Aldrich, N Sen

<p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: justify; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">d) Winthrop Aldrich from Chase<p style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-top: 0em; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18.479999542236328px; text-align: justify; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Though both Perkins and Aldrich met with FDR at the White House to discuss their support for passage of the Glass-Steagall Act, it was Winthrop Aldrich that took the most active role in supporting the strongest possible version of the Act, at the request of FDR.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich</a>

Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (November 6, 1841 — April 16, 1915) was a prominent <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States" title="United States" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">American</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician" title="Politician" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">politician</a> and a leader of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(U.S.)" title="Republican Party (U.S.)" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Republican Party</a> in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1911.

Because of his impact on national politics and central position on the pivotal Senate Finance Committee, he was referred to by the press and public alike as the "General Manager of the Nation", dominating all <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff" title="Tariff" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">tariff</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy" title="Monetary policy" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">monetary policies</a> in the first decade of the 20th century. In a career that spanned three decades, Aldrich helped to create an extensive system of tariffs that protected American factories and farms from foreign competition, while driving the price of consumer goods artificially high. He was a party to the re-structuring of the American financial system through the institution of the federal income tax amendment, which he originally opposed,[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">citation needed</a>] and the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_System" title="Federal Reserve System" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Federal Reserve System</a>. He stated that he believed these reforms would lead to greater efficiency. Aldrich became wealthy with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading" title="Insider trading" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">insider investments</a> in street railroads, sugar, rubber and banking.[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">citation needed</a>] His son <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Steere_Aldrich" title="Richard Steere Aldrich" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Richard Steere Aldrich</a> became a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives" title="United States House of Representatives" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">U.S. Representative</a>, and his daughter, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abby_Aldrich_Rockefeller" title="Abby Aldrich Rockefeller" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Abby</a>, married <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D.Rockefeller,Jr." title="John D. Rockefeller, Jr." style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">John D. Rockefeller, Jr.</a>, the only son of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller" title="John D. Rockefeller" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">John D. Rockefeller</a>. Her son and his grandson <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Rockefeller" title="Nelson Rockefeller" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller</a>, served as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_President_of_the_United_States" title="Vice President of the United States" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Vice President of the United States</a> under <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford" title="Gerald Ford" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Gerald Ford</a>.

<h2 style=" color: black; background-image: none; font-weight: bold; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border: none; font-size: 13px; display: inline; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 1.3; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Contents</h2>

[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#" class="internal" id="togglelink" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">hide</a>] </div>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#Family_background" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">1 Family background</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#Political_career" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">2 Political career</a>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#Federal_Reserve_Act" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">2.1 Federal Reserve Act</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#Family_Prominence" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">2.2 Family Prominence</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#Congressional_committee_assignments" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">2.3 Congressional committee assignments</a></li>

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<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#Further_reading" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">3 Further reading</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#Notes" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">4 Notes</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#External_links" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">5 External links</a></li>

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<h2 style=" color: black; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 1.5em; font-family: 'Linux Libertine', Georgia, Times, serif; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Family background<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; font-family: sans-serif;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nelson_W._Aldrich&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Family background" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">edit</a>]</h2>

Portrait of Senator Aldrich</div>

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<p style=" margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Aldrich was born into a family descended from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Winthrop" title="John Winthrop" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">John Winthrop</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wickenden" title="William Wickenden" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">William Wickenden</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williams(theologian)" title="Roger Williams (theologian)" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Roger Williams</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich#cite_note-1" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[1]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich#cite_note-2" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[2]</a> His branch passed through generations of declining circumstances. His father was Anan E. Aldrich, an industrial mill hand, and mother Abby Burgess. The first American Aldrich ancestor was George Aldrich, an immigrant who settled in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendon,Massachusetts" title="Mendon, Massachusetts" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mendon, Massachusetts</a> in the 17th century. The Aldrich Family Association was located in the neighboring community of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uxbridge,Massachusetts" title="Uxbridge, Massachusetts" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Uxbridge, Massachusetts</a>, once part of Mendon, on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island" title="Rhode Island" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Rhode Island</a> border, home also of the family cemetery. It was in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island" title="Rhode Island" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Rhode Island</a> that Nelson Aldrich grew up and prospered. He attended public schools in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Killingly,Connecticut" title="East Killingly, Connecticut" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">East Killingly, Conn.</a>, (the easternmost portion of Connecticut) and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Greenwich_Academy" title="East Greenwich Academy" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">East Greenwich Academy</a> a boarding school in Rhode Island.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#cite_note-3" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[3]</a> The Aldrich family has, since the advent of Nelson W., grown to become a political dynasty on the American landscape, with U.S. Senators, a Vice President, and various political figures in a number of states.

