America's Money Machine

O N
Preface
SEPTEMBER 30 , 19 1 3, at a moment when American attention
was focused· on the revolutionary monetary reform then under
debate in Congress, the New York Times astounded and diverted its public
by a bitter attack on a former president of the United States. The former
president was Theodore Roosevelt who had, the year before, broken
away from the Republican Party to run as the Progressive Party (Bull
Moose) candidate for president. He had been defeated by Woodrow
Wilson, but he had been a powerful candidate who had attracted the
greater part ofRepublican Party votes, and his views on public questions
still commanded a large following among the electorate.
What had aroused the mortal apprehensions of the Times' editors was
an article in the Century Magazine in which Roosevelt had outlined his
proposals for a reorganization of government and society. The editorial
attacked his blueprint as "super-socialism." Without going so far as to
charge Roosevelt with being a Marxist-this was before the Russian Revolution,
but Marxism was even then anathema on these shores-it declared
that he would in effect bring a Marxian redistribution ofwealth in
a "simpler and easier way."
"He leaves," the editorial went on to say, "the mines, the factories, the
railroads, the banks-all the instruments of production and exchangein
the hands of their individual owners, but of the profits of their operations
he takes whatever share the people at any given time may choose
to appropriate to the common use. The people are going to say, We care
not who owns and milks the cow, so long as we get our fill of the milk
and cream. Marx left socialism in its infancy, a doctrine that stumbled and
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