It was simply impossible for the manufacturers of Pittsburgh to pay their accruing liabilities when their customers stopped payment.

The banks were forced to renew maturing paper.

They behaved splendidly to us, as they always have done, and we steered safely through.

But in a critical period like this there was one thought uppermost with me, to gather more capital and keep it in our business so that come what would we should never again be called upon to endure such nights and days of racking anxiety.
Speaking for myself in this great crisis, I was at first the most excited and anxious of the partners.

I could scarcely control myself.
But when I finally saw the strength of our financial position I became philosophically cool and found myself quite prepared, if necessary, to enter the directors' rooms of the various banks with which we dealt, and lay our entire position before their boards.