The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-20

| adopted, but enough of it was made | effective to end the danger of a na- | tion-wide strike. The rest of it will be enacted when Congress reconvenes | and. if the leadership of the President | is followed, there will be no recur- renee of so threatening a question | again. Moreover, it must not. be for gotten that the act of Congress, which settled the strike, was supported, not | only by the Democratic members of
 the House, but when the vote was ta- ken it was found that large majority l of the Republican members had also voted for it. It was measure de- signed to safeguard American busi-
 ness while giving an opportunity for | investigation and well considered leg
 islation of a preventive character. I assert that no other Administra-
 tion has been more intelligently con- cerned for the prosperity of honest
 business and legitimate enterprise. The candid man, whose eyes have
 not been blinded by partisanship, will freely admit this. Foorward-looking
 business men. like Thomas A. Edison, and Henry Ford, realize it, appreciate it. and applaud it.
 Take for example the service ren-
 dered to business by the revision of our finances
 The Currency law, which had been
 in force in this country up to the time of the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. was a. prolific breeder of panics. So unstable was our system as built up by the great financiers of the Re-
 publican party (who know all about the business and how to conduct iD, that the slightest financial disturb ance was apt to precipitate disaster. In 1873, in the midst of great pros- perity, a panic followed the failure of Jay Cooke & Company.
 In 1884, it was found that the Presi- dent of the Second National Bank of New York had stolen three million dollars in securities. This brought on a run on the banks in New York, the failure of Grant & Ward, and a na- tion-wide panic.
 In 1893, Barring Brothers of Eng land failed. At about the same time the Philadelphia & Reading Company attempted to corner certain ore lands and went into insolvency. A nation wide panic followed.
 In 1907, Heinze, president of the Mercantile National Bank, used that institution in copper, speculations; oth- CT banks became involved. including the Knickerbocker Trust Company and within a few days nearly every National Bank in America and many of the State Banks and Trust Com panies suspended payment. Right here in Connecticut wages were paid in token money, in the form of time checks issued at the factories. There were plenty of assets, an Abundance of available business-but industry paused; the wheels stopped and America found herself in the grip of another unnecessary panic because the money of the country had been impounded and could not flow with the channels of trade. That was the inefficient system of finance which the Republican party had promised for forty years to remedy. That was the system which the Federal ReseHve Act supplanted. What do you sup- pose would have happened in this country when the war broke if the Democratic party had not been in power and the old Republican system
 
 Our friends in the Republican par ty are fond of explaining how thor oughIy they understand business and how safe industry is in their hands. I ask again, what would have happen ed if the Republican party had been in power when the war broke and cotton went from fourteen cents pound to three cents pound in one
 <nf six hundred million dollars?
 Y What would have happened if the Republican party had been in power when the war broke and international exchange became disarranged and all the European banks suspended pay ment? tA
 What would have happened if the Republican party had been in power when our trade with Germany, in one year, declined from over five hundred million dollars to fourteen million dol lars, and in the. single month of Au- gust, 1914, our trade with Europe fell off seventy-five million dollars?
 What would have happened if the party had been in power when Europe began dumping securi- ties upon America, which in a period of about twenty-one months, amount ed to three billion. five hundred mill lion dollars?
 What would have happened under the old Republican system if, only ten days after the war began, forty y-eight millions of gold had been withdrawn from this country by Europe?
 What would have happened if all these disasters had come almost sim ultaneously, and the Republican f1nan- cial system had remained unchanged? ? 70 The answer is-PANIC-great, over losses of untold millions of dollars, the fortunes of the rich, the savings of the poor, sacrificed upon the altar of an archaic and provincial system.
 But, fortunately, during all this pe- riod, the Democratic party was in charge of our government and not the party. Our finances had been reformed;l : the VreeIand Act had been amended the Federal Reserve Act had been passd, and our financial systm. withstood the shock like a veri- table rock of Gibraltar.
 Not only this, but we were able to care for our domestic l needs and lend hundreds of millions of dollars abroad, and had the oppor- tunity to convert America from a | debtor nation into the greatest credi- | tor nation of the world.
 In the fact of such a record, undis- | puted and indisputable, how trivial | and senseless becomes the pattering that only. the Republican par