New England is essentially a manufacturing center of dry goods, wearing apparel, and metal wares. Pennsylvania is known the world over for its coal, iron, and oil industries. New Orleans is the market for cotton, sugar, and rice. Kansas City is the emporium for live stock and grain. Chicago, the greatest food market on earth, is fast coming to be one of the greatest manufacturing points in almost every line of industry. St. Paul and Minneapolis supply us with wheat and flour. The cities of the Rocky Mountains are growing in importance year by year, each one entitled to distinction for some particular industry. The development of the Pacific coast, from San Diego to Seattle, is challenging universal attention. It is the opinion of your committee that it is highly important, indeed, absolutely essential, for the best interests of the people, industrially, commercially, socially, and politically, that each geographical zone of common business interests should have independent self-government in matters of banking, precisely as the several States have control of their local affairs. At the same time, these commercial zones should be so harmonized and federated as to give to each the financial strength and power of all combined, precisely as every State is as strong and powerful politically as the Federal Government itself. All the governments of Europe are traditionally monarchical and imperialistic. Their banking institutions not only all bear the insignia of their political origin, but also characteristically mark the times and conditions that gave them birth. In England alone self-government found true expression in the selection of the board of directors of the Bank of England. The British Government has no relation to the management, either directly or indirectly. It neither appoints a single representative on the board, nor has any voice whatever in his selection. Again, it is to be noted that the Englishman, ever tenaciously jealous of his rights, excluded from the board of directors all bankers. No banker has ever sat upon the board of directors of the Bank of England. The French Empire of 1803 and the German Empire of 1873 are each reflected in the organization of the Bank of France and the Imperial Bank of Germany. This Government was organized as a protest against royal rule and imperial power. It has been fighting the evils of centralization for more than a hundred years; and of nothing has it shown such persistent jealousy as the possible centralization of financial interests and the control of commercial credits.