The situation in America is substantially this: Business drives ahead at a tremendous pace, with perils on every side, chiefly anxious to be undisturbed. Matters run along smoothly for a while; then something happens--there is too much optimism or too much confidence--and a smash. It is not due to speculation in securities, because, as in 1907, the stock markets are the first to see what is coming and to discount it. But speculation in lands, or in manufacture, or in railroad construction go on and on; there is too much work for the dollar to do; the currency system breaks down; here and there a financial institution closes its doors; public confidence is shattered, and the whole credit system is disturbed. Then there arises a noble army of critics who, with the best intentions but with insufficient knowledge and study, set to work to remedy conditions they do not understand by methods untried and unpractical, that only add to the general confusion. More harm than good results when the physician, brusquely entering the sick-room, tells the patient he is a very sick man, denounces the lobster that poisoned him, and departs with a general condemnation of shellfish, but without prescribing suitable remedies. Persons who denounce the relationship existing between banks and stockbrokers are in most instances upright citizens of high character, but until a little patient study of conditions has enabled them to speak with authority upon matters that are necessarily complex and delicate, they cannot accomplish any really useful purpose. “The wicked are wicked, no doubt,” said Thackeray, “and they go astray, and they fall, and they come by their deserts; but who can tell the harm that the very virtuous may do?” The three leading groups of banking interests in Wall Street are said to represent $500,000,000 of available capital each; the deposits in what are called the “trust banks” amount to between $700,000,000 and $800,000,000, while the banks of the whole country hold deposits of $16,000,000,000. The savings banks now hold $4,450,822,522 which is owned by 10,009,804 depositors.[45]