Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward полностью

expressing their eternal animosity to this monstrous legislation.

Vanderlip warned against the evils of fiat money and rampantinflation. Aldrich charged that the Glass-Owen Bill was inimical tosound banking and good government. Vanderlip predicted speculation and instability in the stock market. Aldrich sourly complained that the bill was "revolutionary in its character" (implyingBolshevistic) and "will be the first and most important step towardchanging our form of government from a democracy to an autocracy.

THE PRETENSE IS DROPPED

That all of this was merely high-level showmanship was madeclear when Vanderlip accepted a debate with Congressman Glassbefore the New York Economic Society on November 13. Therewere eleven hundred bankers and businessmen present, andVanderlip was under pressure to make a good showing before thisimpressive group. The debate was going badly for him and, in amoment of desperation, he finally dropped the pretense. "Foryears," he said, "bankers have been almost the sole advocates ofjust this sort of legislation that it is now hoped we will have, and itis unfair to accuse them of being in opposition to sound legislation."3 Twenty-two years later, when the need for pretense hadlong passed, Vanderlip was even more candid. Writing in the 1. Quoted by Mullins, p. 13.

2. Aldrich to John A. Sleicher, July 16, 1913; Aldrich to William Howard Taft, Oct. 3,1913, Nelson Aldrich Papers, Library of Congress.

3. Frank A- Vanderlip, Address Before the Economics Club of New York, November 13, 1913, (New York: 1913), pp. 6,11 ff. Also see Glass, pp. 125,168-76.

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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

Saturday Evening Post, he said: "Although the Aldrich FederalReserve Plan was defeated when it bore the name Aldrich, nevertheless its essential points were all contained in the plan that finallywas adopted."1

In his autobiography, Treasury Secretary William McAdoooffers this view:

Bankers fought the Federal Reserve legislation—and every

provision of the Federal Reserve Act—with the tireless energy of men fighting a forest fire. They said it was populistic, socialistic, half-baked, destructive, infantile, badly conceived, and unworkable....

These interviews with bankers led me to an interesting conclusion.

1 perceived gradually, through all the haze and smoke of controversy, that the banking world was not really as opposed to the bill as it pretended to be.