Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-06-16

have had a majority ON the floor. but"
he admitted. never a majority in the
lcloak ROOM"
The quality OF the product of this
Leadership is pen to question. but the
quality represents a bigger grist thar
a like space of time. Here are the
Outstanding items in the peace record
of the Wilson administration: Tariff
revision, the hrst income tax. the Fed
eral Reserve act, the Federal Trade
Commission, the Clayton Trust law,
thirty arbitration treaties, the Sea-
mans act, the Farm Loan. the Repeal
of Panama tolls. the Shipping act,
the Child Labor law. h Purchase OF
1.-THE Danish West Indies n Federal
Aid for Good Roads.
The Federal Reserve law Is poten-
italy as great a piece of constructive
Legislation as any that has been en-
acted in this country. We were abso-
lutely without a financial system, and
the money of the Nation was in the
irresponsible control of a few big
banks in New York.
A single private citizen exercised
far more power over the National
currency thar the National Govern
ment itself. President Cleveland hired
j. Pierpont Morgan to be the protec-
tor of the helpless Treasury in 1895,
anu II u CAA = ~ ihAA
TO save the financial life of the country
in 1907. All the while an absured sys-
TEN or lack of system left the great
business of the United States with
cut currency whenever 1t was need
ed and with too much of ii when
the need vas least.
Every attempt TO remedy this situa-
tion had failed because private finan-
cial interests naturally wished to keep
their control of the money. Tho Aid
rich bill in the Taft Administration
proposed to give the sanction of law to
this private domination, but Congress
refused to pass 1t.
The Federal Reserve act simply re-
lversed the Aldrich plan and gave the
Nation, through the Government, the
control of its own money. 1t is agreed
now that without the new system
our finances could not have weathercd
the gale of war. 1t yet remains to
be tested as a method of contracting
and debating the wartime expansion.
President Wilson was the relentless
.criving force that pushed through the
Federal Reserve bill and the rest of
the legislative program, n he in
Cured the implacable hostility of
powerful interests. The only other
President to challenge the supremacy
of this element in our politics was
Roosevelt, but the harder it fought
him the close the people as a whole
drew to him.
The electric spark was omitted from
President Wilson's composition, and
this omission denied him a flowing
communication with his fellows, a
natural limitation which was confirm
cd was suddenly thrust into tho hurly
burly of politics. His aloofness chilled
the emotions of the people, even when
their minds approved his policies and
admired his abilities. Nor did he have
a Cabinet which could supply the lack
ing element of popularity.
President Wilson has been n lonely
figure in the White House. He came
to the Presidency a stranger to public
friends-real friends; he can only
make sycophants. When his wife
died leaving him without a close COM
panion in the midst of heavy cares,
the hearts Of the people warmed to
as at no other time, and they
almost resented his marriage because
1t broke that tie of sympathy between
them and him.
His reelection was one of the big
surprises of our Presidential elections.
For several hours after the polls
closed he appeared to nave been badly
beaten, and Hughes went to bed with
the assurance that he was President
After all the great Industrial States,
which had decided the elections in
the past, except Ohio, had sent In
reports of Republican victories, the
tide was turned by the Far West,
which had been almost forgotten In
the reckoning, but where the conser-
vative interests had influence. At last
the return from remote hamlets in the
Sierras gave California to the Presi-
dent by less than 1000 plurality. He
had lost all but two of the Northern
States east of the Missouri, and yet
had won by carrying all but two of
the states west of the river, where
the women voters are supposed to
nave rallied to him because "he kept
us out of the war"