Financial History Issue 112 (Winter 2015) | Page 40
his coat there and returned at the end
of the trading day to talk shop and
trade stories over a single-malt whiskey or a cold beer.”
Quoting Rich Adamonis, the NYSE
senior vice president of corporate communications at the time, Edmonston
continued:
The Club’s board, members and staff,
with the support of Exchange management, have done their utmost in
recent years to maintain the viability of
the Luncheon Club, which has been a
prominent fixture at the Exchange for
more than 100 years. It will be missed.
But perhaps Facchine sums it up best:
“The SELC has a very prominent place in
the history of US capitalism, and I would
suspect it is due to the healthy competition and camaraderie that ran through the
lineage of its members.”
Bart Ward is CEO of the Investment
Advisory firm of Ward & Company, Ltd.
Since 1993 he has written the weekly Wall
Street history and market-oriented column, “The Corner.” He has his degree in
history from UCLA.
Sources:
Cashin, Arthur D. A View of Wall Street from
the Seventh Floor. Greenwich Publishing
Group, Inc. 1999
Edmonston, Peter. “Where Wall Street Meets
to Eat, the Last Lunch.” The New York Times.
April 28, 2006.
Stock Exchange Luncheon Club. “The Stock
Exchange Luncheon Club: Recollections,
1898–2006.” DVD, 2006.
Wheeler, Steven. “A Down-Town Lunch-Room,
1888.” NYSE Exchanges. January 15, 2013.
America on the Bargain Counter
continued from page 15
the New York Stock Exchange topped one
million shares; in 1922, there were 116. In
1922, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
gained 21.5% and the Dow Jones Railroad
Index 15.5%. Passenger car production was
up by 63%, to 1.83 million, and passenger
car registrations were up by 16.2%, to 10.9
million. There was a reciprocal decline in
railroad passenger service of 6.6%. As the
tractor was overtaking the horse, so was
the automobile displacing the passenger
train.
The number of corporations reporting
net income in excess of $100,000 jumped
by 66.3%, to 8,864. Daily newspaper circulation was up by 5% (to 29.8 million);
strong, as well, were newspaper advertising lineage and advertising rates.
There were unmistakable signs of prosperity in the patterns of American migration. In 1922, 309,556 people immigrated
to the United States, which was down by
496,000, or 62%, from 1921, the year of
the restrictive Quota Act. More telling of
the change in economic fortunes was the
drop in emigration: 198,712 persons chose
to leave the United States in 1922, 19.8%
fewer than in 1921.
Nominal wage rates continued to fall in
1922. Average hourly rates in manufacturing industries dropped to 49 cents an hour
from 52 cents an hour in 1921, a decline of
5.8%. The stock market evidently intuited
the fact that, in 1922, productivity leapt
even as wage rates declined. In this year
of recovery, overall manufacturing output
matched the volume of 1920, while total
employment was the lowest since 1915.
The result was a 20% surge in output
per person, the largest ever recorded up
until that time. In fact, nothing in the 20th
century had come close. Business activity
had slumped to one degree or another
in 1904, 1908, 1911 and 1914. Increases in
productivity in the years following those
declensions were, respectively, 9%, 8%,
11% and 8%. The year 1922 stood alone.
What accounts for the power of the
1922 rebound? Fast-paced replenishment
of depleted inventories is one reason. Easier money — lower interest rates brought
about by the influx of gold and the relaxation of Federal Reserve monetary policy — is a second. The very deflation of
1920–21 is a third. For those with money
to spend, the dollar bought more of nearly
everything, from cars to commodities to
common stocks.
“From practically all angles,” judged the
Wall Street Journal in a New Year’s Day
1923 retrospective, “1922 can be recorded
as the renaissance of prosperity.”
38 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Winter 2015 | www.MoAF.org
James Grant is the founder and editor
of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, a
twice-monthly journal of the investment
markets. He is also the author of five
books on finance and financial history.
Thi