1900

McKinley, the most popular chief executive since Abraham Lincoln, is re-nominated with Theodore Roosevelt as vice president. The prosperity of the nation continues. One of the best Republican slogans is "four years more of the full dinner-pail."

J. Henry Schroder Banking Company is listed as Number 2 in capitalization on the list of the seventeen merchant bankers who make up the exclusive Accepting Houses Committee in London. Although it is almost unknown in the United States, it has played a large part in our history. Like the others on this list, it had first to be approved by the Bank of England. The von Schroders began their banking operations in Hamburg, Germany. In 1900, Baron Bruno von Schroder established the London branch of the firm. He was soon joined by Frank Cyril Tiarks, in 1902. Tiarks married Emma Franziska of Hamburg, and was a director of the Bank of England from 1912 to 1945.

Robert Sterling Clark - helped to suppress the Boxer Rebellion. In July 1900 his courageous and distinguished participation in the capture of Tientsin earned him the commission of first lieutenant, and Clark subsequently took part in the siege and capture of Peking (Beijing).

Emile Francqui, director of a large Belgian bank, Societe Generale, and a London mining promoter, an American named Herbert Hoover, who had been associated with Francqui in a number of scandals which had become celebrated court cases, notably the Kaiping Coal Company scandal in China, said to have set off the Boxer Rebellion, which had as its goal the expulsion of all foreign businessmen from China.

1901

William Taft is appointed civil governor of the Philippines, with full responsibility for reorganizing the national and municipal government, the judiciary and police, and the taxation system.

Princeton University trustees unanimously elect Woodrow Wilson president of the university on June 9th. He is determined to build the university into an institution that will produce leaders and statesmen.

Robert Sterling Clark - still in the Army - returns to Washington.

On September 6th, President McKinley makes a final public appearance in the Temple of Music of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He is notorious for discounting his own personal safety at public appearances and has repeatedly resisted attempts by his personal secretary, George Cortelyou, to cancel the event. Cortelyou tightens security as best he can. But anarchist Leon Czolgosz (after hearing notorious anarchist leader Emma Goldman speak about action against the government 2 weeks before) shoots McKinley. Roosevelt hastens to Buffalo. Assured that the president is recovering and out of danger, he joins his family at a camp in the Adirondack Mountains.

Secretary of State John Hay has already experienced the assassinations of 2 presidents, Abraham Lincoln (he was his personal secretary) and James Garfield (a close friend and confidant). He is afraid the president will die, although everyone else is optimistic. McKinley dies 8 days later on September 14th.

Theodore Roosevelt (R) becomes the American President.

With a few companions, Roosevelt climbs up Mount Tahawus. A guide overtakes him with the news that the president is dying. Roosevelt's company undertakes a 10-mile hike to the nearest road, then a wild night ride by horse and buggy over 40 miles of roads dangerously washed by heavy rains a few days earlier. They reach the railroad station at 5:30 a.m., where a special train is waiting to rush Roosevelt to Buffalo. He takes the oath of office after McKinley's death in the home of a friend on the afternoon of September 14th.

At the end of the year, President Roosevelt requests that Taft replace Elihu Root as secretary of war. Later during an illness of John Hay, Taft is acting secretary of state. After Hay's death, Root will return to the Cabinet as secretary of state. Roosevelt, Taft, and Root work so well together that they will come to be known as the Three Musketeers.

Jacob Schiff was a major figure in the protracted but ultimately inconclusive struggle for control of the Northern Pacific Railroad, backing Harriman against James J. Hill and his banker, J.P. Morgan. The struggle brought about the stock market panic of 1901, and the warring factions agreed to a compromise, banding together to form the Northern Securities Company.

1903

The US Dept of Commerce and Labor is established.

Thomas Edison produces the first 'western' The Great Train Robbery.'

Henry Ford founds Ford Motors.

Robert Sterling Clark - still in the Army - returns to Peking China.

Yale Divinity School set up a program of schools and hospitals in China. Mao Zedong was among the staff. During the intrigues of China in the 1930s and '40s, American intelligence called upon the resources of "Yale in China", and George Bush's cousin and fellow "Bonesman" Reuben Holden.

