[T]he nation's middle class was about to embark on an educational revolution that would help boost incomes to unimagined levels over the next three g… - Henry Kaufman

The federal made some efforts at regulation in 1900, by passing the Gold Standard Act, which allowed state banks to set up branches in small towns and ended the bimetalism debate by establishing gold as the only redeemable metal. Still, the vast majority of banks were local, single unit operations, and access to capital and credit... increasingly difficult as... business enterprises expanded rapidly.

Often the real value of management decisions does not become apparent until many years later.
Perhaps what we should do is try to analyze the impact of decisions in any one period on longer-term performance. In the political arena, for example, why should we emphasize the skill and acumen of national policy-makers only on the new initiatives they introduce and legislate? Sometimes the events that do not materialize are more important than those that do. We should try to ascertain what decisions political leaders are undertaking that will benefit their nations subsequent to their terms in office.

The proliferation of credit instruments, financing techniques, and vast matrices of trading and investing opportunities requires highly objective evaluations of risks and rewards, and a sense of historical perspective, if excessive risk taking is to be avoided.