Posted on 04/27/2011 12:56:20 PM PDT by george76
Did the president lament the day he "unwittingly ruined" his country by creating the Federal Reserve?
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" I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world -- no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. "
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Via e-mail, John M. Cooper, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, and the author of several books on Woodrow Wilson, writes:
"I can tell you categorically that this is not a statement of regret for having created the Federal Reserve. Wilson never had any regrets for having done that. It was an accomplishment in which he took great pride."
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
Wilson could have defeated either Taft or TR outright in my opinion because he talked of a “New Freedom” that thrilled the uninformed. I can see similarity between Wilson and Clinton 80 years later.
Not quite. Taft was a Conservative, Hoover was a liberal. Had Hoover carried on in the tradition of his two predecessors, we’d never have had a prolonged Depression. Harding, so long maligned by historians, resolved the economic downturn at the end of Wilson’s reign in record time. My opinion of him radically changed when I learned just how successful his economic policies were... because they were so common-sense. Remember that the Democrats tried to get Hoover to run for President under THEIR label in 1920... he was preferred by both Wilson AND FDR ! It was only due to his reading the political tea leaves for that year and a lame excuse about not officially registering as one why he didn’t. If anything, Hoover was more like Ike, who also was a disaster as a Republican President.
If TR had been the nominee in 1912, I postulate Wilson would’ve been defeated by an achingly close margin. How so ? Look at the California returns. Taft was not on the ballot in the general election in the state because TR secured BOTH the Progressive & Republican lines. So the race was a good indicator of what such a showdown would’ve looked like between TR and Wilson with the Socialist Eugene V. Debs performing respectably. As it was, TR won the state by nearly a tie vote, less than 200 votes, each getting 41.8%. Debs took 12% and the Prohibitionist took 3.5%.
No, he WAS an out an out racist, but thanks to progressives they cleaned up his image better than Johnson, FDR and even Senator "Sheets" Byrd.
They even had black folks fooled to no end. Wilson single-handed got most of the black civil servants fired...
NO, I am not THAT old....lol
One big difference between Wilson and Clinton is that had Perot not run Clinton likely would have defeated President Bush by a 283-255 Electoral College majority (although Bush would have a chance of also winning CT and IA and getting to 270), while the 1912 results show that Wilson would not have gotten over 231 EVs (with 266 needed for victory) had he run either against Taft or TR.
“JP Morgan was the driving force behind the creation of the Fed, citing his experience during the panic of 1907.”
Yes - the merge of the interests of the major banks with the interests of the politicians that want to borrow money, and borrow more and back stop the banks using the taxpayers money.
“Yes - the merge of the interests of the major banks with the interests of the politicians that want to borrow money, and borrow more and back stop the banks using the taxpayers money.”
Well that’s nice but you are confusing the role of Congress and the Executive with that of the Fed. The Fed can’t increase the national debt by even one cent.
Politicians have been borrowing money since the days of the Continental Congress, which by my estimation predates the Fed by 130 years. They don’t need the Fed in order to borrow money. The Fed is simply irrelevant to the national debt. And it has no power to force taxpayers to do anything.
Nor can the Fed make taxpayers backstop the banks. There are two laws that I know of that have taxpayers backstopping banks, the FDIC and TARP. In both cases those are laws signed into effect by Presidents.
I’ve played around with 1912 on Dave Leip’s atlas.
If Wilson had gotten all of Debs vote it I think it would have been hella close. But with Debs in their I think either Taft or TR would have taken it.
The pro-Wilson swings in 1916 are perplexing, many Hughes states were close. I guess he got many of those TR voters.
Yeah he was Governor when he was appointed to the court the first time.
Best President we never had is short list if you limit it to failed major nominees.
I’ve always wonder what Henry Clay would have been like.
“He kept us out of war.”
Silly reason to vote for him. Especially since he was lying. ;d
No sillier than the reasons why Republicans voted for Obama in 2008. Sometimes voters get silly.
“Wilson (and his wife who took over after his stroke) was the first truly odious President.”
I don’t know. John Adams didn’t do much to stop the beatings and unconstitutional arrests of the press. A good thing he was spanked decisively before it got worse.
Wilson did cause an ecomomic depression though. [God bless Harding!] The really irritating thing about Wilson was that Wilson pulled it off. He also had pervaded colleges with his progressive vision.
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