Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Panic of 1907

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 02:43, 16 October 2008 [1].

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Panic of 1907

Nominator(s): JayHenry (talk)

The most interesting, in my opinion, of the panics of the National Banking Era. I believe this meets all the criteria and is particularly timely as well. I look forward to addressing any issues that reviewers feel are outstanding. Special thanks to GA reviewer User:Mattisse who also helped fixing it up to GA status; to User:Protonk and User:Ceoil for extensive and invaluable polishing toward that end; and to User:Robertknyc for checking over so many of the details and helping with the stock data. --JayHenry (talk) 04:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

• Comment From the Aftermath section: "Immigration dropped to 750,000 people in 1909 from 1.2 million people two years earlier." Do Bruner and Carr (don't have the book handy) note this as directly connected to the panic? Also, other elements of the aftermath section seem better explained by the prolonged contraction from Jan-Sep rather than the acute financial panic that is the subject of the article. I'm loathe to change that section without access to the references myself, hence the question. :) Protonk (talk) 06:05, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

  I'll ponder this. Not sure how one would isolate the effects of the contraction, the stock crash and the bank panic. They are all so interrelated. Perhaps the aftermath section should just make that clearer? --JayHenry (talk) 13:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

  I think its fine; its clearly just context. Ceoil ^sláinte 23:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

  I've reworded this a bit. To address the specific question, they note all these points in a couple of paragraphs on the economic fall out in this period of American history. Calomiris finds that panics in this period invariably accompany stock crashes. I'd be reluctant, however, to go too deeply into theories about panics in this article. --JayHenry (talk) 01:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

  Thanks. I gathered that it was meant to be context but figured the wording could have been clearer. Protonk (talk) 03:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Might note that with courtesy links to the JSTOR articles a subscription is required. (Doesn't invalidate the use of the articles as sources, just makes it clear to folks that the links are courtesy links and not everyone will be able to access them). Ealdgyth - Talk 13:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Could you please show me which JSTOR articles we've not done this for? I tried to get them all. --JayHenry (talk) 13:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Click on the "check external links" thingie (don't you love my technical vocabulary?) in the tools box. It'll show you all the links colored in a golden yellow that require some sort of subscription/registration. Very handy little tool, don't forget to thank the coder for it! Ealdgyth - Talk 04:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry Ealdgyth, I don't understand what you're asking. I know which links are JSTOR links and have already tried to signify this. Could you please fix this for me so I can see what you're talking about? I sincerely thought I'd done this correctly. --JayHenry (t) 04:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

YOu got it, you just did it differently than I've ever seen it done ... and if I hadn't had such a sinus headache yesterday, I might have noticed it sooner. You're good! Ealdgyth - Talk 13:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support, as a copy editor, though I hand no hand or part in the content. The article was fully written before i got involved, and I only took interest because it was full of insight and provided me with a clear look into the turmoil of the period. I think the structure is particularly well drafted; its pacy and engaging, the research is above reproach and the sources cleverly used to weaved together a complicated story into an accesable timeline. Ceoil ^sláinte 01:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

  Thank you, dear Brit. I was very much aiming for a nicely paced and engaging article (too bad we almost never talk about pace at FAC), and I'm glad you noticed. --JayHenryc (talk) 01:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

  NB He's not British, but hales from a nearby island. Tony (talk) 11:12, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Good man Tony. Ceoil ^sláinte 13:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Ah... not very good with geography. I looked this up and learned that Ireland is an independent nation of some sort (who knew?) The difference between Scottish and Irish is still very fuzzy for me. Which ones have all the freckles and potatoes? --JayHenry (talk) 14:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

We Irish have the potatoes, them scots (also celts) are blessed with red hair and freckles, god love em. Ceoil ^sláinte 14:45, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

• Pace should of course be factor and Great Fire of London sets the benchmark. Yannis is another who is gifted in this area. Ceoil ^sláinte 10:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support Timely.