1904

At the start of the 20th century, industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller saw a justification for competitive capitalism in Darwin's 'survival of the fittest'. Eugenics would surely be the logical step forward, enabling man to command his own evolution in a way that was efficient and progressive. In 1904, the Carnegie Institution founded a centre for genetic research at Cold Spring Harbour, with Charles Davenport as director. Davenport soon turned his attention to human inheritance. Along with such purely genetic traits as albinism and Huntington's disease, he also traced conditions like alcoholism and 'feeble-mindedness' through family lineages. He pronounced these to be Mendelian in nature.

The American eugenic movement involved itself with legislation to restrict immigration for those not of Anglo-Saxon or Nordic heritage.

Lt. Frank H. Schofield "Three objects appeared beneath the clouds, their color a rather bright red. As they approached the ship they appeared to soar, passing above the broken clouds. After rising above the clouds they appeared to be moving directly away from the earth. The largest had an apparent area of about six suns. It was egg-shaped, the larger end forward. The second was about twice the size of the sun, and the third, about the size of the sun. Their near approach to the surface appeared to be most remarkable. That they did come below the clouds and soar instead of continuing their southeasterly course is also curious. The lights were in sight for over two minutes and were carefully observed by three people whose accounts agree as to the details." Lt. Frank H. Schofield, later to become Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Fleet, aboard the U.S.S. Supply off of the eastern coast of Korea, February 28, 1904

Schiff, Harriman, Hill and Morgan - The legality of the Northern Securities Company was challenged by President Theodore Roosevelt under the anti-trust laws, and the Supreme Court ordered the company dissolved in 1904. Schiff's banking firm also arranged numerous other transactions involving major railroads throughout the country, most notably the Pennsylvania Railroad. Through Kuhn, Loeb, and Company he played a central role in securing $200,000,000 in loans for Japan in the United States in 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War, for which he was subsequently decorated by the emperor of Japan. Schiff was angry over the anti-Semitic pogroms and policies of the czar. Helping Japan fight Russia was one of his methods of striking back at anti-Semitism.

[Al Gore's daughter Karenna Gore married Andrew Schiff, a descendant of Jacob Schiff.]

1905

Albert Einstein's "Theory of Special Relativity." See, "Elektrodynamik Bewegter Kärper," 17 Annalen der Physik, pp. 891-921. (1905).

Robert Sterling Clark - still in the Army - travels to the West Indies to begin preparations for an ambitious undertaking: an expedition to a remote area of northern China.

The beginning of the 20th century saw eugenicists questioning the health of the German race. The 'poorer' specimens of the race - the 'ill-educated, disease-ridden lower classes' in particular - were tending to breed more than the 'better' specimens. Social reforms and improved medical care only exacerbated the problem by helping the less fit survive and therefore stopping what Charles Darwin had termed 'natural selection'. With such fears in mind, the Society for Racial Hygiene was founded by Alfred Ploetz in 1905. It would be fair to say that initially the Society was not overtly racist. Indeed, Ploetz himself applauded the Jewish race as being equal in merit to the Nordic. Although never large in numbers, the Society grew in influence, particularly in the years following World War I.

Franklin Roosevelt marries Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, his 6th cousin, on March 17th. President Theodore Roosevelt comes to New York City to give the bride away. His liberal ideas and strong leadership will help Franklin decide on a career in public service.

Rumania, Bucovina. During the evening a retired doctor saw a brightly glowing elongated, saucer-shaped object bigger than the moon traveling steadily westwards.

1906

The Race Betterment Foundation was set up in Michigan, U.S.A., by J.H. Kellogg of cornflakes fame.

Canada, in the North Atlantic, NE of Newfoundland, deck of the ship St Andrew. "I saw three meteors fall into the water dead ahead of the ship one after another at a distance of about five miles. Although it was daylight, they left a red streak in the air from zenith to the horizon. Simultaneously the third engineer shouted to me. I then saw a huge meteor on the port beam falling in a zigzag manner less than a mile away to the southward. We could distinctly hear the hissing of water as it touched. It fell with a rocking motion leaving a broad red streak in its wake. The meteor must have weighed several tons, and appeared to be 10 to 15 feet in diameter. It was saucer shaped which probably accounted for the peculiar rocking motion. When the mass of metal struck the water the spray and steam rose to a height of at least 40 feet, and for a few moments looked like the mouth of a crater. If it had been night, the meteor would have illuminated the sea for 50 or 60 miles."

China Sea. Giant luminous wheels were seen by a British steamer.

