quotes from the Depression Era:

"We will not have any more crashes in our time." - John Maynard Keynes, 1927

"There will be no interruption of our permanent prosperity." - Myron E. Forbes, President, Pierce Arrow Motor Car Co., January 12, 1928

"There is no cause to worry. The high tide of prosperity will continue." - Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, September 1929

"Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." - Irving Fisher, Ph.D. in economics, Oct. 17, 1929

"Secretary Lamont and officials of the Commerce Department today denied rumors that a severe depression in business and industrial activity was impending, which had been based on a mistaken interpretation of a review of industrial and credit conditions issued earlier in the day by the Federal Reserve Board." - New York Times, October 14, 1929

"This crash is not going to have much effect on business." - Arthur Reynolds, Chairman of Continental Illinois Bank of Chicago, October 24, 1929

"...despite its severity, we believe that the slump in stock prices will prove an intermediate movement and not the precursor of a business depression..." - Harvard Economic Society (HES), November 2, 1929

"The Government's business is in sound condition." - Andrew W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury, December 5, 1929

"President Hoover predicted today that the worst effect of the crash upon unemployment will have been passed during the next sixty days." - Washington Dispatch, March 8, 1930

"The spring of 1930 marks the end of a period of grave concern... American business is steadily coming back to a normal level of prosperity." - Julius Barnes, head of Hoover's National Business Survey Conference, Mar 16, 1930

"While the crash only took place six months ago, I am convinced we have now passed the worst and with continued unity of effort we shall rapidly recover. There is one certainty of the future of a people of the resources, intelligence and character of the people of the United States - that is, prosperity." - President Hoover, May 1, 1930

"The worst is over without a doubt." - James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor, June 29, 1930

Gentleman, you have come sixty days too late. The depression is over." - Herbert Hoover, responding to a delegation requesting a public works program to help speed the recovery, June 1930

"I see no reason why 1931 should not be an extremely good year." - Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., General Motors Co, November 1930

"All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed... and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S." - President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933

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