• Omg I totally did not look this up, but Jackson got rid of the Second Bank in...1832? Or 1836? Am I close? At any rate, a year should be indicated. How long did the US go without a central bank, and how common were runs up to this point?
• Different tenses? There is no exact measure of when a panic occurred
• The committee issues a scathing report issued?
• I thought it was an interesting read. I did have to check some blue links, not being intimately familiar with some finance terms. I found the article both readable and technical. Short selling, panics, and runs get into some more abstract areas of economics. There were a few places that I thought could benefit by just a bit more help for the average reader unfamiliar with some of these concepts. Otherwise, I enjoyed the article. --Moni3 (talk) 12:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

  Hi Moni! Thanks for the nice words. So, Congress passed, but Jackson vetoed, an extension in 1832, he stopped depositing government money there in 1833, its federal charter expired in 1836 and it actually went out of business in 1841. I went with the 1836 date. Fixed the next two as well. As for your final point... (I was thinking of doing Bear Stearns at some point, but worry about going into collateralized debt obligations, mark-to-market accounting principles and credit default swaps.) If you can point out where specifically the text would benefit from a bit of further explication would help, I can certainly add context to those spots. --JayHenry (talk) 01:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Unsure of the factual, but would this: "The crisis occurred after an attempt by Otto Heinze to corner the market in United Copper failed in October, 1906." be be better as this? "The crisis occurred after the failed attempt by Otto Heinze in October 1906 to corner the market in United Copper." No link for Heinze, so you might consider a phrase telling us that he was ... an industrialist? Was United Copper ", a major US mining company"? Pack too much into the sentence and it becomes unwieldy, but these things are part of the big picture we need to know at the start.
• " With the collapse of New York's third largest trust company"—was that Copper of Knickerbocker? Clearly the latter when you think about it, but you need to explain things more carefully in the lead for non-experts.
• "regional banks" twice in one sentence. Can this be avoided?
• "further" could probably be dropped. Is "pulled" ambiguous/loose? "withdrew"? And by "New York", you mean the state, the city, the stock exchange?
• A lot of folks, particularly non-Americans (but many Americans, too) won't quite know what "anti-trust" means, even though it's linked. I think we're supposed not to rely on links to explain such terms. Again, it might require more wording to get around this, and a consequent split into two sentences.

Antitrust law redirects to Competition law. I think Americans would have no trouble with "antitrust", but perhaps non-Americans are not familiar with laws relating to business competition, and there should be explanations of such concepts for non-American folk. (It only relates peripherally to the article; the various financiers had to go to President Roosevelt to get permission to act in unison, because of the tough antitrust/competition laws which forbade business monopolies or collusion.) Would it be clearer just to remove the concept from the lead, so as not to confuse non-American folk? It could be expanded in the article at the relevant point when the financiers actually go to President Roosevelt for permission. —Mattisse (Talk) 08:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Would "antitrust (competition) law" be OK? Tony (talk) 11:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

• The last clause in the lead is the crux of the whole article, yes? Good.

I haven't read further and will return, but there's enough here to chew off for the moment. I have hopes for this one, and if the nominator didn't have a good track record in fixing, I'd recommend withdrawal and resubmission in a few weeks. See what you can do. Great topic if the troops can understand it. Tony (talk) 04:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• PS "backstop" ... "stopped". Radar beam out for those repetitions. Tony (talk) 04:37, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• • Tony, thanks for those catches. I think the prose throughout the article is actually fairly good, especially on a somewhat technical subject. Myself and several others have given it another once over, and if you spot anything else please point it out, but on the whole I'm actually pretty proud of the prose here. --JayHenry (talk) 02:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Comments on images - There is some work to be done on the images. :)

• Image:Knickerbocker trust company.jpg - The source book needs a name, not just "monograph".

• Image:JP Morgan.jpg - This image needs an original source that demonstrates the photo is from 1903, etc.

• Image:Dow 1904 to 1909.png - The description of this graph needs to include what sources you used for the information.

• Image:Morgan cartoon-1.png - Link to source does not work

• Image:Fed Reserve.JPG - This image lacks a source.

• Image:James J. Stillman.jpg - This image lacks a description, a source, an author, and a date.

I'm reviewing the rest of the article now - I am quite excited to read it! Awadewit (talk) 12:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Fixed all except for Image:Fed Reserve.JPG which wasn't my image, and I couldn't determine the source so I removed. --JayHenry (talk) 14:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Support Oppose for now This is a clearly-written and fascinating article - we have too few economics articles and this is certainly a timely one, so thank you! I have a few concerns regarding images (outlined above) and sources, but I have no doubt these can be cleared up quickly. I found the article's prose to improve dramatically after the lead, for some reason, and then to decline a little again in the "Aftermath" section. I have isolated some sentences from the lead that need improvement:

• Yeah, I hate WP:LEAD. If I could it'd be the first (but nowhere near the last) part of MOS I'd nuke. I'll work on these prose fixes. --JayHenry (talk) 14:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  I can't write a lead to save my life. Awadewit (talk) 14:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

• This quickly spread across the nation, leading to the closures of both state and local banks and businesses. - I'm not sure it is entirely clear what the "this" refers back to.