1907

Inspired by Galton's ideas, the Eugenics Education Society of UK was founded with the explicit aim of spreading the doctrine of genetic improvement throughout the land. Galton became its honorary president in 1908. Galton's protëgë, Karl Pearson, a statistician of real originality, developed the founder's ideas of human measurement and formed the Biometric Laboratory at University College, London in the 1890s. If Galton was an enthusiast, Pearson was a fanatic - a cold, calculating measurer of man who claimed to be a socialist, but loathed the working class. His journal Biometrika became influential, particularly in the United States. In 1911 he became the first Galton Professor of Eugenics at London University, a post created in accordance with Galton's will. Galton's movement never achieved legislative power in Britain. The story was different in the US.

Panic of 1907 results in a public outcry that the nation's monetary system be stabilized.

1908

The Tunguska meteorite. A mysterious fireball exploded over Tunguska in Siberia, creating shock waves felt miles away and setting 1,200 acres on fire. In 1927, Russian scientists first visit the sight of the blast. They find no meteorite fragments.

Robert Sterling Clark - still in the Army - undertakes an ambitious expedition to a remote area of northern China. Under Clark's leadership an expedition of thirty-six men carried out zoological and ethnological research and made the first map of a little-known area of China between 1908 and 1909. This expedition came to an abrupt end, however, when the party's Indian surveyor and interpreter, Hazrat Ali, was killed by the Chinese. Clark returned to the United States and published a vivid account of the day-to-day experiences of the expedition together with its scientific results: Through Shên-kan: The Account of the Clark Expedition in North China, 1908-1909, by Robert Sterling Clark and Arthur de C. Sowerby, ed. by Major C. H. Chepmell (London and Leipzig: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912). Clark describes:

The visitor to Hsi-an, as he travels over the rolling plain from no matter what direction, cannot fail to notice numerous mound of unusual shape dotted about everywhere like immense molehills, ofetn attaining a height of at least 100 feet, and standing on bases of very considerable area. [...] they are the tombs of kings and emperors, and their wives, and of scholars and sages notable in their day. [...] Concerning some, fantastic legends still linger in the minds of the people. [p.45]

Sowerby and Clark nowhere refer to the mounds as "pyramids."

Bulgaria, Sofia. A very bright spherical object flew slowly above a square one afternoon.

President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the bill creating the National Monetary Commission

1909

England. Mystery airships seen almost exclusively at night, once again visited many parts of Britain. Mostly described as oblong in shape and equipped with a large searchlight, the craft was capable of propelling itself through the air at great speed.

Persian Gulf. Objects described as rotating wheels, which could go under water were sighted and a Danish captain.

Vietnam. Fishermen located at the port city of Dong Hui; saw an elongated brightly lit object flying over the community for nearly ten minutes. It then disappeared after plunging into the sea of the cost.

Creation of British MI5 and MI6 - the world's oldest secret intelligence agencies. A military section (MOT, became MI5) and a naval section (M1-1C, later MI6).

November 22, a delegation of the nation's leading financiers led by Senator Nelson Aldrich, head of the National Monetary Commission, attend a meeting at Jekyll Island, Georgia. Accompanying Senator Aldrich were his private secretary, Shelton; A. Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and Special Assistant of the National Monetary Commission; Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York, Henry P. Davison, senior partner of J.P. Morgan Company, and generally regarded as Morgan's personal emissary; and Charles D. Norton, president of the Morgan-dominated First National Bank of New York. Joining the group just before the train left the station were Benjamin Strong, also known as a lieutenant of J.P. Morgan; and Paul Warburg, (see above) from Germany (who had married the daughter of Solomon Loeb, and whose father was closely associated with the Rothchilds) joined the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb. (Prof. Nathaniel Wright Stephenson, Paul Warburg's Memorandum, Nelson Aldrich A Leader in American Politics, Scribners, N.Y. 1930)

[...] Nelson (Aldrich) had confided to Henry, Frank, Paul and Piatt that he was to keep them locked up at Jekyll Island, out of the rest of the world, until they had evolved and compiled a scientific currency system for the United States, the real birth of the present Federal Reserve System, the plan done on Jekyll Island in the conference with Paul, Frank and Henry . . . . Warburg is the link that binds the Aldrich system and the present system together. He more than any one man has made the system possible as a working reality. The full complement of "guests" may never be known, but the New York Times later noted, on May 3, 1931, in commenting on the death of George F. Baker, one of J.P. Morgan's closest associates, that "Jekyll Island Club has lost one of its most distinguished members. One-sixth of the total wealth of the world was represented by the members of the Jekyll Island Club." Membership was by inheritance only.

