The Irish standard., 1911-10-28
BANKING REFORM
Is the Great Question for the Demo
Gratis to Settle, Says Wilson.

In the course of an address at Har-
risburg, Pa, Governor Wilson of New
Jersey said:
Beyond all these, waiting to be
solved lying as yet in the hinterland
ton of banking reform. The plain
fact is that control of credit-at any
rate of credit upon any large scale
is dangerously concentrated in this
country. The large money resources
OF the country are not at the COM
mand of those who do not submit to
the direction and domination Of small
groups of capitalists, who wish to
keep the economic development of the
guidance. The great monopoly in this
country Is the money monopoly. So
long as that exists our old variety and
freedom and individual energy of de-
velopment are out of the question. A
great industrial nation is controlled by
its system of credit. Our system of
credit is concentrated. The growth
OF the nation, therefore, and all our
activities are in the hands of u few
men who, even If their action be hon.
est and intended for the public inter-
est, are necessarily concentrated upon
the great undertakings in which their
own money is involved and who nee
essarily, by very reason of their own
limitations, chill and check and de-
stroy genuine economic freedom. This
is the greatest question of all, and to
this statesmen must address them
selves with an earnest determination
critics of men.
II have said that the Democratic
party is now to attempt constructive
craftsmanship. There are we'll known
conditions which surround so great
task. In the first place it cannot be
executed If attempted with inconsid-
crate haste. That is not constructive
which is loosely or hastily put to-
gether. Its parts must be sound, and
their combination must be- true and
vital. No man can in a moment put
great policies together and reconstruct
whole order of life.
I'VE must remember that the abuses
we seek to remedy have come into
existence as incidents of the great
structure of industry we have built up
This structure Is the work of our own
hands; our own lives are involved in
it. Reckless attacks upon it, destruc-
tive assaults against 1t would leopard
our own lives and disturb, it might be
fatally, the very progress we seek to
attain. 1t would be particularly fatal
to any successful program to admit
into our minds, as we pursue it, any
spirit of revenge. any purpose to wreak
our displeasure upon the persons and
the institutions who now represent the
abuses we deprecate and seek to de-
stroy. l do not say these things be-
cause l feel that there is danger of
vengeful action or of revolutionary
haste, but merely because we ought
always to recognize that it is of the
Very essence Of constructive states
manship that we should think and act
temporarily, wisely, justly, in the
spirit of those who reconstruct and
amend not in the spirit of those who
destroy and seek to build from the
foundations again.
"The American people are an emin-
emily just and an intensely practical
people. They do not wish to lay vio-
lent hands upon their own affairs, but
they do claim the right to look them
over with close and frank and fear
less scrutiny from top to bottom; to
look at them from within as well as
from without, in their most intimate
and private details, as we'll as in their
obvious exterior proportions; and
they do hold themselves at liberty, at
lacking one point at a time, to read
just, correct, purify, rearrange; not
destroying or even injuring the ele-
ments, but filling their altered COM
bination with new spirit. This is
the task of the Democratic party, 1t
is the task of all craftsmanship. 1t
is task which just at this particular
juncture in our affairs looms particu-
larly big"
Tho Final Iast of Faith