The need is not merely to mitigate the severity of the brief period of crisis, but also to smooth out the curve of the business cycle so as to reduce periodic unemployment, the lottery element in profits, and the number of unmerited failures in business.

Several measures may aid toward this end.

In the past the crisis has been more severe in America than in Europe because of certain well-recognized defects which now have been largely remedied in the Federal Reserve Act.[15] The provisions whereby any one may get credit on good commercial assets should make it impossible for a crisis to degenerate into a panic.

This legislation has provided springs to reduce the jolt of the change from a higher to a lower level of prices.
Probably other improvements may be made in our banking laws.

Competent students of the subject have urged that the payment of interest on deposits not subject to notice before withdrawal should be made unlawful, because demand deposits constitute the greatest danger at critical times.