Why all this secrecy? Why this thousand mile trip in a closed railway car to a remote hunting club? Ostensibly, it was to carry out a program of public service, to prepare banking reform which would be a boon to the people of the United States, which had been ordered by the National Monetary Commission.

The participants were no strangers to public benefactions. Usually, their names were inscribed on brass plaques, or on the exteriors of buildings which they had donated. This was not the procedure which they followed at Jekyll Island. No brass plaque was ever erected to mark the selfless actions of those who met at their private hunt club in 1910 to improve the lot of every citizen of the United States. In fact, no benefaction took place at Jekyll Island. The Aldrich group journeyed there in private to write the banking and currency legislation which the National Monetary Commission had been ordered to prepare in public. At stake was the future control of the money and credit of the United States. If any genuine monetary reform had been prepared and presented to Congress, it would have ended the power of the elitist one world money creators. Jekyll Island ensured that a central bank would be established in the United States which would give these bankers everything they had always wanted. [...]

The "monetary reform" plan prepared at Jekyll Island was to be presented to Congress as the completed work of the National Monetary Commission. It was imperative that the real authors of the bill remain hidden. So great was popular resentment against bankers since the Panic of 1907 that no Congressman would dare to vote for a bill bearing the Wall Street taint, no matter who had contributed to his campaign expenses. The Jekyll Island plan was a central bank plan, and in this country there was a long tradition of struggle against inflicting a central bank on the American people. It had begun with Thomas Jefferson's fight against Alexander Hamilton's scheme for the First Bank of the United States, backed by James Rothschild. It had continued with President Andrew Jackson's successful war against Alexander Hamilton's scheme for the Second Bank of the United States, in which Nicholas Biddle was acting as the agent for James Rothschild of Paris. The result of that struggle was the creation of the Independent Sub-Treasury System, which supposedly had served to keep the funds of the United States out of the hands of the financiers. A study of the panics of 1873, 1893, and 1907 indicates that these panics were the result of the international bankers' operations in London. The public was demanding in 1908 that Congress enact legislation to prevent the recurrence of artificially induced money panics. Such monetary reform now seemed inevitable. It was to head off and control such reform that the National Monetary Commission had been set up with Nelson Aldrich at its head, since he was majority leader of the Senate. [...]

In the chapter on Jekyll Island in his biography of Aldrich, Stephenson writes of the conference: "How was the Reserve Bank to be controlled? It must be controlled by Congress. The government was to be represented in the board of directors, it was to have full knowledge of all the Bank's, affairs, but a majority of the directors were to be chosen, directly or indirectly, by the banks of the association." [...]

In the final refinement of Warburg's plan, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors would be appointed by the President of the United States, but the real work of the Board would be controlled by a Federal Advisory Council, meeting with the Governors. The Council would be chosen by the directors of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, and would remain unknown to the public. [...]

This patent removal of the system from Congressional control meant that the Federal Reserve proposal was unconstitutional from its inception, because the Federal Reserve System was to be a bank of issue. Article 1, Sec. 8, Par. 5 of the Constitution expressly charges Congress with "the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof.". Warburg's plan would deprive Congress of its sovereignty, and the systems of checks and balances of power set up by Thomas Jefferson in the Constitution would now be destroyed. [...]

The participants in the Jekyll Island conference returned to New York to direct a nationwide propaganda campaign in favor of the "Aldrich Plan". Three of the leading universities, Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Chicago, were used as the rallying points for this propaganda, and national banks had to contribute to a fund of five million dollars to persuade the American public that this central bank plan should be enacted into law by Congress. [...]

Woodrow Wilson, governor of New Jersey and former president of Princeton University, was enlisted as a spokesman for the Aldrich Plan. During the Panic of 1907, Wilson had declared, "All this trouble could be averted if we appointed a committee of six or seven public-spirited men like J.P. Morgan to handle the affairs of our country." (Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Griffin, 1952)

1910

With the financial support of the Harriman and Rockefeller families, Charles Davenport established the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbour and appointed Harry Laughlin as its superintendent.

Normandy. The crew of a French fishing boat operating off the coast saw 'a large, black, bird-like object' fall from the sky into the sea, then bounded back before it fell once more and disappeared under the waves.

1911

A political cartoon drawn by cartoonist Robert Minor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1911 made an unusual statement. Minor's cartoon portrays a bearded, beaming Karl Marx standing in Wall Street with Socialism tucked under his arm and accepting the congratulations of financial luminaries J.P. Morgan, Morgan partner George W. Perkins, a smug John D. Rockefeller, John D. Ryan of National City Bank, and Teddy Roosevelt - prominently identified by his famous teeth - in the background. Wall Street is decorated by Red flags. The cheering crowd and the airborne hats suggest that Karl Marx must have been a fairly popular sort of fellow in the New York financial district.

"A pamphlet was issued January 16, 1911, ïSuggested Plan for Monetary Legislation', by Hon. Nelson Aldrich, based on Jekyll Island conclusions. An organization for financial progress has been formed. Mr. Warburg introduced a resolution authorizing the establishment of the Citizens' League, later the National Citizens League . . . Professor Laughlin of the University of Chicago was given charge of the League's propaganda." (biography of Nelson Aldrich by Stephenson, 1930)

The two most tireless propagandists for the Aldrich Plan were Professor O.M. Sprague of Harvard, and J. Laurence Laughlin of the University of Chicago. Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., notes:

"J. Laurence Laughlin, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Citizens' League since its organization, has returned to his position as professor of political economics in the University of Chicago. In June, 1911, Professor Laughlin was given a year's leave from the university, that he might give all of his time to the campaign of education undertaken by the League . . . He has worked indefatigably, and it is largely due to his efforts and his persistence that the campaign enters the final stage with flattering prospects of a successful outcome . . . The reader knows that the University of Chicago is an institution endowed by John D. Rockefeller, with nearly fifty million dollars." (Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Griffin, 1952)

Testifying before the Committee on Rules, December 15, 1911, after the Aldrich plan had been introduced in Congress, Congressman Lindbergh stated,

"Our financial system is a false one and a huge burden on the people . . . I have alleged that there is a Money Trust. The Aldrich plan is a scheme plainly in the interest of the Trust . . . Why does the Money Trust press so hard for the Aldrich Plan now, before the people know what the money trust has been doing? [...]

The Aldrich Plan is the Wall Street Plan. It is a broad challenge to the Government by the champion of the Money Trust. It means another panic, if necessary, to intimidate the people. Aldrich, paid by the Government to represent the people, proposes a plan for the trusts instead. It was by a very clever move that the National Monetary Commission was created. In 1907 nature responded most beautifully and gave this country the most bountiful crop it had ever had. Other industries were busy too, and from a natural standpoint all the conditions were right for a most prosperous year. Instead, a panic entailed enormous losses upon us. Wall Street knew the American people were demanding a remedy against the recurrence of such a ridiculously unnatural condition. Most Senators and Representatives fell into the Wall Street trap and passed the Aldrich Vreeland Emergency Currency Bill. But the real purpose was to get a monetary commission which would frame a proposition for amendments to our currency and banking laws which would suit the Money Trust. The interests are now busy everywhere educating the people in favor of the Aldrich Plan. It is reported that a large sum of money has been raised for this purpose. Wall Street speculation brought on the Panic of 1907. The depositors' funds were loaned to gamblers and anybody the Money Trust wanted to favour. Then when the depositors wanted their money, the banks did not have it. That made the panic." (Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., Banking, Currency and the Money Trust, 1913, p. 131)

The Aldrich Plan never came to a vote in Congress, because the Republicans lost control of the House in 1910, and subsequently lost the Senate and the Presidency in 1912.

1912

The psychologist Henry Goddard had introduced the Binet intelligence test to the US at the start of the century. This gave the eugenicists a way to quantify intelligence, and, more particularly, measure and define 'idiots', 'imbeciles' and 'morons'. Goddard's famous study of the inheritance of feeble-mindedness in the pseudonymous 'Kallikak' family was published in 1912.

Senator LaFollette and Congressman Lindbergh spoke regularly in opposition to the Aldrich Plan in 1912. They also aroused popular feeling against the Money Trust. Senator LaFollette publicly charged that a money trust of fifty men controlled the United States. George F. Baker, partner of J.P. Morgan, on being queried by reporters as to the truth of the charge, replied that it was absolutely in error. He said that he knew from personal knowledge that not more than eight men ran this country. The Nation Magazine replied editorially to Senator LaFollette that "If there is a Money Trust, it will not be practical to establish that it exercises its influence either for good or for bad." Senator LaFollette remarks in his memoirs that his speech against the Money Trust later cost him the Presidency of the United States, just as Woodrow Wilson's early support of the Aldrich Plan had brought him into consideration for that office.

