and earning an honest profit. In many states it has led to
excessive restrictive legislation and has terrorized capital; it has
shrunk investments and frightened those who have money until today there
is lots of money in the banks everywhere but it can't be borrowed for
any length of time because nobody will put it into permanent or active
investment.

This state of affairs is likely to continue for some years. I am not
complaining about it because it is part of what we had to pay for the
great reform that was accomplished. After a while confidence will be
restored, and we shall come to our senses, just as they did in Kansas in
the Populist days. The Kansas farmers concluded that all their
unhappiness, and they suffered real stress, was due to the wicked
mortgagees who had lent them money on mortgage security and who insisted
on the payment of interest and even the principal when it was due. So
they elected a Populist legislature and passed a law providing that a
mortgagee could not foreclose his mortgage under two years. They did
this by stay laws and by requiring an obstructive procedure in
collection of debts. As a result, capital fled the state as men would
flee yellow fever. When there was no money at all left in the state and
they found that they couldn't get any, they began to recognize the
benefit in money loaned on mortgages. Their next legislature repealed
all these laws and devoted its attention to advertising their change of
attitude in Eastern markets where money could be had and mortgages could
be floated, promising to be good thereafter, and in general welcoming
the capitalists who would advance money on farms.

The next sign of the times is pleasanter to dwell upon, that is, the
spread of the fraternal spirit that has grown out of this great
material development. Material development in this country had grown
into corruption, undue luxury and waste at the hands of men who did not
realize the responsibility of having been fortunate in accumulating
money, and this absorption in the chase for the dollar began to pall on
the people. They tired of statistics of the growth of business, and
began to look about for some justification for our activities. The
change has brought a greater popular interest in the less fortunate who
have fallen behind in the race.

This feeling has much weakened the influence of the _laissez faire_
school of political and economic thought which was largely in control
when I was i