Now for a sample of the square deal.
In the fall of 1907 there were severe business disturbances and financial stringency, culminating in a panic which arose in New York and spread over the country.

The damage actually done was great, and the damage threatened was incalculable.

Thanks largely to the action of the Government, the panic was stopped before, instead of being merely a serious business check, it became a frightful and Nation-wide calamity, a disaster fraught with untold misery and woe to all our people.

For several days the Nation trembled on the brink of such a calamity, of such a disaster.
During these days both the Secretary of the Treasury and I personally were in hourly communication with New York, following every change in the situation, and trying to anticipate every development.

It was the obvious duty of the Administration to take every step possible to prevent appalling disaster by checking the spread of the panic before it grew so that nothing could check it.