The corrective action was not forthcoming, however. According to some authors, this was in large part because of the influence of Benjamin Strong, long-time Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and America’s pre-eminent central banker of that era.
Strong resisted attempts to aim monetary policy at the stock market, arguing that raising interest rates sufficiently to slow the market would have 13 highly adverse effects on the rest of the economy. “Some of our critics damn us vigorously and constantly for not tackling stock speculations,” Strong wrote about the debate.