that it would be wise to take
it that afternoon, and it was agreed to await the events of the
following day. Meanwhile, several members of the Governing Committee
of the Exchange had become convinced that closing was inevitable and,
in opposition to the opinion of the bankers, urged that immediate
steps be taken to bring it about. It may seem strange to people
outside of Wall Street that the night before the Exchange closed such
apparent indecision and difference of opinion existed. It was,
however, a perfectly natural outcome of an unprecedented situation.
The crisis had developed so suddenly, and the conditions were so
utterly without historic parallel, that the best informed men found
themselves at a loss for guidance.

During the evening of July 30th the conviction that closing was
imperative spread with great speed among the large brokerage firms. Up
to a late hour of the night the President of the Exchange was the
recipient of many messages and telegrams from houses not only in New
York, but all over the country, urging immediate action. The paralysis
of the world's Stock Exchanges had meanwhile become general. The
Bourses at Montreal, Toronto and Madrid had closed on July 28th; those
at Vienna, Budapest, Brussels, Antwerp, Berlin, and Rome on July 29th;
St. Petersburg and all South American countries on July 30th, and on
this same day the Paris Bourse was likewise forced to suspend
dealings, first on the Coulisse and then on the Bourse itself. On
Friday morning, July 31st, the London Stock Exchange officially
closed, so that the resumption of business on that morning would have
made New York the only market in which a world panic could vent
itself.

The Governing Committee of the Exchange were called to meet at nine
o'clock (the earliest hour at which they could all be reached, for it
was summer and many were out of town) and at that hour they assembled
in the Secretary's office ready to consider what action should be
taken. In addition to the Committee many members of prominent firms
appeared in the room to report that orders to sell stocks at ruinous
prices were pouring in upon them from all over the world and that
security holders throughout the country were in a state of panic. It
would be hopeless to try to describe the nervous tension and
excitement of the group of perhaps fifty men who consulted together
under the oppressive consciousness that within forty-five minutes (it
was then a quarter past nine)