Congress appointed a committee to investigate the control of money and credit in the United States. This was the Pujo Committee , a subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency Committee, which conducted the famous "Money Trust" hearings in 1912, under the leadership of Congressman Arsene Pujo of Louisiana, who was regarded as a spokesman for the oil interests. These hearings were deliberately dragged on for five months, and resulted in six-thousand pages of printed testimony in four volumes. Month after month, the bankers made the train trip from New York to Washington, testified before the Committee and returned to New York. The hearings were extremely dull, and no startling information turned up at these sessions. The bankers solemnly admitted that they were indeed bankers, insisted that they always operated in the public interest, and claimed that they were animated only by the highest ideals of public service, like the Congressmen before whom they were testifying.

The man who single-handedly carried on these hearings, Samuel Untermyer. He was one of the principal contributors to Woodrow Wilson's Presidential campaign fund, and was one of the wealthiest corporation lawyers in New York. He refused to ask either Senator LaFollette or Congressman Lindbergh to testify in the investigation which they alone had forced Congress to hold. [...]

Although he was a specialist in such matters, Untermyer did not ask any of the bankers about the system of interlocking directorates through which they controlled industry. He did not go into international gold movements, which were known as a factor in money panics, or the international relationships between American bankers and European bankers. The international banking houses of Eugene Meyer, Lazard Freres, J. & W. Seligman, Ladenburg Thalmann, Speyer Brothers, M. M. Warburg, and the Rothschild Brothers did not arouse Samuel Untermyer's curiosity, although it was well known in the New York financial world that all of these family banking houses either had branches or controlled subsidiary houses in Wall Street. When Jacob Schiff appeared before the Pujo Committee, Mr. Untermyer's adroit questioning allowed Mr. Schiff to talk for many minutes without revealing any information about the operations of the banking house of Kuhn Loeb Company, of which he was senior partner, and which Senator Robert L. Owen had identified as the representative of the European Rothschilds in the United States. [...]

The farce of the Pujo Committee ended without a single well-known opponent of the money creators being allowed to appear or testify. As far as Samuel Untermyer was concerned, Senator LaFollette and Congressman Charles Augustus Lindbergh had never existed. [...] At the close of the hearings, the bankers and their subsidized newspapers claimed that the only way to break the "Money Trust monopoly" was to enact the banking and currency legislation now being proposed to Congress, a bill which would be passed a year later as the Federal Reserve Act. The press seriously demanded that the New York banking monopoly be broken by turning over the administration of the new banking system to the most knowledgeable banker of them all, Paul Warburg. [...]

The Presidential campaign of 1912 records one of the more interesting political upsets in American history. The incumbent, William Howard Taft, was a popular president, and the Republicans, in a period of general prosperity, were firmly in control of the government through a Republican majority in both houses. The Democratic challenger, Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New Jersey, had no national recognition, and was a stiff, austere man who excited little public support. Both parties included a monetary reform bill in their platforms: The Republicans were committed to the Aldrich Plan, which had been denounced as a Wall Street plan, and the Democrats had the Federal Reserve Act. Neither party bothered to inform the public that the bills were almost identical except for the names. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the money creators decided to dump Taft and go with Wilson. [...]

Since the bankers were financing both candidates, they would win regardless of the outcome. Later Congressional testimony showed that in the firm of Kuhn Loeb Company, Felix Warburg was supporting Taft, Paul Warburg and Jacob Schiff were supporting Wilson. The result was that a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President were elected in 1912 to get the central bank legislation passed. It seems probable that the identification of the Aldrich Plan as a Wall Street operation predicted that it would have a difficult passage through Congress, as the Democrats would solidly oppose it, whereas a successful Democratic candidate, supported by a Democratic Congress, would be able to pass the central bank plan. [...] Col. Garrison, an agent of Brown Brothers bankers, later Brown Brothers Harriman, wrote in this book, "Paul Warburg is the man who got the Federal Reserve Act together after the Aldrich Plan aroused such nationwide resentment and opposition. The mastermind of both plans was Baron Alfred Rothschild of London." [...]

Colonel Edward Mandell House was referred to by Rabbi Stephen Wise in his autobiography, Challenging Years as "the unofficial Secretary of State". House noted that he and Wilson knew that in passing the Federal Reserve Act, they had created an instrument more powerful than the Supreme Court. The Federal Reserve Board of Governors actually comprised a Supreme Court of Finance, and there was no appeal from any of their rulings. [...]

