Too early yet to say whether the present financial turmoils will end in a catastrophic maelstrom or simply slip away like an angry tide, leaving puddles. One has no great confidence in the authorities on either side of the Atlantic. Would that J.P. Morgan were still around to take charge of things and recreate order out of chaos! He solved three financial crises single-handedly. In 1877 his personal intervention enabled the army’s payroll to be met. In 1893, called in by President Cleveland, he stemmed the gold outflow from the United States. And in 1907 he calmed the universal panic by simply sitting in his library and summoning people to come to him.
I know a little about this library because I once gave a series of lectures on American history there. Housed in Morgan’s own splendid mansion in Manhattan, it is one of the most agreeable places in the world in which to learn and reflect.
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