“Somebody ought to run it,” said Galt.
“Is it your ambition to run it?”
“It is my idea,” said Galt, “that the financial institutions of the country,—I mean the insurance companies and the banks,—instead of lending themselves out of funds in times of high prosperity ought then to build up great reserves of capital to be loaned out in hard times. That would keep people from going crazy with prosperity at one time and committing suicide at another time. But they won’t do it by themselves. Somebody has to see to it,—somebody who knows not only how not to spend money when everybody is wild to buy, but how to spend it courageously when there is a surplus of things that nobody else wants. Every financial institution that I have anything to do with will be governed by that idea, and the Great Midwestern properties, while I run them, will decrease their capital expenditures as prices rise and increase them as prices fall. When we show them the whole trick and how it pays everybody will do it. We won’t have any more depressions and Coxey’s armies. We won’t have any more unemployment. In a country like this unemployment is economic lunacy.”
The hearing continued for three days. The newspapers printed almost nothing else on their first three pages. Galt’s testimony produced everywhere a monumental effect. Public opinion went over by a somersault.
He denied nothing. He admitted everything. He was invincible because he believed in himself.
“Mr. Galt,” said Goldfuss, rising, “that will be all. You are the most remarkable witness I have ever examined.”
They shook hands all around.
iii
As we were going down the Capitol steps Galt stumbled and clutched my arm. The sustaining excitement was at an end and the reaction was sudden. Solicitude made him peevish. He insisted irritably, and we went on walking, though it was above his strength. When we were half way back to the hotel, a mile yet to go, he stopped and said: “You’re right, Coxey. Ain’t it hot! Let’s call a cab.”
He wouldn’t rest. A strange uneasiness was upon him. We took the next train for New York.