EDITORnThomas FlemingnMANAGING EDITORnKatherine DaltonnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSnChilton Williamson, ]r.nASSISTANT EDITORnTheodore PappasnCONTRIBUTING EDITORSnJohn W. Aldridge, Harold O.}.nBrown, Samuel Francis, GeorgenGarrett, Russell Kirk, E. ChristiannKopff, Clyde WilsonnCORRESPONDING EDITORSnBryce Christensen, Odie Faulk, ]anenGreer, John Shelton Reed, JosephnSchwartz, Gary VasilashnEDITORIAL SECRETARYnLeann DobbsnEDITORIAL ASSISTANTnMatthew KaufmannPUBLISHERnAllan C. CarlsonnART DIRECTORnAnna Mycek-WodeckinPUBLICATION DIRECTORnGuy ReffettnADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVEnGeorgia L. WolfnCOMPOSITION MANAGERnAnita FedoranCIRCULATION DIRECTORnCarol BennettnA Publication ofnThe Rockford InstitutenEditorial and Advertising Offices: 934 NorthnMain Street, Rockford, IL 6II03.nEditorial Phone: (815) 964-5054.nAdvertising Phone: (815) 964-5811.nSubscription Department: P.O. Box 800, MountnMorris, IL 61054. Call 1-800-435-0715, innIllinois 1-800-892-0753.nU.S.A. Newsstand Distribution by EasternnNews Distributors, Inc., 1130 Cleveland Road,nSandusky, OH 44870.nCopyright © 1989 by The Rockford Institute.nAll rights reserved.nCHRONICLES (ISSN 0887-5731) is publishednmonthly for $21 per year by The RockfordnInstitute, 934 North Main Street, Rockford, ILn61103-7061.nSecond-class postage paid at Rockford, IL andnadditional mailing offices.nPOSTMASTER: Send address changes tonCHRONICLES, P.O. Box 800, Mount Morris,nIL 61054.nThe views expressed in Chronicles are thenauthors’ alone and do not necessarily reflect thenviews of The Rockford Institute or of itsndirectors. Unsolicited manuscripts cannot benreturned unless accompanied by a self-addressednstamped envelope.nChroniclesnA MAGAZINE OF AMERICAN CULTUREnVol. 13, No. 9 September 1989n4/CHRONICLESnOnn’Globalization’nPOLEMICS & EXCHANGESnRegarding my thesis that the 1929 stocknmarket crash was caused by the imminencenof passage of the protectionistnSmoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, WilliamnHawkins (Polemics & Exchanges,nJune 1989) dismisses my findings as thenwork of a mere “journalist, not anneconomist.”nIt was precisely my expertise as anpolitical journalist, not an economist,nthat led me to the facts linking Smoot-nHawley action on the Senate floor innthe last week of October 1929 and thenWall Street crash of that same week.nHad I studied economics in the UnitednStates in the 1950’s, I would have beennforced to learn demand theory, whichnhas been satisfied with the feeblendemand-theory explanations of thencrash. (J.K. Galbraith is hailed byndemand-siders for his circuitous explanationnthat the market crashed becausenspeculators had bid it up too high;nMurray Rothbard and Hawkins prefernthe monetarist argument that the “inflationnof the 1920’s” brought on thenDepression, when in fact there is nonrecord of an inflation in the 1920’s, thengeneral price level being steady as anrock.)nAs associate editor of The WallnStreet Journal in the mid-1970’s, I hadnbeen impressed with the modern-daynsupply-siders — Robert Mundell, thenCanadian, and his protege, ArthurnLafFer — who had been able to forecastnand explain the stagflation of then1970’s far better than the Keynesiansnand monetarists of the demand school.nIn preparing my book. The Way thenWorld Works, I knew I had to find ansupply shock to explain the Crash ofn1929. Classical theory’s supply-sidenanalytical framework had been discreditednin the 1930’s precisely becausenclassicists at the time could not explainnthe market crash. (Lord Keynes beginsnhis 1936 General Theory with a de­nnnnunciation of Say’s Law, the classicalnunderpinning of supply-side theory,nfor this very reason.)nI was frustrated in this endeavornuntil I learned, in a monograph bynGottfried Haberler, that the Smoot-nHawley Tariff Act had been enacted inn1930, not 1931 as I had recollected. Asna journalist, I knew that the samenCongress sitting in 1930 was sitting inn1929, and that it could have made thenkey decisions in the earlier year. Inimmediately went to The New YorknTimes microfilms of 1929 and foundnexacfly that: the US Senate, which hadnbeen widely thought to oppose thentariff legislation as the week opened,nsteadily turned to support of the bill,nwhich had already passed the House innMarch. The chronology fit my hypothesisnprecisely, hour by hour. It has notnbeen challenged in 11 years, except bynhyperbole. Martin Anderson of ThenHoover Institution advised me that theneconomics profession would not recognizenmy discovery for decades, that, asnhe put it, “American economists arenstill trying to explain how Adam Smithncould have written The Wealth ofnNations without possessing an economicsndegree.”nJournalists are required by professionalnstandards to supply evidence tonsupport assertions. Economists all toonoften propound grandiose theories ofnthe way the world works without makingnany attempt to fit their models withnreality. After a spirited discussion of thenJamaican economy at an IMF conferencenin Kingston in 1976, the latenArthur Burns asked me where I hadnstudied economics. When I repliednthat I had never taken a college coursenin economics, Dr. Burns put his handnon my shoulder and said, “My boy,nthat is your advantage.” I believe it wasnand remains so.n— Jude Wanniski, PresidentnPolyconomics, Inc.nMorristown, N]n