“_Mr. President and Gentlemen_: It is known to most of you that the United States government has followed a somewhat peculiar course in taking the initiative for the summoning of this conference. You will expect, therefore, some explanation of its action from the representatives of that government, and such explanation it is my duty to place before you. We bring to you a task so difficult and yet so delicate, that if its nature should be but suspected outside this chamber, all hope of its successful performance would disappear. You will pardon me, therefore, if I preface my message to you with a word of warning. I am about to make known to you a fact so ominous, so threatening to the world’s prosperity and the financial systems of all countries, that the president of the United States has deemed it wise in summoning this conference to withhold it even from the governments which you represent. I beg of you at the outset, therefore, that not only shall the ordinary obligations of secrecy, which of course we all recognize, be imposed, but that for a time at least we shall restrict ourselves even from communicating the subject of our deliberations to our official superiors. I know that I am making an unprecedented request, a request which some of you on first consideration will feel yourselves powerless to grant. I shall not press the suggestion upon you for decision, until the facts which seem to me to justify it are fully before you. The nature of those facts will reveal to you a peril, which not only warrants, but impels the assumption of an authority and responsibility which under ordinary circumstances we should seek to avoid. “I now come to the burden of my message, which is soon discharged. It relates to the sudden influx of gold in the markets of the world, chiefly in America, during the last year. All of you are familiar with the effects of this extraordinary increase in the supply of the standard monetary metal. Every market in the world has felt its influence, while in the United States the foundations of our financial and commercial welfare have been severely shaken. Since the assembling of this conference was proposed a few weeks ago, there has been some subsidence of the general disturbance, and the monetary world has shown a tendency to adjust itself to the new conditions. It is my painful duty to destroy such confidence as you may have in the security of the present financial or monetary situation.