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 also founded private banking-houses and built up other prosperous business establishments on her own account.  It would be in bad taste to mention names unless I had the roll of honor at hand and could read it off without exception.  The President of the Cotton Exchange and nearly forty per cent. of its members are Southerners.  One of the oldest and strongest firms on the Produce Exchange is essentially Southern.  That private banking-house in Wall Street, which has stood longest without any change in the personnel of its partnership, and which ranks to-day with the most reputable and successful establishments of its kind, is Southern in every branch of its membership.  Seven of the National Banks have Southern men for Presidents, and the list of Southern cashiers and tellers is long and honorable.  It was a Southern boy who, ten years ago, counted himself lucky on getting the humble place of mail carrier in one of the greatest banking houses of America.  That very boy, when not long since he resigned to enter business on his own account, was filling one of the most responsible positions and drawing the third largest salary in that same great establishment.