America's Money Machine

PART II / THE GREAT REVERSAL
then a revolutionary innovation in business; by Constance Bennett preparing
her way for later renown as a motion picture queen by steeplejacking
and painting a flag pole 480 feet above the street;2 by the British
Prime Minister opening a "peace campaign";3 by theJ. P. Morgan & Co.
partners relinquishing some thirty board directorships in the interest of
abating anti-trust hostility;4 by the Kaiser stripping the Crown Prince of
his authority in punishment for his having intervened politically in the
Zebern affair;5 by the lifting of the arms embargo on Mexico;6 by Wilson
winning repeal of the Panama Canal tolls bill that favored U. S. ships;7
by police battling I.W.W. (Industrial Workers ofthe World-a pre-Soviet
workers' movement) in Union Square, New York;8 by Rockefeller's embarrassment
over the strikes in his Colorado mines-the "Rockefeller
War"-that eventually led to intervention by U. S. troops;9 by the intervention
in Mexico and landing of marines at Vera Cruz. 10
For thirty-seven American cities, however, the principal preoccupation
was their claims to be selected as a reserve city. The Committee stretched
its authority to the maximum and chose twelve, and announced its decision
on April 2. New Orleans was passed over in favor of Dallas; the
Committee ignored the claims of Senator Owen's home state and chose
Kansas City instead of Oklahoma City, at the same time passing over
Denver and Omaha. The twelve cities selected were: New York, Boston,
Philadelphia, Richmond, Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, St. Louis, Dallas,
Kansas City, San Francisco, and Minneapolis.
Meantime, another issue arose over appointments to the governing
board of the new institution. McAdoo, as Secretary of the Treasury, and
John Skelton Williams, as Comptroller of the Currency, were ex officio
members. On May 4, it was reported that the President would propose
the following for membership: Richard Olney of Boston, Attorney General
and Secretary of State in the second Cleveland Administration, and
now seventy-eight years old; the New York banker Paul M. Warburg;
Adolph Caspar Miller of Berkeley, California, forty-eight years old, educator
and economist and at the time assistant to the Secretary of the
Interior; W. P. G. Harding, president of the First National Bank of Birmingham,
Alabama; and Harry A. Wheeler, a Chicago banker and former
president of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.
Olney, however, declined the appointment because of his age, and
Wilson found it expedient to make other changes in his list. He nominated
instead Thomas C. Jones, head of the International Harvester
Company-who immediately became a controversial figure because ofhis
association with what had come under attack as a monopoly of farm