The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 #262872

The World crisis of 1914 forced upon us an object lesson on the question of speculative exchanges in general which ought to be of lasting profit. For years agitators had been hard at work all over the country urging the suppression of the Cotton Exchanges, and claiming that they contained gamblers who depressed the price of the cotton growers' product. In the summer of 1914 the dreams of these agitators were realized. The Cotton Exchanges were all closed and the cotton grower was given an opportunity of testing the benefits of a situation where there was no reliable agency to appraise the value of cotton. The result may be summed up in the statement that the reopening of the Cotton Exchanges met with no opposition. A similar object lesson was furnished in the case of the Stock Exchanges. They were all closed, and for a few weeks some profound thinkers in the radical press stated that the country was showing its ability to dis pense with them. When the time for their reopening came, however, there was no agitation to prevent it. On the contrary it was hailed as a sign of the resumption of normal financial conditions in the United States.