  Clarified. Ceoil ^sláinte 14:31, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

• The crisis occurred after an attempt by businessman Otto Heinze to corner the market in stock of the United Copper Company failed in October 1906. - This sentence doesn't read right to me.

  Clarified. Ceoil ^sláinte

  I've worked on it a bit - see if it is still correct. Awadewit (talk) 14:49, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Its good. Ceoil ^sláinte 14:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Presumably he had borrowed heavily in his bid and his failure to repay his debts hurt a number of institutions. Jay, can you calrify. Ceoil ^sláinte 14:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

• With the collapse of the Knickerbocker, fear spread throughout the city's trusts as regional banks withdrew deposits from New York City banks, and nationwide as people withdrew their deposits from regional banks. - This sentence should have parallel structure - as it stands fear spreads through trusts and nationwide. Ideally, the sentence should compare two places or two kinds of banks, if you see what I mean.

  Reworded. Ceoil ^sláinte 14:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Parallel structure is still a problem - "city's trusts" is not parallel to "nationwide". Awadewit (talk) 14:51, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  I have no idea at all what Parallel structure means! Can youexplain so I can fix. Ceoil ^sláinte 14:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Parallel structure (incomplete article) means that sentences are supposed to be structured so that nouns and verbs are logically and grammatically organized. In this sentence, two different kinds of nouns are being compared: a kind of banking institution is being compared to a location ("trusts" are being compared to a "nationwide") - the logic of the sentence breaks down. Awadewit (talk) 15:01, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Ahh. I tried to resolve but its a tricky one. Jay might be able for a better stab. Ceoil ^sláinte

• The panic would have deepened if not for the intervention of J.P. Morgan, who convinced other New York bankers to provide a backstop - Is "backstop" a technical term here?

  Its meaning seems obvious to me. Ceoil ^sláinte 14:28, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  To me, it sounds colloquial, but I thought perhaps it was a technical term. If it is a technical term, it should stay, if it is not, it should be replaced by something less slangy. Awadewit (talk) 14:52, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Fair enough; Tony also objected to this. Done. Ceoil ^sláinte 15:02, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  It's also a technical term[2]. I thought it would be clear to lay readers, and also signal to an economist that it's technically correct. I think Tony was just objecting to the use of stopped later in the same sentence. --JayHenry (talk) 15:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  I like the word; if we could pipe it, it could stay. Ceoil ^sláinte 15:16, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Let's pipe it, then. Awadewit (talk) 15:25, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

• Although Morgan lost $21 million in the panic, and the significance of the role he played in staving off worse disaster is undisputed, he became the focus of intense scrutiny and criticism. - This is cited to an opinion piece in the Washington Post - opinion pieces are not fact-checked like news stories. Could we find a reliable source for this claim?

