.

the spirit of composing one OF
those year-end annalS-Sumn1a-
ries of the old year and forecasts
of the new-which many writers
and other authorities will contribute tc
nearly all the newspapers and period
icals during the coming week. It &C.
Cured to me, as partial preparation
to look back through old newspaper files
for the similar summaries and forecasts
In past periods of business depression
the depression of the early 1905, the
panic of 1907 and its sequel, the bust
ness phenomena that followed the be-
ginning of the Great War in 1915, and
the defiation depression of 1920 and
1921.
knew what I should find, and ]
found it-a spirit of somber gloom on
the New Year day when the depression
was acute-followed Tin most cases. by
normal cheerfulness, or even elation, on
the New Year day of year later.
For example, on January 1, 1908 (fol-
sowing the panic year 1000, the year.
end commentators emitted clouds OF
sadness. One New York newspaper said
on January /, 1908, that the year just
ended was the worst for the railroads
in all their history. The condition of
business depression was accompanied
(then as now, and always by express
sions Of social and political unrest. An
article In the New York Times of jan
uary s, 1908, gave conspicuous head.
line to The Country's Wealth-Is 80
Per Cent of 1t in the Hands of Per
Cent Of the People?"
POssessors of Wealth.
(ThiS particular type of expression of
discomfort, or the condition that causes
1t, must have abated much during the
% years that have elapsed; the current
form of the same question has changed
the ratio, and now asks: rs 80 per cent
Of the country's wealth in the hands of
10 per cent ofethe people?")
The only cheerfulness that appeared
In the year summaries on January
/, 1908, and nearby days, was artificial,
forced. There were, as now. attempts at
artificial respirations for the sick pa
tent in the shape of reaSSuring plati-
tudes from persons highly placed in the
business and political world The then
Secretary of the Treasury, Leslie M.
Shaw of Iowa Che still lives, at the age
of 81; one may see him any day at the
Wardman Park Hotel in Washington &,
was solicited during the year by the
newspapers of the day to cheer the coun-
try by remarking, There is no occasion
for alarm"
One of the utterances from distin-
guished men that speckled the news
papers with synthetic cheerfulness at
the end of 1907 came from an excep-
tionally solid man, and he expressed a
chara cteristically solid sentiment. Jacob
H Schiff, mighty man of finance in
the first decade of this century, asso-
ciated with the firm of Kuhn, Loeb &,
Co, uttered in the New York World for
December 20, 1907, two months after
q
might safely be duplicated as guidance
for today:
Strength In Experience.
with the period of quietness through
which we are to pass for some time"
said MIR. Schiff, I'VE shall emerge be-
fore long stronger and better equipped
than ever before"
Were Mr. Schiff alive today, I sus-
pect he might duplicate for 1881 his
forecast for 1908, saying that we are
about to pass through period of quiet,
from which I'VE shall emerge before
long stronger and better equipped than
ever before.")
Just as Mr.. Schiff foretold at the
CLOSE Of 1907. so did it turn out. One
year later, January !, 1909 the New
York Tribune welcomed the New Year
in the familiar figure of an infant, with
. headline that said:
Prosperity greets a shivering infant
and recited that the dining rooms of
the big hotels indicated clearly the re-
turn Of prosperity. . In the fine year
of 1908, recovery from the panic of 1907
made rapid progress -
BY year later yet, as New Year
day Of 1910 approached, the country
was preoccupied not with depression
but with the opposite of depression;
high prices we're so much in the public
mind that the New York World pub
Ished a symposium from eminent au-
thoritieS about the rising prices Of
everything, and the causes thereof
All of which two-year cycle Of de-
preston followed by recovery, from
January /, 1907, to January l, 1909,
can be summed up by glance at the
price Of the common stock of the
United States Steel Corporation on
three successive year-beginnings. In
the year of depression, 1907, the price
was almost exactly cut in half; during
the succeeding year Of recovery, 1908,
1t more than doubled again: