what happened in this season of exuberance and intense
materialism, the American people were hastily judged by critics
who failed to see that the period was but the prelude to a
maturer national life.

It was a period of a remarkable industrial expansion. Then
"plant" became a new word in the phraseology of the market place,
denoting the enlarged factory or mill and suggesting the hardy
perennial, each succeeding year putting forth new shoots from its
side. The products of this seedtime are seen in the colossal
industrial growths of today. Then it was that short railway lines
began to be welded into "systems," that the railway builders
began to strike out into the prairies and mountains of the West,
and that partnerships began to be merged into corporations and
corporations into trusts, ever reaching out for the greater
markets. Meanwhile the inventive genius of America was responding
to the call of the time. In 1877 Bell telephoned from Boston to
Salem; two years later, Brush lighted by electricity the streets
of San Francisco. In 1882 Edison was making incandescent electric
lights for New York and operating his first electric car in Menlo
Park, New Jersey.

All these developments created a new demand for capital. Where
formerly a manufacturer had made products to order or for a small
number of known customers, now he made on speculation, for a
great number of unknown customers, taking his risks in distant
markets. Where formerly the banker had lent money on local
security, now he gave credit to vast enterprises far away. New
inventions or industrial processes brought on new speculations.
This new demand for capital made necessary a new system of