THE

BANKING LAWS

HE Act of March 14, 1900, intended unequivocally to establish gold as the standard money and to maintain at a parity therewith all forms of money medium in use with us, has been shown to be timely and judicious. The price of our government bonds in the world's market, when compared with the price of similar obligations issued by other nations, is a flattering tribute to our public credit. This condition it is evidently desirable to maintain.

In many respects the National Banking Law furnishes sufficient liberty for the proper exercise of the banking function; but there seems to be need of better safeguards against the deranging influence of commercial crises and financial panics. Moreover, the currency of the country should be made responsive to the demands of our domestic trade and commerce.-Message first session Fiftyseventh Congress. [p. 554.]

I

ECONOMY

In Public Affairs

CALL special attention to the need of strict economy in expenditures. The fact that our national needs forbid us to be niggardly in providing whatever is actually necessary to our wellbeing, should make us doubly careful to husband our national resources, as each of us husbands his private resources, by scrupulous avoidance of anything like wasteful or reckless expenditure. Only by avoidance of spending money on what is needless or unjustifiable can we legitimately keep our income to the point required to meet our needs that are genuine.-Message first session Fifty-seventh Congress. [p. 555.]

MISCELLANEOUS

HAVE no respect for the man who will put up with injustice. If a man will not take his part, the part is not worth taking.-Waukesha, Wis., Apl. 3, 1903. [p. 269.]

Many qualities are needed in order that we can contribute our mite toward the upward movement of the world-among them the quality of selfabnegation, and yet combined with it the quality which will refuse to submit to injustice. I want to preach the two qualities going hand in hand. I do not want a man to fail to try to strive for his own betterment, I do not want him to be quick to yield to injustice; I want him to stand for his rights; but I want him to be very certain that he knows what his rights are, and that he does not make them the wrongs of some one else.-Topeka, Kan., May 1, 1903. [p. 358.]

It is to be hoped that the Congress will make liberal appropriations for the continuance of the service already established and for its further extension. Message second session of Fifty-seventh Congress. [p. 635.]

There are many qualities which we need alike in private citizen and in public man, but three above all-three for the lack of which no brilliancy and no genius can atone-and those three are courage, honesty, and common-sense.-Antietam, Sept. 17, 1903. [p. 488.]

This is not and never shall be a government either of a plutocracy or of a mob. It is, it has been, and it will be, a government of the people; including alike the people of great wealth and of moderate weath, the people who employ others, the people who are employed, the wage-worker, the lawyer, the mechanic, the banker, the farmer; including them all, protecting each and every one if he acts decently and squarely, and discriminating against any one of them, no matter from what class he comes, if he does not act squarely and fairly, if he does not obey the law.-Spokane, Wash., May 26, 1903. [p. 430.]

In every instance how the after events of history have falsified the predictions of the men of little faith! There are critics so feeble and so timid that they shrink back when this Nation asserts that it comes in the category of the nations who dare to be great, and they want to know, forsooth, the cost of greatness and what it means.-Before Arctic Brotherhood, Seattle, Wash., May 23, 1903. [p. 422.]

It is curious how our fate as a nation has often driven us forward toward greatness in spite of the protests of many of those esteeming themselves in point of training and culture best fitted to shape the Nation's destiny.-Before Arctic Brotherhood, Seattle, Wash., May 23, 1903. [p. 422.]

Provision should be made to enable the Secretary of War to keep cavalry and artillery horses, worn out in long performance of duty. Such horses fetch but a trifle when sold; and rather than turn them out to the misery awaiting them when thus disposed of, it would be better to employ them at light work around the posts, and when necessary to put them painlessly to death.—Message second session Fifty-seventh Congress. [p. 631.]