The manufacturers, the merchants, the farmers, the laboring men, and business interests of every kind have a right to demand and undoubtedly will demand protection, and demand it now. Unless I misunderstand the present temper of the American people, they will now demand that their interests be safeguarded, and that they be protected against the always impending dangers growing out of the present conglomerate condition of the banking business. I assert that this end can only be achieved by extending the same organization which many of the larger cities have already adopted to all the natural, financial centres of the country and include with them all the territory naturally tributary to such centres; in other words, that we should now extend the same organization to every commercial zone of the country of which these natural financial centres are the dominating commercial cities. This diagram will indicate more forcibly just what I mean than words can convey. [Illustration: Diagram Illustrating District System of Bank Organization to Give Stability in Commercial Zones.] The straight lines are drawn from some centre in a city arbitrarily, and purposely so, in order to eliminate all political machinations and gerrymandering in forming the districts for any reason that may arise from time to time. They are so drawn as to divide the whole number of banks in the entire commercial zone into seven equal districts. That is, if there should be seven hundred banks in the commercial zone there would be one hundred banks in each district. The one hundred banks in each district organize in precisely the same way, and as follows: _First_: Upon coming together the one hundred banks of District No. 1 proceed to organize formally by electing a president and secretary. Then they select and elect their portion of the "bankers' council" of the whole zone, which corresponds exactly to the Clearing House Committee of the financial centre. The one hundred bankers of each district elect one banker and one business man from the respective districts, or seven bankers and seven business men, or fourteen in all, and the fourteen so selected then proceed to select and elect their president, who shall not be one of the fourteen so selected by the bankers of the several districts. These fifteen men so selected constitute the "bankers' council," and bear identically the same relation to the whole commercial zone as the Clearing House Committee bears to the banks which constitute the Clearing House.