success. In the light of those
requirements, we venture to ask what place has the South taken.

Honorable Abram S. Hewitt in his speech before this Society one year
ago, said: "If by some inscrutable providence this list of gentlemen
[meaning members of the Southern Society] were suddenly returned to the
homes which I suppose will know them no longer, there would be in this
city what the quack medicine men call 'a sense of goneness,' and I think
we should have to send to the wise men of the East, Dr. Atkinson, for
example, to tell us how to supply the vacuum." Taking my cue from that
generous compliment, I venture to suggest that if the South should
suddenly withdraw from Wall Street, it would occasion such a contraction
of the currency in that district as would demand even a more liberal
policy than Secretary Fairchild has practised in purchasing Government
bonds. [Applause and laughter.] The aggregate wealth of Southerners in
Wall Street to-day is over $100,000,000 and the great bulk of that vast
amount has been accumulated within the last twenty years. That is to
say, "The South in Wall Street," has made at least $4,000,000 annually
since the war. Under all the circumstances, who will dispute the
magnificence of that showing? It must be remembered that the great
majority of Southern men on entering Wall Street were poor; so poor,
indeed, that they might almost have afforded to begin their career on
the terms that I once heard of a man in South Carolina proposing to some
little negroes. He told them if they would pick wild blackberries from
morning till night he would give them half they gathered. [Laughter.]
The Southerners of Wall Street, with but very few exceptions, entered
that great field of finance with but one consolation, and that was the
calm consciousness of being thoroughly protected against loss from the
simple fact that they had nothing to lose. [Applause and laughter.] A
hundred millions of dollars is no small pile when stacked up
beside--nothing. Of course we are not called upon to analyze this
fortune, nor do I mean to imply that it is evenly divided. Some of us it
must be admitted spoil the average dreadfully, but we all may get the
same satisfaction out of it that the childless man derived, who said
that he and his brother together had three boys and two girls.
[Laughter.]

The South is a power in Wall Street. She is identified with the
management of many leading financial institutions, and has al