'Capitalism Plus'
[DOS / PC] [UK] [MAGAZINE] [1997]
"J. K. Galbraith, in his classic study of the 1929 Wall Street crash, wrote: 'In the United States, the suicide wave that followed the stock market crash is also part of the legend of 1929. In fact, there were none. For several years before 1929, the suicide rate had been gradually rising. It continued to increase in that year, with a further and much sharper increase in 1930, 1931, and 1932 … The statistics for New Yorkers, who might be assumed to have had a special propensity for self-destruction derived from their special propinquity to the market, show only a slight deviation from those of the country as a whole.' Indeed, the suicide rate in the US was higher in the summer months before the crash when the stock market was prospering. One cause of the myth is that there were some suicides related to the crash, including jumping from windows. For example, two men jumped out of a window in the Ritz. Allegedly, clerks in downtown hotels started asking guests whether they wanted a room for sleeping or jumping. However, few people jumped from windows: jumping from a bridge, dousing oneself in gasoline and lighting, gassing and shooting were all used. The press, though, did not let reality stop them from running lurid stories about huge numbers of suicides." ~Mark Pack, The Guardian
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Source: PC Format, July 1997 (#71) || Internet Archive; olivier1980
