534 THE WORK OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE 
the early colonial days till the middle of the last century, our 
country was still in its economic infancy. Our nation’s early 
manhood was spent from 1850 to 1914 in perfecting our means 
of transportation, founding our national industries, and creat- 
ing the bulk of our modern credit machinery. But in the few 
amazing years since 1914 we have, as regards our international 
economic position, experienced by far the swiftest develop- 
ment of which history holds any record. In less than a decade, 
America attained an international economic and financial 
preeminence which a full century of normal growth and 
development might well have failed to bring about. But this 
preeminence, flattering as it may be to our national self-esteem, 
brings with it a vast and heavy responsibilty which we cannot 
evade or shirk, and nowhere more than in Wall Street today. 
New York has become the leading money and credit center 
of the world. 
Not merely the scope, but also the character of American 
financial methods are being tested by the new status of the 
United States as a creditor nation. For over a century our 
financial practices and institutions developed while we were a 
debtor country, in which funds were usually harder to obtain 
than profitable uses for them. But now that we are a creditor 
country, we are discovering that our present problems are 
arising from the excess of our capital and credit over and above 
the safe and profitable uss for them. Thus we are attempting 
to function as a creditor nation with the viewpoint, methods, 
and institutions largely developed under debtor conditions. 
Already the pressure of unaccustomed economic factors has 
led to many unfamiliar developments in American finance, 
and if we are to remain a successful creditor country it is 
not unlikely that very far-reaching adjustments and innova- 
tions throughout American financial methods must be made. 
The practical application of this theoretical assertion will in 
coming years test very thoroughly the ability of America in 
constructive finance.