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Milton Friedman on The Great Depression

The contraction from 1929 to 1933 was by far the most severe business-cycle contraction during the near-century of U.S. history we cover and it may well have been the most severe in the whole of U.S. history.
A Monetary History of the United States
Book, 1963, "The Great Contraction, 1929-1933" (1963), with Anna J. Schwartz
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  1. Another occasion in U.S. history which strikingly illustrates this point is our experience from 1929 to 1933. Without doubt, the most serious mistake in the history of the Reserve System was its mismanagement of monetary matters during those years.
    Should There Be an Independent Monetary Authority?
    Journal article, 1962, In Search of a Monetary Constitution, ed. Leland B. Yeager (Harvard University Press, 1962), pp. 219–243; reprinted in the House Banking and Currency Committee’s 1968 Compendium on Monetary Policy Guidelines and Federal Reserve Structure, pp. 205–214, p. 211 of the 1968 House reprint
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  2. At any rate, simple slogans like “The market will take care of it” or “noninterventionism” do not resolve the hard problems. We may very well agree on the direction we want to go in, but just how we’re going to go there and how far we’re going to go, that’s a much more difficult problem.
    Say 'No' to Intolerance
    Speech, 1991, Liberty, vol. 4, no. 6 (July 1991), p. 20
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  3. The great contraction is tragic testimony to the power of monetary policy—not, as Keynes and so many of his contemporaries believed, evidence of its impotence.
    The Role of Monetary Policy
    Journal article, 1968, American Economic Review 58, no. 1 (March 1968), pp. 1–17; reprinted in the House Banking and Currency Committee’s 1968 Compendium on Monetary Policy Guidelines and Federal Reserve Structure, pp. 214–224, p. 216 of the 1968 House reprint
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