Excerpt from The Bank and the Treasury: Bank Capitalization and the Problem of Elasticity
When, in the early months of 1902, Mr. Shaw took the Treasury portfolio, the country was passing through a period of marvellous financial activity. Four years of commercial and industrial consolidation, four years of trading in new corporate issues, "on margin," had absorbed hundreds of millions of banking capital in speculation. Moreover, this encumbering of current funds had taken place at a time when commercial and industrial expansion was multiplying its demands on our banks for credit accommodation. True, on May 9, 1901, an unexpected corner in Northern Pacific had brought speculation to a temporary standstill. But the quiet which followed had been utilized by the large banking interests to get together needed financial support with which to launch United States Steel and other new gigantic promotions. From two to three thousand millions of new issues had to be digested and assimilated by the investing public before our institutions of commercial credit could sufficiently relieve themselves from speculators' loans to meet the growing demands of trade.
After 1898 the financial situation was at all times pregnant with danger to business.
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