that. Shall we not
act upon the knowledge? Do we not know how to act upon it? If a man
cannot make his assets available at pleasure, his assets of capacity and
character and resource, what satisfaction is it to him to see
opportunity beckoning to him on every hand, when others have the keys of
credit in their pockets and treat them as all but their own private
possession? It is perfectly clear that it is our duty to supply the new
banking and currency system the country needs, and it will need it
immediately more than it has ever needed it before.

The only question is, When shall we supply it--now, or later, after the
demands shall have become reproaches that we were so dull and so slow?
Shall we hasten to change the tariff laws and then be laggards about
making it possible and easy for the country to take advantage of the
change? There can be only one answer to that question. We must act now,
at whatever sacrifice to ourselves. It is a duty which the circumstances
forbid us to postpone. I should be recreant to my deepest convictions of
public obligation did I not press it upon you with solemn and urgent
insistence.

The principles upon which we should act are also clear. The country has
sought and seen its path in this matter within the last few years--sees
it more clearly now than it ever saw it before--much more clearly than
when the last legislative proposals on the subject were made. We must
have a currency, not rigid as now, but readily, elastically responsive
to sound credit, the expanding and contracting credits of everyday
transactions, the normal ebb and flow of personal and corporate
dealings. Our banking laws must mobilize reserves; must not permit the
concentration anywhere in a few hands of the monetary resources of the
country or their use for speculative purposes in such volume as to
hinder or impede or stand in the way of other more legitimate, more
fruitful uses. And the control of the system of banking and of issue
which our new laws are to set up must be public, not private, must be
vested in the Government itself, so that the banks may be the
instruments, not the masters, of business and of individual enterprise
and initiative.

The committees of the Congress to which legislation of this character is
referred have devoted careful and dispassionate study to the means of
accomplishing these objects. They have honored me by consulting me. They
are ready to suggest action. I have come to you, as the