Benjamin Roth's chilling chronicle of hard times.

 Benjamin Roth was born in New York City in 1894 and moved shortly thereafter to Youngstown, Ohio. He received a law degree and moved back to Youngstown after serving as an Army officer during World War I. When the stock market crashed in 1929, he had been practicing law for approximately 10 years, largely representing local businesses. After nearly two years, he began to grasp the magnitude of what had happened to American economic life, and in June 1931, he began writing down his impressions in a diary that he maintained intermittently until he died in 1978. His perceptions and experiences have a chilling similarity to our own era, and The Big Money believes that Roth's words—though they are 75 years old—have much to teach us today. We'll be serializing several excerpts.

This is the fifth installment. For more, click on the first, second, third, and fourth parts.

Aug. 22, 1931. A good plan for next five years would be to save and invest cautiously and plan to have funds in liquid form when the next crash comes. Our wash-woman said yesterday was the first day's work she has had in three months—her price is $2 instead of $3, and she is willing to work for almost anything she can get.

Sept. 2, 1931. As nearly as I can make out from a study of past panics, the cycle of business is always moving down toward a panic or up toward a boom. It rarely for long travels in a straight line. At the present time we are clearly moving down, and the turn has not yet come. In the making of investments it would also seem wise to wait for some sign of the upturn before jumping in. It is impossible to hit the exact turn but as long as things are still definitely on the down grade there would seem to be no hurry. When the final upturn does come it seems to me it will continue up for eight or 10 years and culminate in a boom and a crash.

The wise investor will disregard the day-by-day fluctuations of the stock market or real estate market and base his buying and selling on these long periods of rise and fall. Above all ... he must have liquid capital in time of depression to buy the bargains and then he must sell before the next crash. It is difficult if not impossible to do this, but the conservative long term investor who follows the general rule of buying stocks when they are selling for below their intrinsic value and nobody wants them, and of selling his stocks when people are bidding frantically for them at prices far above their intrinsic value—such an investor will pretty nearly hit the bull's-eye.

Sept. 4, 1931. The Allied Council broke all records the other day by handling 1150 calls for relief in one day. There is no accurate record of how many people are on relief in Youngstown today but it is estimated at about 30,000—almost 20 percent of the population. Several efforts are being made to care for the needy this winter, which is expected to be severe: