Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward

believed in the virtue of the Jekyll Island plan, and the evidence is that he pursued his assignment with enthusiastic sincerity. But there is no doubt that he was selected for his new post precisely because he did support the concept of a partnership between banking and government as a healthy substitute for 'destructive'

competition. In other words, if he didn't honestly agree with John D. that competition was a sin, he probably never even would have been given a professorship in the first place.5

1. Stephenson, pp. 388-89.

2. Kolko, Triumph, p. 187.

3. Stephenson, p. 388.

4. Lindbergh, p. 131.

5. For an excellent overview of the formation and activities of the League, see Kolko, Triumph, pp. 186-228.

COMPETITION IS A SIN

447

WILSON AND WALL STREET

Woodrow Wilson was yet another academic who was brought into the national spotlight as a result of his views on banking reform. It will be recalled from a previous chapter that Wilson's name had been put into nomination for President at the Democratic national convention largely due to the influence of Col. Edward Mandell House. But that was 1912. Ten years prior to that, he was relatively unknown. In 1902 he had been elected as the president of Princeton University, a position he could not have held without the concurrence of the University's benefactors among Wall Street bankers. He was particularly close with Andrew Carnegie and had become a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation.

Two of the most generous donors were Cleveland H. Dodge and Cyrus McCormick, directors of Rockefeller's National City Bank. They were part of that Wall Street elite which the Pujo

• Committee had described as America's 'Money Trust.' Both men had been Wilson's classmates at Princeton University. When Wilson returned to Princeton as a professor in 1890, Dodge and McCormick were, by reason of their wealth, University trustees, and they took it upon themselves to personally advance his career Ferdinand Lundberg, in America's Sixty Families, says this: For nearly twenty years before his nomination Woodrow Wilson had moved in the shadow of Wall Street.... In 1898 Wilson, his salary unsatisfactory, besieged with offers of many university presidencies threatened to resign. Dodge and McCormick thereupon constituted themselves his financial guardians, and agreed to raise the additional informal stipendium that kept him at Princeton. The contributors to this private fund were Dodge, McCormick, and Moses Taylor Pyne and Percy R. Pyne, of the family that founded the National City Bank In 1902 this same group arranged Wilson's election as president of the university.

A grateful Wilson often had spoken in glowing terms about the rise of vast corporations and had praised J.P. Morgan as a great American leader. He also had come to acceptable conclusions about the value of a controlled economy. 'The old time of individual competition is probably gone by,' he said. 'It may come back; I don't know; it will not come back within our time, I dare say.'2

L Lundberg, pp. 114-15.

2- Greider, p. 276.

448 THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

H.S. Kenan tells us the rest of the story:

Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University was the first prominent educator to speak in favor of the Aldrich Plan a gesture S S c h immediately brought him the Governorship of New Jersey and later the Presidency of the United States. During the panic of 1907, Wilson declared that: 'all this trouble could be averted if we appointed a committee of six or seven public-spirited men like J.l.

Morgan to handle the affairs of our country.'

OPPOSITION TO THE ALDRICH BILL

One of the disagreements at the Jekyll Island meeting was over the name to be attached to the proposed legislation. Warburg, being the master psychologist he was, wanted it to be called the National Reserve Bill or the Federal Reserve Bill, something which would conjure up the dual images of government and reserves, both of which were calculated to be subconsciously appealing-Aldrich, on the other hand, acting out of personal ego, insisted that his name be attached to the bill. W a r b u r g pointed out that the Aldrich name was associated in the minds of the public with Wall Street interests, and that would be an unnecessary obstacle to achieving their goal. Aldrich said that, since he had been the chairman of the National Monetary Commission which was created specifically to make recommendations for banking reform, people would be confused if his name were not associated with the bill The debate, we are told, was long and heated. But, in the end, the politician's ego won out over the banker's logic.