MARKETS: Prewar Suggestion

Such a tidal wave of foreign-owned securities poured into the U. S. market at the outbreak of war in 1914 that the New York Stock Exchange closed its doors, did not reopen for nearly five months. Since then the U. S. has changed from a debtor to creditor nation and its markets are less susceptible to foreign liquidation. Also since 1914 the Government has acquired, in the Federal Reserve and SEC, a degree of financial control far firmer than even the elder J. P. Morgan could mobilize. Thus last week, as official Washington unofficially talked of war within a...