Republican farmer., 1920-07-02

New York lawyer shiverfng twice a | day through long winter months while he crossed the Hudson river ] on a ferry boat to his New Jersey ' home, he dreamed of tunnel under l the bed of the river through which ] commuters might pass on trains in i comfort And so staunch was his 1 faith in his dream that eventually he transmitted it not into one but three l tunnels. ]
 Later he became Secretary of the Treasury, Director. General of Rail- roads and the holder of other offices under the federal government but ever he has remained in the public mind as the man who accomplishedj the seemingly impossible task of con structing tunnels under the Hudson river.
 MT. McAdoo was born in Marietta. Ga, Oct. 31, 1883 His father was William Gibbs McAdoo, a veteran of the Mexican and Civil wars. and later Superior Judge and Adjunct Professor of History and English at the University of Tennessee. His mother was Mary Faith Floyd,~ ~daugh- ter of a famous Indtan fighter and<a a former member of Congress.
 When young McAdoo was about a year old, his parents fell back before the duFdnCe OI SleIHldH al lily IO Milledgeville, Ga, and there his boy hood days were spent. The war re- duced the family to want and during the early reconstruction period the boy was handy around the family place, doing farm chores and helping l his mother with her housework. So adept did he become at kitchen duties l that he still boasts of a surpassing ability to bake biscuit and in a re-
 cent address to a crowd of schooTboys l he challeneged any of them to milking contest
 1 When, in 1871, the elder McAdoo l moved to Knoxville, Tenn, to accept 1 a professorship in the University of Tennessee, the boy enrolled as a stu dent but he left school before he was l graduated, to earn his own living. At i1s years old he was appointed deputy
 collector of the United. States Circuit
 Court at Chattanooga, Tenn. and
 while in that position he studied law l with Judge William M. Dewitt and at l22 he was admitted to the bar.
 In 1892. after practising law and | mangaging a. street railway line in
 Knoxville, McAdoo went to New York 1 unknown and virtually penniless to
 begin the practice of law. Ten years | later he left the law to attempt the
 
 1902 until 1912 he was president ot the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad Co.,, which eventually succeeded in ] driving the tunnels through to the Jersey shore.
 l McAdoo's struggle to construct the tubes bristles with human interest. 1r
 addition to being without means o1
 his own to put the tubes through
 and knowing but few men of wealth
 l, ir, 1nic afr
 the fact that previous attempts to
 construct the tubes had been abjec
 failures McAdoo's first step was te interest the capitalist who had beer the heaviest loser by the previou: tube failure. Once McAdoo's hitia tube collapsed. And when it finally was driven through to the Jersey shore and McAdoo had been the frs man to walk through it, there was { long and bitter but futile fight on thu
 project. When McAdoo left tn , presidency of the company in 1912 tt enter President Wilson's cabinet a. secretary of the Treasury the com pany's investment represented $70, . OOO,oOO, all raised from privat sources, and it was operating thre tunnels.
 l, Until 1911, when McAdoo becam interested in the candidacy. of Wood 3 row Wilson, he had taken no activ part in politics and he scarcely kneI the future President. They had me
 once at Princeton while one of Nc Adoo's sons was in school there, bu t that was all. McAdoo soon became t staunch advocate of MT. Wilson 3 however, and as a delegate to tn : Baltimore convention acted as one o f the Wilson managers on the floor. La f | ter he was made Vice Chairman 0
 the National Democratic commttte
 and when, in 1912, Chairman Nc q Combs, retired, McAdoo took activ . 1 charge of the Wilson campaign. . The ensuing five years which Mo Adoo spent in the cabinet were bus
 ones. He became, in a word, tn
 t'handy man" of the administratio :, and many heavy responsibilitie . were placed upon him. At one tim !. he occupied the positions of Secre | tary of the Treasury, Chairman Fed eral Reserve Board, Chairman Far1 | Loan Board, Chairman War F'inanc U Corporation, Chairman Information; High Commission and Director Ger @ era1 of Railroads.
 y Serious financial problems aros 't shortly after McAdoo became Secre = tary of the Treasury and he was cal
 ed upon to make many quick an
 important decisions Scarcely had + u taken office when destructive foo n swept Dayton, O., and bankers the1
 telegrap aphed him that fear of a run IS on their institutions made them hes g tate to open their doors. McAdc = te1egraphed in reply that he woul l. immediately send $2,000,000 to tf J. banks and when this word ocean IT public the run" did not materializ
 When a general panic threatened
 June, 1913, he announced that I
 would make available $500 100000
 government funds to all banks th
 would apply for it and comply vii the law in obtaining a loan. Tv S months later, when there was-a shor
 age of money to move crops, M Adoo deposited $35,00O,0OO in Cel .m i, tral Western and Southwestern banl iA with the understanding that it wou .n be loaned to farmers at reasonab 10 rates of interest. At the outbres
 of the European war, he sent Il