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 head of the
Government and the responsible leader of the party in power, to urge
action now, while there is time to serve the country deliberately and as
we should, in a clear air of common counsel. I appeal to you with a deep
conviction of duty. I believe that you share this conviction. I
therefore appeal to you with confidence. I am at your service without
reserve to play my part in any way you may call upon me to play it in
this great enterprise of exigent reform which it will dignify and
distinguish us to perform and discredit us to neglect.




ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG

[Delivered in the presence of Union and Confederate veterans, on the
occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, July 4, 1913.]