“The prosperity which now prevails is without parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much to secure it, but they have not done all. The preservation of the public credit and the resumption of specie payments, so successfully attained by the Administration of my predecessors, have enabled our people to secure the blessings which the seasons brought. ”

I don't know enough about the subject matter to rate it but if memory serves, that is about the time America was beginning to progress after really paying off the debt of the war between the States, the industrial revolution was coming into its own, and the Supreme Court began a new season of unconstitutional social engineering through activist legislation.

As to "preservation of the public credit", our government sure hasn't done much on this account. If a private business was managed like our government, it would have been bankrupt and out of business long ago. It's interesting that the very people who caused this economic mess are now expected to cure it. I'm a bit cynical on this account.

Jim this mess was substantially caused by a hardheaded lack of White House leadership which slashed the ways and means and then ran a costly war etcetera. The new is going to improve the ways and means. Success under Garfield came when people believed that the greenback was just as good as gold. Today it still is with gold fluctuating every day along with the dollar on the open market.

Garfield was a brilliant man (he could write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other at the same time). He endeavored to return the country to hard currency again and to break the control of the banking establishment following Lincoln. Garfield was killed not long after.