<h2 style=" color: black; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); font-size: 1.5em; font-family: 'Linux Libertine', Georgia, Times, serif; line-height: 1.3; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Political career<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; font-family: sans-serif;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nelson_W._Aldrich&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: Political career" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">edit</a>]</h2>

In 1878 the Republican bosses of Rhode Island endorsed him for the US House of Representatives; in 1881 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He served in the Senate from 1881 to 1911 as an influential <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Republican_Party" title="United States Republican Party" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Republican</a>, becoming chairman of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Finance_Committee" title="Senate Finance Committee" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Senate Finance Committee</a>.

In 1906 Aldrich sold his interest in the Rhode Island street railway system to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York,New_Haven_and_Hartford_Railroad" title="New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad</a>, whose president, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanger_Mellen" title="Charles Sanger Mellen" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Charles Sanger Mellen</a>, was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_Street" title="Wall Street" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Wall Street</a> banker <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.P.Morgan" title="J. P. Morgan" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">J. P. Morgan</a>'s loyal ally. Also in 1906 Aldrich and other American financiers invested heavily in mines and rubber in the Belgian Congo. They supported Belgium's King <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_II_of_Belgium" title="Leopold II of Belgium" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Leopold II</a>, who had imposed slave labor conditions in the colony.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich#cite_note-5" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[5]</a>

In 1907, J.P. Morgan published rumors that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knickerbocker_Trust_Company" title="Knickerbocker Trust Company" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Knickerbocker Trust Company</a> was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolvency" title="Insolvency" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">insolvent</a>. Some later historians believe this was a deliberate act of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_manipulation" title="Market manipulation" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">market manipulation</a>which precipitated the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907" title="Panic of 1907" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Panic of 1907</a>, and consolidated the preeminence of the banks controlled by Morgan.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#cite_note-6" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[6]</a> The panic itself led to the passage of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldrich%E2%80%93Vreeland_Act" title="Aldrich–Vreeland Act" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Aldrich–Vreeland Act</a> in 1908, which established the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Monetary_Commission" title="National Monetary Commission" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">National Monetary Commission</a>, sponsored and headed by Aldrich. After issuing a series of 30 reports, this commission drew up the Aldrich Plan, forming the basis for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve" title="Federal Reserve" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Federal Reserve</a> system.

As co-author of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payne-Aldrich_Tariff_Act" title="Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act</a> of 1909, Aldrich removed restrictive import duties on fine art, which enabled Americans to bring in very expensive European artworks that became the foundation of many leading museums.

In 1909, Aldrich introduced a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution" title="Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">constitutional amendment to establish an income tax</a>, although he had declared a similar measure "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism" title="Communism" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">communistic</a>" a decade earlier. Aldrich was quite candid about his scheme to block the House bill that had been passed, declaring to the Senate: "I shall vote for the corporation tax as a means to defeat the income tax."

The compromise passed unanimously in the Senate and by a vote of 318 to 14 in the House. The corporate excise tax would be levied, and the income-tax constitutional amendment would be sent out to the states for ratification—which Taft and Aldrich thought was impossible.

The plan went awry. After 1909, the U.S. underwent a major political transformation. Democrats and progressive <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt" title="Theodore Roosevelt" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Teddy Roosevelt</a> Republicans swept many state elections. Woodrow Wilson won the 1912 presidential election. Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. On Feb. 3, 1913, the legislatures in Delaware, New Mexico and Wyoming voted for the amendment, pushing the total to the required 36 states. The 16th Amendment was officially adopted on Feb. 25, three and a half years after the Taft-Aldrich compromise had supposedly been relegated the income tax to the dust bin.