  Um... Awadewit, the national american newspapers like the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, rigorously check the facts in their opinion pieces. Did you think you could write an opinion piece in The Washington Post and say "J. P. Morgan had a trillion dollars and two heads" and the editors would say, "eh, seems unlikely, but it's an opinion!"  :) Anyways, this is part of the Washington Post Outlook section which is lumped together on their web site with opinions, but it's not actually the op-ed page. This is written by Jean Strouse, a J.P. Morgan scholar, the author of "Morgan, American Financier" and director of the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. This source is okay. --JayHenry (talk) 14:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Opinion pieces are not fact-checked like news stories. They are the production of the authors who submit them and printed as such - that is one reason why newspapers print disclaimers regarding them. I saw that this piece was written by someone who has written on J.P. Morgan, but my concern is the oversight of the article. I see nothing to indicate that this is not an opinion piece published for the Post. This description of the "Outlook" section explains that it is a hybrid, but that it is most definitely an "opinion" section. The editors apparently look for "provocative" pieces. None of this is very reassuring to me. So many of the other sources in this article are excellent academic productions which have been peer-reviewed. If the statement supported by this Post article is in none of those academic, peer-reviewed sources, I would be concerned. Awadewit (talk) 14:30, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  "Outlook, the Sunday opinion section, is a hybrid. The front of the section is put out by the news staff." This is page B1 ie the front of the section. There's no requirement that I remove a J.P. Morgan scholar writing about Morgan in the Outlook section of the Washington Post. That passes RS in spades. It's also helpful for people who don't have easy access to a library. --JayHenry (talk) 14:36, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  I would resist anything that is an opinion piece, frankly. Scholars can say in opinion pieces what they cannot say in peer-reviewed books. That is why I am asking for a peer-reviewed source to back up this claim. We are not talking about a claim regarding a current event here. Awadewit (talk) 14:40, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Do you consider citing a single sentence in the article to a JP Morgan scholar writing about JP Morgan in a section produced by the news staff of the Washington Post, in the Sunday Outlook section, to be a dealbreaker in terms of satisfying WP:WIAFA? I do not have access to the claim elsewhere. If you believe this is an actionable objection grounded in the criteria, I will remove. --JayHenry (talk) 15:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  This is an important claim (it is central to the subsection it appears in) and I believe we need to verify it in academic, peer-reviewed sources. Are you saying that none of the other books you read on the panic make this claim? Or, is the problem simply access to sources? I could always go to the library and look through the books listed as references here and try to verify this claim. Awadewit (talk) 15:21, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Wait, why can't we solve this by simply identifying the source of the material? WP, NYT, etc nominally check facts in works of opinion but don't bear an equal responsibility for factual claims made there than they would in the news section. However, the author of the piece is clearly an expert on the subject. Let's just name him and move along. Protonk (talk) 16:50, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

  This has been resolved on the talk page. Awadewit (talk) 20:12, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

• Fettig, David (ed) (1989), "F. Augustus Heinze and the Panic of 1907", The Region (Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis), <http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/89-08/REG898C.cfm> . Retrieved on September 14, 2008 - I am not sure that this source is cited correctly. At the bottom of the webpage, it sort of looks like this is an excerpt from another book. "Copper King at War," published in 1968 by the University of Montana Press and currently out of print, is based on McNelis' master's thesis completed in 1947. Among her many sources for her thesis was a 72-page collection of correspondence she had with Otto Heinze, F. Augustus' brother, between 1943 and 1947. That collection remains in the author's possession." - This suggests to me that the piece is taken from the book - what do you think?

  I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Fettig is clearly reviewing McNelis' book. --JayHenry (talk) 14:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  Oh, sorry - I got turned around. What I meant to ask was why we are citing the book review rather than the book itself for the claim that "Some analysts believed that the panic had been engineered, either to punish Heinze or as part of an elaborate plot for U.S. Steel to acquire TC&I, or to damage confidence in trust companies so that banks would benefit". Awadewit (talk) 14:37, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  The answer is that I do not have access to this out-of-print 1968 biography of a copper magnate. I will be happy to add additional sources about the general conspiracy theory type claims, however. --JayHenry (talk) 15:14, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  My library has it, so I will be happy to add the additional reference. Awadewit (talk) 15:23, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

  I have done this. Awadewit (talk) 16:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I have no doubt that the editors can meet my concerns during this FAC and that I will be able to support soon. Awadewit (talk) 13:53, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Awadewit, rather than meeting you point by point; it might be better if you revisit in a few days, after the prose and sourcing issues you have raised have been combed over. And many thanks for your time. Ceoil ^sláinte 15:25, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

That would be best, yes. Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 15:27, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Please leave a note on my talk page letting me know when to reread - thanks! Awadewit (talk) 00:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

My concerns have been met and I am happy to support this article. Awadewit (talk) 16:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support - I have been a fan of this article from the beginning as it makes for fascinating reading. I especially enjoy the editor's concise style that engages the reader and gives a punch at the end. It is a wonderfully written story. (I'm sure that whatever sourcing concerns exist, as expressed above, will be remedied.) It is a great slice of American history, not unknown, but extremely well presented here. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
• Support - This is an extremely well done article. I went through expecting to be able to "fix" a few things in an effort to be helpful but only found one minor prose issue that I edited myself. This article clearly meets all FA criteria and should be featured. NancyHeise ^talk 02:31, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
• Comment No ref for Kindleberger? Oh, it's missing the second author in the cite... Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 03:22, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

  Good catch. Fixed. And great book if you're interested in panics in general, although not a lot of specifics in that book on 1907. --JayHenry (talk) 03:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support I'm in. Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 06:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.