Nothing could have been more calculated to irritate democracy, which dislikes and suspects secrecy and resents aloofness.
And the instinct of democracy is right.
Men occupying conspicuous and leading places in finance as in every other calling touching the people's interests, are legitimate objects for public scrutiny in the exercise of their functions.
If opportunity for such scrutiny is denied, if the people's legitimate desire for information is met with silence, secrecy, impatience and resentment, the public mind very naturally becomes infected with suspicion and lends a willing ear to all sorts of gossip and rumors.
The people properly and justly insist that the same "fierce light that beats upon a throne" should also beat upon the high places of finance and commerce.
It is for those occupying such places to show cause why they should be considered fit persons to be entrusted with them, the test being not merely ability, but just as much, if not more, character, self-restraint, fair-mindedness and due sense of duty towards the public.
Finance, instead of avoiding publicity in all of its aspects, should welcome it and seek it. Publicity won't hurt its dignity. A dignity which can be preserved only by seclusion, which cannot hold its own in the market place, is neither merited nor worth having.
We must more and more get out of the seclusion of our offices, out into the rough and tumble of democracy, out—to get to know the people and get known by them.
Not to know one another means but too frequently to misunderstand one another, and there is no more fruitful source of trouble than to misunderstand one another's kind and ways and motives.
3. Service