attempts to hold them accountable, as an infringement of their
constitutional rights. Obviously, capital cannot assume the position of
an irresponsible sovereign, living in a sphere beyond the domain of law,
without inviting the fate which has awaited all sovereigns who have
denied or abused their trust.

The operation of the New York Clearing-House is another example of the
acquisition of sovereign power by irresponsible private persons.
Primarily, of course, a clearing-house is an innocent institution
occupied with adjusting balances between banks, and has no relation to
the volume of the currency. Furthermore, among all highly centralized
nations, the regulation of the currency is one of the most jealously
guarded of the prerogatives of sovereignty, because all values hinge
upon the relation which the volume of the currency bears to the volume
of trade. Yet, as everybody knows, in moments of financial panic, the
handful of financiers who, directly or indirectly, govern the
Clearing-House, have it in their power either to expand or to contract
the currency, by issuing or by withdrawing Clearing-House certificates,
more effectually perhaps than if they controlled the Treasury of the
United States. Nor does this power, vast as it is, at all represent the
supremacy which a few bankers enjoy over values, because of their
facilities for manipulating the currency and, with the currency, credit;
facilities, which are used or abused entirely beyond the reach of the
law.

Bankers, at their conventions and through the press, are wont to
denounce the American monetary system, and without doubt all that they
say, and much more that they do not say, is true; and yet I should
suppose that there could be little doubt that American financiers might,
after the panic of 1893, and before the administration of Mr. Taft, have