You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
68 PART I / THE ROOTS OF REFORM<br />
pledged the Party to enact a law for the guarantee of bank deposits. The<br />
country was still unconvinced, as shown by the electoral vote, Taft 32 1, Bryan<br />
162. At length in 1912, the Party on quite other issues came into power, upon<br />
a platform making no very definite declaration of banking principles, but<br />
condemning the Aldrich Bill, and promising such a revision ofbanking laws<br />
as would give temporary relief where it was needed, "with protection from<br />
control or domination by what is known as the money trust."<br />
What Mr. Bryan really means by his declaration that banking and currency<br />
reform "must be along lines in harmony with Democratic history and doctrine"<br />
is, as we pointed out the other day, the recall of the decisions taken<br />
by the people in 1896 and reaffirmed in 1900 and 1908, the decisions against<br />
his money doctrines. It is important, it is of the highest importance, that the<br />
country should understand, that all businessmen should understand, that the<br />
controlling purpose in Washington now is to enact a banking and currency<br />
law in conformity with the Democratic doctrine. That it should be a safe,<br />
sound, and practicable measure is secondary. The proof is in the bill itself.<br />
It takes from the banks the power ofcontrol over their business, invests that<br />
control in a board whose members are to be appointed by the Presidentpolitical<br />
appointees. It permits no issue ofcirculating notes by the banks: for<br />
their notes government paper money is to be substituted. These are all<br />
Democratic "doctrines." The well-nigh unanimous condemnation of the<br />
plan by the banks proves that these are not banking doctrines, not business<br />
doctrines. It is a plan for Democratic banking, for Bryan banking, that is in<br />
preparation. l<br />
Following the passage ofpower to the Democratic Administration, the<br />
principal protagonists ofcurrency legislation in the Congress were Carter<br />
Glass, chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, and<br />
Robert L. Owen, chairman of the corresponding Senate committee,<br />
along with academic figures like H. Parker Willis (who served as an<br />
assistant to Glass) and :A. Piatt Andrew, who had served as special assistant<br />
to the National Monetary Commission.* William Gibbs McAdoo, a<br />
New York lawyer, had been named Secretary of the Treasury and the<br />
spokesman of the Administration on monetary matters.<br />
Despite the urgency of currency legislation, despite the importance<br />
given to it by the new Administration, it was not until three and a half<br />
months after Wilson's inauguration that the Administration's proposals<br />
were presented to the country. Congress had been called into special<br />
*Owen, as noted, had been a member ofthe Senate only since the admission ofOklahoma<br />
to statehood in 1907. His appointment to a position ofsuch rank is partly due to his previous<br />
membership on the Senate Committee on Committees. Following the Democratic victory<br />
at the polls, this Committee divided the·Committee on Finance into two committees (one<br />
being the new Committee onBanking and Currency) with Owen named as chairman of the<br />
new committee. Owen, of course, had eminent qualifications for the post.
Change language