The War and Our Financial Fabric

We are now in a position to look more closely into the wealth of the banks and at their position in the early days of the crisis, and to regard them from what I call the standpoint of confidence. Many happenings were foretold years ago by the prophets as the outcome of a European war, but they never foretold the closing of the Stock Exchange, nor foretold a moratorium.

I think it will be safe to say that in the closing days of July no one in this country dreamed that the Stock Exchange would be closed. I think it will be safe to say that if this had been foreseen, many would undoubtedly have predicted disaster as its consequence. Though the Stock Exchange may be regarded by moralists and puritans as the shrine of Mammon, a place frequented only by gamblers and parasites, it came home to them, as it came home to the entire nation, that the institution plays a vital part in our economic organism. If we destroyed it, we should have to set up a similar institution in its place. It is the market for the exchange of certain essential species of the community's wealth.