In 1911, prior to Wilson's taking office as President, Colonel House had returned to his home in Texas and completed a book called Philip Dru, Administrator. Ostensibly a novel, it was actually a detailed plan for the future government of the United States, "which would establish Socialism as dreamed by Karl Marx", according to House.

This "novel" predicted the enactment of the graduated income tax, excess profits tax, unemployment insurance, social security, and a flexible currency system. In short, it was the blueprint which was later followed by the Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt administrations. It was published "anonymously" by B. W. Huebsch of New York, and widely circulated among government officials, who were left in no doubt as to its authorship. [...] Westbrook Pegler, the Hearst columnist from 1932 to 1956, heard of the Philip Dru book and wrote a column about it, stating: "One of the institutions outlined in Philip Dru is the Federal Reserve System. The Schiffs, the Warburgs, the Kahns, the Rockefellers and Morgans put their faith in House. The Schiff, Warburg, Rockefeller and Morgan interests were personally represented in the mysterious conference at Jekyll Island. Frankfurter landed on the Harvard law faculty, thanks to a financial contribution to Harvard by Felix Warburg and Paul Warburg, and so we got Alger and Donald Hiss, Lee Pressman, Harry Dexter White and many other protëgës of Little Weenie." [...]

House's openly Socialistic views were forthrightly expressed in Philip Dru, Administrator; on pages 57-58, House wrote: "In a direct and forceful manner, he pointed out that our civilization was fundamentally wrong, inasmuch, among other things, as it restricted efficiency. [...] In his book, House (Dru) envisions himself becoming a dictator and forcing on the people his radical views, page 148: "They recognized the fact that Dru dominated the situation and that a master mind had at last risen in the Republic." He now assumes the title of General. "General Dru announced his purpose of assuming the powers of a dictator . . . they were assured that he was free from any personal ambition . . . he proclaimed himself "Administrator of the Republic." [...]

Like most of the behind-the-scenes operators in this book, Col. Edward Mandell House had the obligatory "London connection". Originally a Dutch family, "Huis", his ancestors had lived in England for three hundred years, after which his father settled in Texas, where he made a fortune in blockade-running during the Civil War, shipping cotton and other contraband to his British connections, including the Rothschilds, and bringing back supplies for the beleaguered Texans. The senior House, not trusting the volatile Texas situation, prudently deposited all his profits from his blockade-running in gold with Baring banking house in London. At the close of the Civil War, he was one of the wealthiest men in Texas. [...] At the age of twelve, the young Edward Mandell House had brain fever, and was later further crippled by sunstroke. He was a semi-invalid, and his ailments gave him an odd Oriental appearance. He never entered any profession, but used his father's money to become the kingmaker of Texas politics, successively electing five governors from 1893 to 1911. In 1911 he began to support Wilson for president, and threw the crucial Texas delegation to him which ensured his nomination. House met Wilson for the first time at the Hotel Gotham, May 31, 1912. [...]

House recorded some of his efforts on behalf of the Federal Reserve Act in The Intimate Papers of Col. House, "December 19, 1912. I talked with Paul Warburg over the phone concerning currency reform. I told of my trip to Washington and what I had done there to get it in working order. I told him that the Senate and the Congressmen seemed anxious to do what he desired, and that President- elect Wilson thought straight concerning the issue." Thus we have Warburg's agent in Washington, Col. House, assuring him that the Senate and Congressmen will do what he desires, and that the President-elect "thought straight concerning the issue." In this context, representative government seems to have ceased to exist. (Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Griffin, 1952)

Woodrow Wilson wins by only 42% of the popular vote.

United States, Lockport, Illinois. Witnesses watched, as an object appeared to traverse the moon's face for about three minutes. It was rectangular with absolutely flat ends, about two-thirds the diameter of the full moon in length.

1913

At his inauguration on March 4th, Woodrow Wilson notices that a wide space had been cleared in front of the speaker's platform. He motions to the police holding back the crowd and orders: "Let the people come forward." His supporters will later say the phrase expresses the spirit of his administration. The Wilson administration offers Franklin Roosevelt several posts. He chooses assistant secretary of the Navy, a post Theodore Roosevelt had held on his way to the presidency. President Wilson gives a Fourth of July battle reunion speech at Gettysburg.

