ges are side-shows to hell
[laughter], and their members devils incarnate [laughter], I fail to
appreciate any advantage to the South in being there, and in no place
where her presence could not be counted a credit would I assist in
discovering her.

But if, on the other hand, we repudiate such wholesale abuse of the
place, and insist, for truth's sake, upon an acknowledgment of facts as
they exist, then the South can well afford to be found in Wall Street,
and if prominent there we may proudly salute her.

Wall Street is the throbbing heart of America's finance. It is a common
nursery for an infinite variety of enterprises, all over our land.
Innumerable manufactories, North, South, East, and West, have drawn
their capital from Wall Street. The industrial progress and material
development of our blessed Southland is being pushed forward vigorously
to-day by the monetary backing of Wall Street. The vast fields of the
fertile West, luxurious in the beauty and rich in the promise of
tasselled corn and bearded grain, are tilled and harvested by helpful
loans from Wall Street. Old railroads, run down in their physical
condition and thereby seriously impaired for public service, are
constantly being rehabilitated with Wall Street money, while eight out
of every ten new ones draw the means for their construction and
equipment from this same source of financial supply.

To all attacks recklessly made on the methods of Wall Street, it seems
to me there is ample answer in this one undeniable fact--the daily
business done there foots up in dollars and cents more than the total
trade of any whole State of the Union, except New York; and, although
the great bulk of transactions are made in the midst of intense
excitement, incident to rapid and sometimes violent fluctuation of
values, and, although gigantic trades are made binding by only a wink or
a nod, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, the
contracting parties stand rigidly by their bargains, prove they good or
bad. [Applause.] So much for the heroic integrity of the so-called bulls
and bears. Out in the broader realm of commercial vocation, and through
the wider fields of pastoral pursuit, it occurs to me this lesson might
be learned without any reduction of existing morality. [Applause.]

In Wall Street the brainiest financiers are congregated. Vigorous
energy, unremitting industry, clear judgment, and unswerving nerve are
absolutely essential to personal