and untiring work of Mr. Underwood and Mr. Simmons, and the committee associated with them!"

Nearly a month elapsed, however, after the Senate passed the bill before the two Houses could agree on the amended parts and pass it in its completed form. And on the evening of Friday, October 3, committees from both the Senate and the House carried the results of their labors to the President for his approval. He waited until the close of the business for the day in order that, since the act was to take effect immediately, it might become operative on the opening of business on the morning of October 4. After fixing his signature to the bill which goes into history as the Underwood-Simmons bill, he said:

"I feel a very peculiar pleasure in what I have just done by way of taking part in the completion of a great piece of business. It is a pleasure which is very hard to state in words adequate to express the feeling, because the feeling that I have is that we have done the rank and file of the people of this country a great service.

"It is hard to speak of these things without seeming to go off into campaign eloquence, but that is not my feeling. It is one very profound— a feeling of profound gratitude that working with

the splendid men who have carried this thing through with studious attention and doing justice all round, I should have had part in serving the people of this country as we have been striving to serve them ever since I can remember.

"I have had the accomplishment of something like this at heart ever since I was a boy, and I know men standing around me can say the same thing— who have been waiting to see the things done which it was necessary to do in order that there might be justice in the United States. And so it is a solemn moment that brings such a business to a conclusion, and I hope I will not be thought to be demanding too much of myself or of my colleagues when I say that this, great as it is, is the accomplishment of only half the journey.

"We have set the business of this country free from those conditions which have made monopoly not only possible, but in a sense easy and natural. But there is no use taking away the conditions of monopoly if we do not take away also the power to create monopoly, and that is a financial rather than a merely circumstantial and economical power.

"The power to control and guide and direct the credits of the country is the power to say who shall

and who shall not build up the industries of the country, in which direction they shall be built, and in which direction they shall not be built. We are now about to take the second step, which will be the final step in setting the business of this country free.

"That is what we shall do in the Currency Bill, which the House has already passed, and which I have the utmost confidence the Senate will pass much sooner than some pessimistic individuals believe. Because the question-now that this piece of work is done will arise all over the country, 'For what do we wait? Why should we wait to crown ourselves with consummate honor? Are we so self-denying that we do not wish to complete our success?'

"I was quoting the other day to some of my colleagues in the Senate those lines from Shakespeare's Henry V, which have always appealed to me: 'If it be a sin to covet honor, then am I the most offending soul alive;' and I am happy to say that I do not covet it for myself alone.

"I covet it with equal ardor for the men who are associated with me, and the honor is going to come for them. I am their associate. I can only complete the work which they do. I can only

counsel when they ask for my counsel. I can come in only when the last stages of the business are reached.

"And I covet this honor for them quite as much as I covet it for myself. And I covet it for the great party of which I am a member; because that party is not honorable unless it redeems its name and serves the people of the United States.

"So I feel tonight like a man who is lodging happily in the inn which lies half way along the journey and that in the morning with a fresh impulse we shall go the rest of the journey and sleep at the journey's end like men with quiet consciences, knowing that we have served our fellow men, and have, thereby, tried to serve God."

CHAPTER V

A NEW CURRENCY-THE SECOND STAGE IN THE JOURNEY

The tariff bill moved so smoothly through the House that the President decided, early in May, to press currency reform without delay. His prestige and influence at that time was very great, and it was said that "he is gradually imparting to the American forms of government a smoothness and flexibility it had hitherto lacked." There was no question now as to his leadership. Therefore, when the nation realized that he was determined to press a second great reform he was advised to move with care and deliberation, since a change in the currency was more dreaded by a certain element in the nation than a reduction in the tariff.

The banking law in force was enacted during the Civil War and was a war measure. The Government, in order to secure money to prosecute the war, had to issue bonds which it found difficult to sell. It was provided, therefore, that the banks might take the bonds and issue bank notes based upon them. This expedient solved the problem and was a sound temporary measure. However, it was a very inflexible