Mr. Groesbeck then moved that the delivery of
securities be suspended until further notice, and, this being carried
unanimously, made a third motion that a special Committee consisting
of four members of the Governing Committee and the President be
appointed to consider all questions relating to the suspension of
deliveries and report to the Governing Committee at the earliest
possible moment. The third motion, like the second was carried
unanimously and the Committee adjourned. It was then four minutes of
ten. On the instant that the first motion closing the Exchange was
passed, word was sent to the ticker operators to publish the news on
the tape. In this way the seething crowd of anxious brokers on the
floor got word of the decision before ten o'clock struck. Immediately
upon the adjournment of the Committee Mr. George W. Ely the Secretary
of the Exchange ascended the Chairman's desk in the board room and
made the formal announcement, which was greeted with cheers of
approbation. The President promptly appointed Messrs. H. K. Pomroy,
Ernest Groesbeck, Donald G. Geddes, and Samuel F. Streit to
constitute, with himself, the Committee of Five, and the long suspense
and anxiety of four months and a half began.

These events, which were crowded into a few feverish hours, and which
seemed to those who participated in them more like a nightmare than
like a reality, present some aspects that are especially worthy of
detailed description. It is noticeable that the vote to close the
Exchange was not unanimous. This shows the immense complexity of a
situation, which, even at the last moment, left some two or three
conscientious men undecided. It is a fact of profound importance, and
one that never should be forgotten by stock brokers or by the public,
that the Exchange closed itself on its own responsibility and without
either assistance or compulsion from any outside influence. Many false
assertions by professional enemies of the institution have been made
to the effect that the banks forced the closing, or that its members
were unwillingly coerced by outside pressure. The facts are that the
influential part of the membership, the heads of the big commission
houses, made up their minds on the evening of July 30th that closing
was imperative, and that on the morning of July 31st their
representatives in the Governing Committee took the responsibility
into their own hands, the bankers having been unable as yet to reach a
conclu