Financial Independence and How to Attain It by Henry Colman Cutting

The author, realizing that for this work
to accomphsh the object in view, that of
giving to our country a financial system in
keeping with our American ideals, the logic
of the situation, and the desire for a change
must reach the masses of the people, who
now look upon finance and financial institutions
as something beyond their understanding
and above their control; so that,
in presenting this brief work, the avoidance
of technicahties and intricacies has been
ever uppermost in mind. The idea presented
here is new and very contrary to
the universally accepted theory. So the
author has endeavored to make it clear to
all, preferring to risk tiresome simphcity
and repetition rather than lack of understanding.

Money or finance is the foundation of
civilization. Every civilized human is
more intimately concerned in a proper
financial system justly administered than
in any other human institution. As the
happiness and well-being of all are vitally
affected, and as we are all interdependent
each upon the other, it is the clear duty
of every citizen to understand, and to see
that his neighbor understands; so that
the existing evils may be corrected for the
benefit of all.

The reader should realize that the matter
in hand is too important to all of us to be
lightly dismissed, even should he not agree
with the author on either the cause, the
remedy, or the result. There must be
something radically wrong; otherwise we
would not have had Pujo Committee investigations,
the Anti-Trust Laws, the Laws
Prohibiting Interlocking Directors, the Federal
Reserve Act, and lastly, the Act
Providing for Rural Credit Institutions,
as a few of the remedies which have been
administered, all looking to the curing of
acknowledged defects in our financial system.
Should the diagnosis here offered be
admittedly correct, and the remedy suggested
be logically proven a specific, we
should not hesitate to administer it because
the treatment seems heroic and the result
Utopian.

This Uttle work is not the result of theoretical
learning and of academic study,
but of a varied business experience gathered
in many fields of endeavor, and is not the
plaint of one who has lost in the fight, but
is the clarion call to those who love fair
play and are neither too weak nor too indolent
to demand justice.