John D.'s $25,000,000

At a crisis point in the 1929 stock-market panic, the late great John D. Rockefeller Sr., then 90, issued a calm statement from his home at Pocantico Hills on the Hudson: "My son and I are buying sound common stocks." Some Wall Street cynics thought his real interest in the plunging market was to cover up a big short position, but John D.'s millions induced buying confidence that stemmed the terrible tide for one day. Last week the tickers clicked out a statement that sounded like old John D. talking backwards: his son was selling $25,000,000 worth of oil stocks to buy war bonds.

Again for one day the Rockefeller millions swayed the uninitiated: led by the oils, the market nosedived. Then Dillon, Reed & Co., underwriters of a special offering of the big block of shares, made an abrupt, unembroidered announcement that the deal was off "indefinitely." Their only reason: "Mr. Rockefeller is out of town." By week's end, though the averages were back where they started, Wall Street wise guys were still guessing the reasons for the on-again-off-again news. Main guesses :

> Cynics were sure that the bonds to be bought were not war bonds but tax-anticipation notes, against the day when the Rockefeller estate must pay for the death of John D., now 69.

> They also reasoned that the drop in the market might have scared the Rockefellers--and their underwriters--away from carrying through so large an offering.

> Others suspected that SEC had shown interest in the deal, on which, apparently, it had not been consulted in advance.

Whatever the facts, one thing was certain: the original move was economically illiterate. If Mr. Rockefeller sells stock to buy Government bonds, a lot of other potential bond-buyers would be using their own capital or income to buy his stock. To the extent that the new stockholders might otherwise have bought bonds instead, the U.S. Government would exchange hundreds of small bondholders for one big one, while the fight against inflation would, if anything, suffer a setback.

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