Current Situation

More often than has been the case for many years, Wall Street, which is supposed to be something of a "barometer" for the course of trade and industry, has been asking: "Where do we go from here?"

The decline in the stockmarket, while due to professional causes, has occasioned many second thoughts in the financial district, and the tendency is to take a not too rosy view of the business outlook. This may be due to the old habit of letting the stock ticker regulate one's optimism, or it may be rather more fundamental than that.

The hysterical exhibition of peanut politics in Washington has unquestionably contributed its thunderhead to the previously clear horizon. A group of radicals are dictating the tax measures of the country, and the Mellon Bill has seemingly been sidetracked. Senators and Congressmen are vastly interested in "putting themselves on record" and in putting their opponents in a hole. After Easter, Presidential politics will probably inject an even greater element of uncertainty into the business situation.