Evening star., 1938-04-03
BY HERBERT M. BRATTER.

| by HEhbEhl M. bkAIIER.
TINE stock market continues to fall
| down, 60 boom" Behind the
downward spiral of the ticker tape
| is more than just gamblers losses,
more, too, than shrinking dividends of
widows and the lost savings of young in
| vestors. Behind that downward curling
ribbon of stock symbols is the story of a
| Nations disappointment of over IL 600. 900
people willing but unable to find work in
| private employment. of five years and bill
| lions OF dollars of pump printing and
| at the end depression Made in America"
| Are We too pessimistic as Ambassador Ken
| nedy seems now to think? Or are we too
| optimistic in our efforts to recover that
| which is perhaps unrecoverable: The sup
| posedly normal good old days? country
accustomed to century and a half of
| growth comes to take improvement for
| granted.
Consider the action of some of the best
| known stocks on the big board" during
the current depression. United States Steel,
| which reached high price of sl26ia per
| share early in 1887. in March, 1885, sold
| for $38. General Motors. whose shares in
early 1887 sold at above $40, in March.
1898. brought s25l2. Baltimore & Ohio
| Railroad common stock, which scared to
| $l45 8 in 1929. dipped to $50. before
Roosevelt" and recovered to s40la in the
| spring of 1887, is now down to 81 per
| share. Under the circumstances how
would you like to invest your savings in one
| of these favorites?
OF course, these are just examples picked
at random. So, instead, take the aver
ages" computed by Standard Statistics Co.,
on the basis of 42O stocks. From a level
OF "l2912" year ago. stocks have de-
| clined to about ut" This is the average
behavior of all stocks Public utility stocks
have dropped within the year from los" to
only "68.' And look what has happened
| to the rails as a group-"6412" in March,
| 1887. and as low as "24l2" in March, 1888
| or shrinkage of over So per cent!
Much Money Idle.
These statistics may be alarming inter-
esting or boring. depending upon your in
terest in investments. Although you may
be only salaried worker or a mere wage
Garner the statistics concern you because
they are reflection of what investors
think lies ahead for all Of us. The stock
market is supposed to register what the
informed people think, not of the past or
the present. but of future earning oppor-
tunities. If the future is as black for in
vestmentS as investors now think, we may
well wonder what is happening to capital
ism here
In the early 1905 when the stock market
was debating like punctured Zeppelin,
some people said: TT is simply the shrink
age OF purchasing power. People are spend
ing their money to lquidate old debts
They haven't the cash to buy stocks. The
great debt burden" is absorbing every
ones financial resources" Without at
tempting here to analyze the stock market
collapse of 1929-32, it is interesting to
observe that in 1888 there is far more
money living around in the banks than in
any previous period in our history. People
may no longer hoard gold, but they have
confidence in bank deposits insured
through the F. D. l. C.. So potential in
vestors are cautiously boarding bank de-
posits.
This is one reason why stock market
averages are back to the level of mid-1933,
while rails and utilities are we'll below
their average levels in 1882. So far as in
vestment profits are concerned, the New
Deal recovery thus far has been flop.
Meanwhile, about 100000 people are
growing so accustomed to getting their
sustenance from the Federal and State
governments recovery and relief programs
that many of them will probably never be
able to adjust their outlook to any other
way of life. This is portentous.
Other Economic Indexes.
The business setback is not to be meas
ured merely by stock market quotations.
Economists favor other indexes such as the
physical volume of goods produced in mine
and factory, pay rolls, the number of