OUTLINE OF BILL
Uncle Sam: For nearly four months, for this is our fifteenth night, we have been studying the principles of economics and the practices of banking, and we have gone over with the greatest care the experiences of American banking institutions from the beginning.
No body of men could have been more faithful in attendance, nor more sincere in their desire to know the facts, and understand the fundamental principles as they are; nor more determined to get to the bottom of things; nor more ready to yield, and renounce even hoary-headed fallacies when it was demonstrated that you were wrong, than you have been.
All of you seem to have possessed that high moral courage essential to the progress of the world, ready acknowledgment of error, even though the confession bore heavily upon the stability of your opinions. You seem to have utterly forgotten, if you ever possessed it, that false sense of courage that ever impels us to deny that we are wrong, however apparent our error may be. You have pursued the only course that leads on to progress. Your inquiries have always been: What are the facts? What are the principles involved? What does experience show? What is it wise to do under the circumstances? What principles, practices and methods will give us the very best financial and banking system in the world?
Mr. Merchant: Uncle Sam, if our work under your tutelage has inspired you with the belief that our aims and purposes have been unselfish and patriotic, as you have just intimated, the measure of our achievement will be limited only by our capacity for the great task in hand. Certainly without unselfish devotion, and a sincere desire to do patriotic service, however great our abilities, our work should, and would in the long run, be a failure; even though it might upon the surface seem to be suited to the ends sought, because ulterior motives and selfish purposes, like murder would soon out.
Mr. Banker: It's a source of satisfaction to me to have had a part in this work so far and I shall be content if the public will only accord us their confidence in our good faith, and afterwards show their interest in the public welfare by the same persistent study of this question that we have given it.
Two things are perfectly clear to my mind. First, this question will never be settled upon right principles until the public takes it up in earnest, and discusses it to a finish, as they did the gold standard in 1896. Congress will never legislate upon this question broadly as they should, until they are convinced that the people are practically agreed and are behind some well established principles and at least approve the outline of some well considered plan for a financial and banking system for this country.
Mr. Manufacturer: I believe that is literally true, with the exception that if all of us business men and farmers sit idly down until we have another panic, then the men who have been behind Nelson W. Aldrich will take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the conflagration of credit and like the looters, human ghouls, jackals and hyenas that robbed the dead and dying, after the San Francisco fire, will rush in, and, before the public are aware of it, will put something over, probably the same old scheme, concocted in behalf of the special interests of this country, fooling the people by changing its name, and having it introduced by some innocent member of Congress from an out of the way place, and under unsuspected auspices. Such a possibility makes it our duty to present in concrete form the result of our study.