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Show AMERICA'S WORLD , RESPONSIBILITIES By H. J. HAAS frUfli miricanBauktrsA ssociatiom trK r In changing world, with W many new flnnnelal problems whl0h we have no precedents. anu many old problem which have so changed an to bo unrecognizable. unrecogniz-able. American bankers have been called Into In-to world affairs af-fairs to blaze new trails of unknown finance. V e may expect unt those calls to H. J. HAAS be more nu- parous In the future than they have 1 the past. We are the world's flnnnelal leader and we must accept th8 responsibility which goes with "'Let uj look to the future with con-jdence. con-jdence. Every one has experienced I jreat sorrow some time, perhaps 10 great we felt we could never overcome over-come It, but time is the great healer md eventually we have come out of It As H is with individuals, so it is wlth nations. Our nation has had much sorrow in the 155 years of its existence. In that time we have passed through the major depres-ions depres-ions of 1S37-1S57-1S73 to 1S79-1SS4-1893-1896-1907-1914-1921 and the present I venture to state that in each of these periods there were those who had doubts of the future just as we hare them today, hut what happened after each depression? Our country recovered, to be better and stronger than ever. Its people were introduced intro-duced to modes of living they neTer dreamed of, until today, notwithstanding not-withstanding our depression, we lire on the highest plane of any nation in the world. Should we not Judge the future by past experience? experi-ence? Surely our people are better prepared, pre-pared, financially and intellectually, to cope with even greater problems than they have been ir the past, so why not look to the future confident that fundamental social and economic eco-nomic problems will be adjusted. Confidence is not established by any one thing but by an accumulation accumula-tion of things. If we can get confidence con-fidence started on its way, gathering a little here and there, it will accelerate accel-erate its speed as it goes along. This is not the work of any one man to perform but is the cumulative effort ef-fort of each and every one of us. What we are in the future is not ' the result of what we have done on any one day but the result of all that we have done for all time. The American Bankers Association Is endeavoring to do its part. Individually Indi-vidually our efforts may not count lor much, but they are part of the whole plan and taken in the aggregate aggre-gate they amount to the sum total of aU our efforts. |