of action when they are free. We are about to set them free by removing
the trammels of the protective tariff. Ever since the Civil War they
have waited for this emancipation and for the free opportunities it
will bring with it. It has been reserved for us to give it to them. Some
fell in love, indeed, with the slothful security of their dependence
upon the Government; some took advantage of the shelter of the nursery
to set up a mimic mastery of their own within its walls. Now both the
tonic and the discipline of liberty and maturity are to ensue. There
will be some readjustments of purpose and point of view. There will
follow a period of expansion and new enterprise, freshly conceived. It
is for us to determine now whether it shall be rapid and facile and of
easy accomplishment. This it cannot be unless the resourceful business
men who are to deal with the new circumstances are to have at hand and
ready for use the instrumentalities and conveniences of free enterprise
which independent men need when acting on their own initiative.

It is not enough to strike the shackles from business. The duty of
statesmanship is not negative merely. It is constructive also. We must
show that we understand what business needs and that we know how to
supply it. No man, however casual and superficial his observation of the
conditions now prevailing in the country, can fail to see that one of
the chief things business needs now, and will need increasingly as it
gains in scope and vigor in the years immediately ahead of us, is the
proper means by which readily to vitalize its credit, corporate and
individual, and its originative brains. What will it profit us to be
free if we are not to have the best and most accessible
instrumentalities of commerce and enterprise? What will it profit us to
be quit of one kind of monopoly if we are to remain in the grip of
another and more effective kind? How are we to gain and keep the
confidence of the business community unless we show that we know how