The Panic of 1907, 2nd Edition

Chapter 11A Classic Run

The worst and most dangerous feature in the view of Wall Street was the alarm among the public.

—Wall Street Journal, October 23, 1907

On Tuesday morning, October 22, the mid‐autumn weather in New York City was fair and mild.¹ That was fortunate, since there was already an eddying crowd outside the Knickerbocker Trust Company’s great bronze doors at Fifth Avenue and 34th Street by 9 a.m. Altogether about 100 people, mostly small shopkeepers, mechanics, and clerks, waited patiently on the sidewalk to reclaim their deposits. Even when the firm opened at its regular time an hour later, everything remained orderly and there were no violent scenes, tears, or frantic handwringing. Men stood in one primary line, while women stepped into a separate room to the left of the bank’s main entrance. Within 15 minutes, the line extended out the doors and down the steps to the sidewalk, as company officers and policemen marshaled the growing crowd into formation.²

Inside the building, clerks behind the Knickerbocker’s ornate bronze gratings were paying off depositors as fast as they could compute interest and stamp vouchers. “Stacks of green currency, bound into thousand dollar lots, were piled on the counters beside the tellers,” the Washington Post reported. “One by one these stacks were broached and they dwindled rapidly. Clerks went to the vaults from time to time with arms full of notes, piled up like bundles of kindling wood.”³ As the morning wore on, many more ...