Taft tries to get progressive ideas into Aldrich</div>

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<h3 style=" color: black; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; font-size: 1.17em; line-height: 1.6; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Federal Reserve Act<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; font-family: sans-serif;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nelson_W._Aldrich&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Federal Reserve Act" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">edit</a>]</h3>

<p style=" margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Following the Panic of 1907, Aldrich was named chairman of the Congressionally established National Monetary Commission. An ostensible proponent of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era" title="Progressive Era" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Progressive Era</a> themes of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficiency_Movement" title="Efficiency Movement" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Efficiency</a> and scientific expertise, he led a team of experts to study the European national banks. After his trip, he came to believe that Britain, Germany and France had much superior central banking systems.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich#cite_note-7" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[7]</a> He worked with several key bankers and economists, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Warburg" title="Paul Warburg" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Paul Warburg</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Andrew" title="Abram Andrew" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Abram Andrew</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Davison" title="Henry Davison" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Henry Davison</a>, to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_central_banking_in_the_United_States" title="History of central banking in the United States" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">design a plan for an American central bank</a> in 1911. A key meeting that shaped the Federal Reserve Act was held in secret in November, 1910, at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jekyll_Island_Club" title="Jekyll Island Club" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Jekyll Island Club</a> on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jekyll_Island,Georgia" title="Jekyll Island, Georgia" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Jekyll Island, Georgia</a>. Aldrich and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.P._Morgan" title="J.P. Morgan" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">J.P. Morgan</a> were both members of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jekyll_Island_Club" title="Jekyll Island Club" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Jekyll Island Club</a> (also known as The Millionaires Club). In 1913 <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson" title="Woodrow Wilson" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Woodrow Wilson</a> signed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Act" title="Federal Reserve Act" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Federal Reserve Act</a> patterned after Aldrich's vision into law.

<h3 style=" color: black; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: bold; margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; font-size: 1.17em; line-height: 1.6; font-family: sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Family Prominence<span class="mw-editsection" style=" -webkit-user-select: none; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; display: inline-block; white-space: nowrap; padding-right: 0.25em; unicode-bidi: -webkit-isolate; font-family: sans-serif;">[<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nelson_W._Aldrich&action=edit&section=4" title="Edit section: Family Prominence" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">edit</a>]</h3>

<p style=" margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: 22.399999618530273px; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">His daughter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abby_Aldrich_Rockefeller" title="Abby Aldrich Rockefeller" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Abigail Greene "Abby" Aldrich</a> was a philanthropist<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich#cite_note-8" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[8]</a> who married philanthropist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D.Rockefeller,Jr." title="John D. Rockefeller, Jr." style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">John Davison Rockefeller, Jr.</a>,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich#cite_note-9" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[9]</a> and their second son <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Rockefeller" title="Nelson Rockefeller" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller</a> was a four-term Governor of New York who campaigned for the Republican presidential nomination in 1960, 1964, and 1968, and was named <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_President_of_the_United_States" title="Vice President of the United States" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Vice President of the United States</a> under <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States" title="President of the United States" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">President</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford" title="Gerald Ford" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Gerald Ford</a> by the Congress in 1974.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich#cite_note-10" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[10]</a> Aldrich's son <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_S.Aldrich" title="Richard S. Aldrich" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Richard S. Aldrich</a> served in Congress from 1923 to 1933,<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W.Aldrich#cite_note-11" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[11]</a>and his son <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winthrop_W.Aldrich" title="Winthrop W. Aldrich" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Winthrop Williams Aldrich</a> served as chairman of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Manhattan_Bank" title="Chase Manhattan Bank" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Chase National Bank</a>).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich#cite_note-12" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">[12]</a>

Aldrich was very active in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasons" title="Freemasons" class="mw-redirect" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Freemasons</a> and was Treasurer of the Grand Lodge of Rhode Island. He died on April 16, 1915, in New York City, and was buried in<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Point_Cemetery" title="Swan Point Cemetery" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Swan Point Cemetery</a> in Providence, Rhode Island. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_W._Aldrich_House" title="Nelson W. Aldrich House" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Nelson W. Aldrich House</a> on 110 Benevolent Street in Providence serves as the headquarters for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhode_Island_Historical_Society" title="Rhode Island Historical Society" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Rhode Island Historical Society</a>.

