To begin with, I want to assure you that our talks shall be absolutely confidential, and nothing that is said at these meetings shall ever go any farther, unless we agree to announce our conclusion. With this understanding we can be brutally frank with each other, and I can expose my hand to you. The present situation is one demanding immediate attention, and only our ignorance, greed or political cowardice can prevent us from arriving at a satisfactory solution of this problem. We must be sincere and patriotic in our purpose, for we represent practically every phase of our citizenship, and I assume you are typical of the average intelligence of the people. Here is Mr. Lawyer to steer us clear of legal obstacles, Mr. Laboringman to speak for our millions of daily toilers, Mr. Farmer to point out the disadvantage of agricultural loans, Mr. Merchant to illustrate the defects of our present commercial credits, Mr. Manufacturer to caution us against the conversion of our liquid capital into fixed investments and Mr. Banker to tell us of his woes and enlighten us upon the remedies for all his ills. What we don't know now, we will each attempt to find out before our talks come to an end. Certainly there is some solution to this question. In short and in fact it must be solved. I am the laughing stock of the entire civilized world today. For our persistent folly we suffer losses in the aggregate amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars every year. We ought to have, and can have the best and the most efficient banking system in the world. Indeed, we ought to give the laugh to all the other countries in banking, as we do practically in everything else. It is up to us. MR. BANKER: Uncle Sam, I agree absolutely with what you have just said. I believe it is our duty to sit every week, as you suggest, continuously until we arrive at some conclusion upon which we can all agree. If we do this I believe, since we represent so many callings and are so representative of the various lines of business, we shall find the public approving of our conclusion. I suggest that we begin with the very A, B, C of this question, and settle one point after another as we go along. If we do this, our differences will disappear as we progress, and the X, Y, Z of this question, or the formation of a financial and banking system, will be comparatively easy in the end. For example, we must first fix clearly in our minds what a standard of value is, and what our standard of value is, what money is, what currency is, what capital is, what a bank is, and so continue step by step to the end, leaving absolutely nothing for guesswork, if that is at all possible. The experience of the world has been so broad and complete that our solution of this question is entirely possible, although we have some problems that are peculiar to ourselves.