January Jitters

When a strong man is recovering from a long, severe illness he is likely to be something of a hypochondriac, waiting with great eagerness for the slightest symptoms of relapse. Last week U. S. business seemed to be working itself into a similar state. There was much head-wagging over a slowing of the business pace. A December increase in world copper stocks, breaking a year-old trend, was eyed suspiciously. The automobile industry came in for a few black looks (see p. 52). And for the first time in a month, the stockmarket failed to show a net gain for the week.

Wholly ignored was the fact that the stockmarket might profit from a rest, that many a low-priced issue not included in the averages was still rising smartly. Also ignored was a good gain over last year in weekly carloadings, notable of basic goods like lumber (up 31%), coke (up 32%), ore (up 101%). And RFChairman Jesse Jones allowed the private banking house of Kidder, Peabody & Co. to underwrite an $8,718,000 Maine Central R. R. refunding plan instead of doing it himself.

Apparently underlying last week's vague uneasiness were two things: 1) Re-emergence of the Administration's policy as the dominant business news. Agitated were businessmen by the Bonus, the Budget, AAA substitutes, recent flutters in the dollar; the new mysteries of silver, which declined last week to 44 1/4-c- per oz., approximately the price when Silver Purchase Act was signed in 1934; Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau's estimated need for $11,000,000,000 in new and refunding money in the next 17 months; the resignation of T. Jefferson Coolidge as Undersecretary of the Treasury (see p. 15). 2) The stubborn determination of large numbers of businessmen to view an approach to prosperity as something incredible.

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