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<a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/8/all_the_presidents_bankers_nomi_prins">http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/8/all_the_presidents_bankers_nomi_prins</a>

<span style=" color: rgb(68, 68, 68); font-family: Arial, san-serif; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 21px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none;">With U.S. inequality at its highest point since 1928 and Wall Street bonuses hitting pre-2008 levels, we look at the 100-year history of secret collusion between Washington and the financial industry. In her new book, "All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power," financial journalist Nomi Prins explores how a small number of bankers have played critical roles in shaping a century’s worth of financial, foreign and domestic policy in the United States. Prins examines how these relationships have influenced events from the creation of the Federal Reserve, the response to the Great Depression, and the founding of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Now a senior fellow at Demos, Prins is a former managing director at Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs, and previously an analyst at Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Bank.

NOMI PRINS: Well, actually, we were on the show a few years ago; I was talking about a novel I had written, a historical novel on the 1929 crash called Black Tuesday. And what had happened as one of the segments in that book was that six bankers had gotten together at the behest of the acting chairman of the Morgan bank, who was Thomas Lamont at the time, and they had so been afraid of losing all of the money and all of their reputations and their institutions at the time that they got together and decided to pool their own money to save the markets—stark difference from what happened more recently, which was that the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and everyone else from the government decided to work with them to save themselves. But the impetus for the book really came from those big six bankers. We still have big six bankers today. And I looked into the relationships that they had with all of the presidents going forward and backward from that time to come up with this All the Presidents’ Bankers analysis.

And what I did was I went backwards from the crash in 1929 and noticed that J.P. Morgan, who is arguably—not even arguably, who is the most powerful banker this country has ever known and the most powerful political, financial actor—he died a hundred years ago, but his legacy, his family and what he created and the constellation of relationships between him and, at the time, Teddy Roosevelt, as far back as 1907, through Jamie Dimon’s relationship with Obama more recently, has been a very apparent apparatus in the connection of politics and finance, which I believe has no separation line.

AARON MATÉ: Well, on that absent separation line, talk about the creation of the Federal Reserve.

They had help with a senator, Nelson Aldrich, who was head of the Senate Finance Committee at the time, after—a year or so after that under President Taft. Nelson Aldrich took a group of bankers in 1910 to Jeckyll Island. He almost didn’t make that meeting. He got hit by a trolley car up on Madison Avenue, was convalescing with his son, Winthrop Aldrich, who became the head of Chase later, and took a bunch of representatives from J.P. Morgan’s bank—J.P. Morgan was not there, and that’s power: you don’t go, you send your lieutenants—to Jeckyll Island for 10 days. They hunted. They shot pheasants. They did all sorts of things. But they came out also with the impetus for the Federal Reserve. On the way back, the train back to Washington, Nelson Aldrich had to present this plan. He was still convalescing. Two bankers that came from that meeting went in his place to Washington to put up the plans. Now, it wasn’t passed under Taft; it was passed under the Democratic president, Woodrow Wilson. But a lot of those same individuals were friends with Woodrow Wilson, as well, into his presidency, and in fact helped campaign and raise money for his presidency.

NOMI PRINS: Right, so this—one of them was Tom Lamont, who, I mentioned, was around in 1929. But he started his life moving up the chain of Morgan after the panic in 1907 in things called the Pujo trials, which were in 1912, which, at the time, looked at what bankers had done to cause the panic of 1907. He was a young lawyer at the time. He had gone to Harvard with FDR. But as a young man, he was also hanging out—living in the house of FDR up on 65th Street, renting it for several years while FDR was the assistant Navy secretary under Woodrow Wilson. They chose Tom Lamont to go with Wilson to France for six weeks. Wilson was in France. It was the longest time a U.S. president was outside of U.S. soil and the first time a U.S. president was outside of U.S. soil. But the banker that was by his side was Tom Lamont. He was a Republican. He went across his party lines to come back with Woodrow Wilson to fight for the League of Nations to try to preserve peace after World War I, which was defeated.

