Notwithstanding our immense population and the large measure of well-ordered consolidation that has been effected in our various interests, we are still a nation of pioneers. In every ten years, we now add nearly fifteen millions to our population, which means that each successive decade we are piling up the equivalent of a first-class European state upon our past marvellous accumulation of empire. Inseparable from this unparalleled national growth are great ventures and great commercial and financial risks. Our new population has to subdue new territory. New lands have to be cleared; new mines have to be opened; new industries have to be established; new railroads have to be built; new banks created and new corporations founded. These new ventures are necessarily in a measure experimental. Some of them fail utterly; others succeed magnificently. They require large outlays of capital in advance of obtainable results. These outlays are, in many cases, met by borrowing; the loans being secured by liens upon the uncertain undertakings, and therefore lacking the stability of value that attaches to well developed investments. We have thus a ceaseless stream of new issues of stocks, mortgages and commercial paper, and have, therefore, at all times outstanding a large amount of obligations which, from the uncertainty of their basis, are liable to wide fluctuations in value. Besides these absolutely new investments, we have also at all times an equal or larger amount of obligations issued against enterprises which, although not properly new, are still in an unconsolidated and experimental stage, and the value of which is, therefore, subject to wide fluctuations. Issues of this character naturally appeal to the adventurous instincts of our people and elicit a vast extent of speculative activity. It is this peculiarity in the development and trade of the United States that renders our markets more exposed to panic than those of any other nation, and which makes the question of panics a peculiarly American one. In any and every commercial nation, trade is subject to regular successions of prosperity and depression. This oscillation results from, or constitutes a natural law.