Bill Taft

Is it not the duty of Congress to take up the plan suggested, examine it from all standpoints, give impartial consideration to the testimony of those whose experience ought to fit them to give the best advice on the subject, and then to…

There is no class in the community more interested in a safe and sane banking and currency system, one which will prevent panics and automatically furnish in each trade center the currency needed in the carrying on of the business at that…

After the panic of 1907 Congress realized that the present system was not adapted to the country's needs and that under it panics were possible that might properly be avoided by legislative provision.

It operates upon each bank and furnishes a motive for the withdrawal of currency from the channels of trade by each bank to save itself, and offers no inducement whatever for the use of the reserve to expand the supply of currency to meet…

The peculiar provisions of the law requiring national banks to maintain reserves to meet the call of the depositors operates to increase the money stringency when it arises rather than to expand the supply of currency and relieve it.

Our present system lacks the indispensable quality of elasticity.

It is the business of the National Government to provide a medium, automatically contracting and expanding in volume, to meet the needs of trade.

The existing one is inadequate, and everyone who has studied the question admits it.

The most crying need this country has is a proper banking and currency system.

A time when panics seem far removed is the best time for us to prepare our financial system to withstand a storm.

We must not wait for events to overtake us unawares.

The opening of the Panama Canal will mark a new era in our international life and create new and worldwide conditions which, with their vast correlations and consequences, will obtain for hundreds of years to come.

We can not meet new questions nor build for the future if we confine ourselves to outworn dogmas of the past and to the perspective appropriate at our emergence from colonial times and conditions.

The successful conduct of our foreign relations demands a broad and a modern view.

We are now in a larger relation with broader rights of our own and obligations to others than ourselves.

In the past our diplomacy has often consisted, in normal times, in a mere assertion of the right to international existence.

The Nation is now too matured to continue in its foreign relations those temporary expedients natural to a people to whom domestic affairs are the sole concern.

We have been self-centered in the struggle to develop our domestic resources and deal with our domestic questions.

We have emerged full grown as a peer in the great concourse of nations.

American commerce and enterprise can not be effectively fostered in those fields unless we have good American banks in the countries referred to.

America can not take its proper place in the most important fields for its commercial activity and enterprise unless we have a merchant marine.

The absolute essential is the spirit of united effort and singleness of purpose.

Otherwise the American merchant, manufacturer, and exporter will find many a field in which American trade should logically predominate preempted through the more energetic efforts of other governments and other commercial nations.

If this Government is really to preserve to the American people that free opportunity in foreign markets which will soon be indispensable to our prosperity, even greater efforts must be made.

The kindly reception everywhere accorded to Secretary Knox showed that his mission was deeply appreciated by the Japanese nation and emphasized strongly the friendly relations that have for so many years existed between the two peoples.