But Tom Lamont and Woodrow Wilson developed this relationship. And their letters are crazy. They’re like—they’re like so full of gratuity and love and just, you know, "thank you for being there by my side, and I couldn’t have done it without you," because when Woodrow Wilson then got a stroke and it was difficult for him to go around the country to, after the war, fight for the League of Nations, which the Senate didn’t want to pass and ultimately did not pass, Tom Lamont took it up in his newspapers that he owned, the Saturday Review, went before—you know, backdoors in terms of the senators that he knew, and really tried to push it. And the two of them really worked very closely together and had this bromance. And, of course, Woodrow Wilson ultimately did die from complications of those strokes.

AARON MATÉ: If we look back on the Great Depression, it’s understood that Wall Street was hostile in many ways to the New Deal, but how did Wall Street work with Roosevelt, and why?

NOMI PRINS: So, one of the men, Winthrop Aldrich, who I mentioned before was the son of the founder of the Fed, one of the founders of the Fed, Senator Nelson Aldrich, was also friends with the Roosevelts. He was friends with FDR. And he also knew, from a business perspective, he wanted to outdo the Morgans. So he said, you know, Chase has some trading, some speculation, that went miles wrong in the crash of 1929, and he believed that for the stability of the economy and for his bank going forward, so he could sort of walk and chew gum at the same time—see the public interest as well as his bank’s interest—worked with FDR to pass the Glass-Steagall Act, which separated the speculative activities from the depositors that had their money entrusted to banks at the time, including at Chase. And, actually, Carter Glass, whose name is on that act, wanted a slightly weaker version of the act than Winthrop Aldrich pushed inside of Washington with the alliance of FDR. So that was a very, very different time. You cannot imagine today Jamie Dimon pushing with President Obama to separate his bank in such a way that it decreases its risk to depositors and taxpayers. It’s just unimaginable.

So, the relationship is much more dangerous also because those big six banks today—again, slight derivations of the big six banks in 1929, but today—own 85 percent of deposits of all the commercial banks, 84 percent of assets of all the commercial banks, and control 96 percent of all of the derivatives that financial institutions that are backed by the government utilize today, and 45 percent of the world’s derivatives. Six banks control so much capital and have so much power as to the laws around that capital. And the administration—and this started in Reagan, through Bush, through Clinton, into Obama—this is not new—but the reaction of the administrations has been to allow this to happen, to allow the concentration of this capital, of this power, to do nothing in the face of the financial crisis of 2008, which I believe is still ongoing, just in a different manifestation, because this risk still exists and because these numbers are worse than they were before the crisis of 2008.

But the other side of JFK is that his personal relationship, despite the social background, was a little more stilted. He just came off as a little more trying to do his own thing. So, even when—and because he had this long-standing relationship with David Rockefeller, they started to really diffuse. Rockefeller started saying disparaging things in public, in particular in this really interesting Life magazine article that came out in 1962, that were going against what JFK was trying to do. JFK, for example, in Latin America was trying to allow those countries to be more independent, to not have more private debt imposed upon them, which is what Rockefeller and the other bankers wanted to do at the time as a new source of making money. And this really disturbed Rockefeller, in particular, who was trying to expand the bank into those areas.

So, on the one side, they had a very strong social connection, and on the other side,JFK really tried to go about in a way to make external countries a little bit more independent financially from the United States, whereas that was a point where things started going in separate directions, and Rockefeller and Walter Wriston, who ran National City Bank at the time, really wanted to dump them with debt and to privatize and do all sorts of things that have gotten worse since then.

AARON MATÉ: So what happens since the 1970s? You have, at least for the bulk of the 20th century, banks and the government working together. Since the ’70s, though, Wall Street kind of goes rogue. So, what accounts for this shift, and how do we fix it now?

By the time the ’70s came along, with Nixon, who had less personal relationships and also ultimately took the country off the gold standard, which he did because the bankers pushed him to do it, because at this point they wanted two things. They saw that there was Middle East oil, and they could go in there and start to forge relationships and branches in the Middle East and utilize those petrodollars to recycle—it was a huge thing in the early ’70s—into Latin America and other countries. So they started operating more internationally and independently of their connections to the president.