Canada, Toronto. Several office workers in watched what they concluded to be a fleet of airships passing west to east in groups. They then returned later in a scattered formation. No airships or airplanes were ever identified with this report.

England. Two years before Germany officially launched its Zeppelin raids on Britain and phantom airships were once again crisscrossing the night skies. A few reports gave details of multi-colored, multiple lights being seen but as in earlier years the craft usually came equipped with one powerful light. See Mystery Airships of Britain for further details.

The psychologist Harry Goddard applied the Binet intelligence test to immigrants at Ellis Island for the first time. On that occasion 80% of those tested scored so low as to be considered 'feeble-minded' (considering that the test - in English - was administered to many who spoke very little English, this absurd figure was later revised down, but not much). Laughlin later appeared as expert witness before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalisation and recommended that quotas be introduced restricting the numbers of immigrants from particular, undesirable racial groups. Stringent entry requirements were applied to the fortunate few. Jews were perceived as being just as unfit as any group and thus many Jews, fleeing racial persecution in Europe, were denied entry to the US by essentially racist regulations.

The New York State Legislature passes an act on April 24 incorporating the Rockefeller Foundation. The statement of purpose reads: "To promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world." New York Governor William Sulzer approves the charter on May 14. With the Foundation incorporated, John D. Rockefeller makes gifts to RF totaling $35 million, following a year later with $65 million.

Influenced by Abraham Flexner's landmark study Medical Education in the United States and Canada, RF makes a grant to Johns Hopkins University to extend its model "full-time" system of basic medical education to clinical departments of medicine, surgery, and pediatrics. Other specialties are added later. Health becomes an RF priority at the first meeting of the board when Frederick Gates, long-time adviser to John D. Rockefeller, argues that "disease is the supreme ill in human life."

Congress passes the Federal Reserve Act. The New York Times reported on the front page, Monday, December 22, 1913 in headlines: MONEY BILL MAY BE LAW TODAY--CONFEREES HAD ADJUSTED NEARLY ALL DIFFERENCES AT 1:30 THIS MORNING--NO DEPOSIT GUARANTEES--SENATE YIELDS ON THIS POINT BUT PUTS THROUGH MANY OTHER CHANGES "With almost unprecedented speed, the conference to adjust the House and Senate differences on the Currency Bill practically completed its labours early this morning. On Saturday the Conferees did little more than dispose of the preliminaries, leaving forty essential differences to be thrashed out Sunday. . . . No other legislation of importance will be taken up in either House of Congress this week. Members of both houses are already preparing to leave Washington." [...]

"Unprecedented speed", says The New York Times. One sees the fine hand of Paul Warburg in this final strategy. Some of the bill's most vocal critics had already left Washington. It was a long-standing political courtesy that important legislation would not be acted upon during the week before Christmas, but this tradition was rudely shattered in order to perpetrate the Federal Reserve Act on the American people.

The Times buried a brief quote from Congressman Lindbergh that "the bill would establish the most gigantic trust on earth," and quoted Representative Guernsey of Maine, a Republican on the House Banking and Currency Committee, that "This is an inflation bill, the only question being the extent of the inflation."

Congressman Lindbergh said on that historic day, to the House:

"This Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this bill, the invisible government by the Monetary Power will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately, but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed. The trusts will soon realize that they have gone too far even for their own good. The people must make a declaration of independence to relieve themselves from the Monetary Power. This they will be able to do by taking control of Congress. Wall Streeters could not cheat us if you Senators and Representatives did not make a humbug of Congress. . . . If we had a people's Congress, there would be stability. The greatest crime of Congress is its currency system. The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking bill. The caucus and the party bosses have again operated and prevented the people from getting the benefit of their own government."

The December 23, 1913 New York Times editorially commented, in contrast to Congressman Lindbergh's criticism of the bill, "The Banking and Currency Bill became better and sounder every time it was sent from one end of the Capitol to the other. Congress worked under public supervision in making the bill." By "public supervision", The Times apparently meant Paul Warburg, who for several days had maintained a small office in the Capitol building, where he directed the successful pre-Christmas campaign to pass the bill, and where Senators and Congressmen came hourly at his bidding to carry out his strategy. [...]

Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913. History proved that on that day, the Constitution ceased to be the governing covenant of the American people, and our liberties were handed over to a small group of international bankers. (Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Griffin, 1952)

Congress passes the Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution permitting an Income Tax.

Continue

You are visitor number .