64 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts, and Letters. 



its credit and rules itself out of free and equal commercial rela- 

 tions with other nations. 



Speaking, as I do, in the city oE Milwaukee, let me say before 

 I close, that I have been well situated to observe the commercial 

 development of our state, and especially of this city, almost from 

 the beginning. It has been, in the main, a healthy, prosperous 

 development. Our credit has been stable and unquestioned, not 

 convulsed and bankrupted, as has been the case with states on 

 either side of us. Milwaukee, I believe, has stood the severe test 

 of the recent financial revulsion in the commercial world, better 

 than any other western city. Comparatively few failures have 

 occurred. This favorable condition, it seems to me, is due in no 

 small degree to the steadying influence of an institution early 

 established here, almost by an evasion of law, as an agency of 

 credit to meet the ever pressing need of industrial enterprise. 

 When in the phrensied hostility to a paper currency, caused by 

 fraudulent operations of wild speculation, banks were in disrepute 

 and almost entirely disallowed through all this western country, 

 the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company, issued its 

 certificates of deposits, and they went into general circulation, be- 

 cause they met an absolute pressing necessity. The institution 

 performed all the functions of a bank without the name. The 

 public confidence had nothing to rest on but the honor and integ- 

 rity of the managers, who put some real capital into the venture 

 and sought profit for themselves only in icientification with the ad- 

 vantage of the community. But there was a basis of solid capital 

 and a great deal of Scotch honesty and thrift in the management, 

 and so the operations were sound, the promises were made good, 

 and the institution greatly aided the rapid unfolding of wealth in 

 our state and in the whole region. It was subjected to more than 

 one fiery ordeal under the efforts of enemies to break it down, but 

 it triumphantly withstood all assaults, and stands to-day in 

 strength and honor, the leading banking institution of our state, 

 identified through all its history, with every branch of vigorous 

 productive industry. If it has brought wealth to its proprietors, 

 it is but a fit reward for what it has done to increase the wealth 

 of the whole community. 



