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I appreciate an honest reply.

Don't mean I agree, but I'm glad to see you lay it out there. A few things:

Whereas I see world salvation in W.J. Bryan's three defeats at the prez polls, you see the end of the world in his "Gold Cross" speech. Nevertheless, some sixty-six years before him, Daniel Webster said:

"There are persons who constantly clamor. They complain of oppression, speculation and pernicious influence of accumulated wealth. They cry out loudly against all banks and corporations and all means by which small capitalists become united in order to produce important and benefiicial results. They carry on mad hostility against all established institutions. They would choke the fountain of industry and dry all streams. In a country of unbounded liberty, they clamor against oppression. In a country of perfect equality, they would move heaven and earth against privilege and monopoly. In a country where property is more evenly divided than anywhere else, they rend the air shouting about agrarian doctrines. In a country where wages of labor are high and beyond parallel, they would teach the laborer that he is but an oppressed slave."

Btw, Wilson was not responsible for the 16-20th amendments. 16 & 17 came of events during the Taft administration, and the 18th & 19th amendments were not Wilson's doing. And what problem you have with the 20th I cannot imagine, unless you prefer better weather during inaugurations (the city of Washington long lobbied Congress for April or May inaugurations for the better weather).

The Federal Reserve came of five years of strenuous effort by the most conservative, capitalist-defending of Senators, Nelson A. Aldrich (you may recognize his name in Ford's V.P. Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, his grandson).

Well, I'm certainly not arguing that it would have been good thing for WJB to have won at the polls. In fact, my point was that he was the man who betrayed the principles of the Democratic party. It used to be the party which protected the common man from exploitation by big business. Under WJB, it became the party through which the common man exploited big business. Ever since, both parties have been about exploitation.

OTOH, I have little respect for Big Stick Roosevelt either. Since 1896, we have largely been offered a choice between war mongers and welfare mongers. With the result, over time, that we slowly have gotten more of both. By now, we get more socialism and more war no matter which bunch of scoundrels we elect.

Daniel Webster's words point out precisely what I was saying about the Republican party - the party of high tariffs and support for big business. Under Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, they became the part of war, as well.

It may be true that I exaggerated the role of Wilson in all these developments, especially the amendments to the Constitution. The point is that they were inevitable once the Democrats sold out.

And, of course, the 20th amendment was inconsequential. What's more it wasn't even from the Progressive Era. My inclusion of it was a typo.