And the minute they discovered all that money and they dumped all of that debt into the Third World, that manifested in a huge Third World debt crisis in the 1980s. And that was the first very large instance of a bailout. There was a small bailout for Penn Central, which was a railroad constellation in the '70s. But in the ’80s, under Reagan and under Bush, the idea of bailing out the banks, who had now refunneled all of this debt into Latin America, was a very epic decision, and it was one in which the bankers gave nothing back to the government. They were like, "We're going to use your money to bail us out." They were in Washington talking about the catastrophe that would happen to America if that didn’t happen. They got the government to basically push the World Bank and the IMF to work on the areas where they had the most risk and they had the most interest in retrieving it, and then in the ’90s just compiled that with the Mexican peso crisis, where Clinton also worked with Robert Rubin to save Mexican interests for Goldman and other U.S. banks, and then the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999. And then all of this idea of consolidation of risk and power just exponentially grew from there.

NOMI PRINS: Yeah, Goldman Sachs almost died in 1928. Or, well, basically between 1928 and 1929, they had a trading partnership, "partnership," in which investors invested money, and the stock of that trust went up to $320-something, and then it subsequently went down to $1. And there were a lot of angry investors around the street and so forth. But a man named Sidney Weinberg, who was the chairman of Goldman at the time, who actually joined Goldman in the panic of 1907 as sort of an underling, decided that if he could befriend FDR in such a manner as to help him run his 1932 campaign, he would kind of have a seat at the table. And so, the legitimacy of Goldman with respect to FDR also allowed FDR to create the first Business Council, that Sidney Weinberg pushed in Washington to forge relationships between the business financial community and Washington and so on. Sidney Weinberg also was behind LBJ’s choice of Henry Fowler as a treasury secretary, who then joined Goldman Sachs after being a treasury secretary. And, of course, we had Henry Paulson, who did the other way—Bush picked him to be the treasury secretary, George W. Bush. And then, of course, Clinton picked Robert Rubin, coming from Goldman Sachs, to be the treasury secretary in his administration. So, but it started with Sidney Weinberg and FDR.

[break]

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of, you know, fat cat bankers on Wall Street. The only ones that are going to be paying out these fat bonuses are the ones that have now paid back that TARP money and aren’t using taxpayer loans.

</blockquote>

STEVE KROFT: Do you think that’s why they paid it back so quickly?

</blockquote>

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I think, in some cases, that was a motivation, which I think tells me that the people on Wall Street still don’t get it. They don’t get it. They’re still puzzled: Why is it that people are mad at the banks? Well, let’s see. You know, you guys are drawing down $10-20 million bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it’s gone through in decades, and you guys caused the problem, and we’ve got 10 percent unemployment—why do you think people might be a little frustrated?

</blockquote>

<p class="collapsed-hide" style=" margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; display: block !important; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 30px; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AARON MATÉ: That’s President Obama speaking in 2009. I’m wondering if there’s been any break in the symbiotic relationship between Wall Street and Washington that you document. Certainly with Obama’s second term, when he ran against Romney, his donations from Wall Street dropped. It was something like $16 million, went down to $6 million. So, do you see any change of course in this pattern of symbiosis that you trace in your book?

But in that clip, and in a lot of what Obama has said, you know, what is said publicly and what actually happens inside the private office and with respect to what’s going on with bankers, you know, shows up in the reforms. It shows up in the structures. It shows up in the minions of lobbyists and lawyers that continue to funnel money, and little chips away at even very weak but existing rules. And Obama has allowed that to happen. He’s never come out and named a name against a banker. He talks about Wall Street "fat cats" as some sort of like big, broad category. He has not named names. He has not said what Wall Street needs to done. It’s just sort of fluffy rhetoric.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Nomi Prins, we want to thank you for being with us. All the Presidents’ Bankers is her book, The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power. You can <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/4/8/read_excerpt_of_nomi_prins_all" style=" color: rgb(51, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; outline: 0px;">read an excerpt</a> of that book on our website at democracynow.org. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Aaron Maté.

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hit by streetcar? son took over?