Note 59 — Chapter VI · PANICS, AND THE CRISIS OF 1907

The distinction between “panics,” “crises,” and “depressions,” are clearly stated in the opening chapter of “Financial Crises and Periods of Industrial and Commercial Depression,” by Theodore E. Burton, D. Appleton & Co., N. Y., 1902. In the following pages, I use the terms as they are commonly applied in Wall Street, although this application is not always governed by sound etymology. Thus in Wall Street we speak of “the panic of 1907,” meaning broadly the events of that entire year. Strictly speaking a “panic” is the brief period of a day or an hour of unreasoning fear, brought about by the “crisis” of a money scarcity which preceded it. The period of commercial and financial suffering, which continues after the panic and the crisis have passed, is the “depression.”