ABSTRACT
On December 6, 1924, in Mexico City, Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, collapsed from a heart attack. In praising Gompers, John R. Common did not allude to the symbolism of his death. Wisconsin hosted its own paradoxes in the middle 1920s. Richard T. Ely, the champion of labor studies, departed, and without him labor studies did not contract; they expanded. Then, toward the end of the decade, John R. joined the croaking Cassandras, attempting vainly to avoid an impending economic disaster. For his part, John R. was continuously revising his unfinished volume on reasonable value and investigating the business cycle in his values and valuations seminar. John R'.s concern about cyclical stability had motivated his work at the National Monetary Association. And in 1927, he joined the "croaking Cassandras" warning about the dangers of central bank and international financial policies.
