No man, however casual and superficial his observation of the
conditions now prevailing in the country, can fail to see that one of
the chief things business needs now, and will need increasingly as it
gains in scope and vigor in the years immediately ahead of us, is the
proper means by which readily to vitalize its credit, corporate and
individual, and its originative brains. What will it profit us to be
free if we are not to have the best and most accessible
instrumentalities of commerce and enterprise? What will it profit us to
be quit of one kind of monopoly if we are to remain in the grip of
another and more effective kind? How are we to gain and keep the
confidence of the business community unless we show that we know how
both to aid and to protect it? What shall we say if we make fresh
enterprise necessary and also make it very difficult by leaving all else
except the tariff just as we found it? The tyrannies of business, big
and little, lie within the field of credit. We know that. Shall we not
act upon the knowledge? Do we not know how to act upon it? If a man
cannot make his assets available at pleasure, his assets of capacity and
character and resource, what satisfaction is it to him to see
opportunity beckoning to him on every hand, when others have the keys of
credit in their pockets and treat them as all but their own private
possession? It is perfectly clear that it is our duty to supply the new
banking and currency system the country needs, and it will need it
immediately more than it has ever needed it before.
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