In many ways, in many instances, wrong impressions about finance have been given to the public, sometimes from ignorance, sometimes with malice aforethought, sometimes for political purposes.
The fact is that the men in charge of our financial affairs are, and to be successful, must be every whit as honorable, as patriotic, as right thinking, as anxious for the good opinions of their fellowmen as those in other walks of life.
In every time of crisis or difficulty in the nation's history, from the War of Independence to the present European War, financiers have given striking proof of their devotion of the public weal, and they may be depended upon to do so whenever and howsoever called upon.
American finance has rendered immense services to the country, and its record—considering especially the gross faultiness of the laws under which it had to work before the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, and in some respects still has to work—compares by no means unfavorably with that of finance in Europe.
There has been no gambling frenzy in the financial markets of America within the memory of this generation equalling the recklessness and magnitude of England's South African mining craze with its record of questionable episodes, some of them involving great names; no scandal comparable to the Panama scandal, the copper collapse, the Cronier failure, and similar events in France; no bank failure as disgraceful and ruinous as that of the Leipziger Bank and two or three others within the last dozen years in Germany. No combination exists in this country remotely approaching the monopolistic control exercised by several of the so-called cartels and syndicates of Europe.
One of the reasons why finance so frequently has been the target for popular attack is that it deals with the tangible expression of wealth, and in the popular mind pre-eminently personifies wealth, and is widely looked upon as an easy way to acquire wealth without adequate service.
Yet it is a fact that there are very few financial houses of great wealth. All of the very greatest fortunes of the country, and in fact most of the great fortunes, have been made, not in finance, but in trade, industries and inventions.
A similar exaggerated view prevails as to the power of finance.
It is true there have been men in finance from time to time, though very rarely indeed, who did exercise exceedingly great power, such as, in our generation, the late J. P. Morgan and E. H. Harriman.
But the power of those men rested not in their being financiers, but in the compelling force of their unique personalities. They were born leaders of men and they would have been acknowledged leaders and exercised the power of such leadership in whatever walk of life they might have selected as theirs.
As I have said before, the capacity of the financier is dependent upon the confidence of the financial community and the investing public, just as the capacity of the banks is dependent upon the confidence of the depositing public. Take away confidence and what remains is only that limited degree of power or influence which mere wealth may give.
Confidence cannot be compelled; it cannot be bequeathed—or, at most, only to a very limited extent. It is and always is bound to be voluntary and personal.
I know of no other centre where the label counts for less, where the shine and potency of a great name is more quickly rubbed off if the bearer does not prove his worth, than in the great mart of finance.
Mere wealth indeed can be bequeathed, but the power of mere wealth—to paraphrase a famous dictum—has decreased, is decreasing and ought to be, and will be, further diminished.