Evening star., 1932-04-10
Virginia's Fighting Senator
Continued From First Page.)

romance of finance gripped Glass anc
fired his imagination. He Immediately
applied to it principle which he has
applied to everything he has ever at
tempted. That was to drive himself
to know more about it than anybody
else, so that he could do it better thar
nnybody else.
He went at this new subject hammer
and tongs. He immersed himself in II
and practically shut his mind to every
thing else. Between 1908 and 1912 he
put himself through a rigid course OF
education on finance. He read. He
interviewed everybody whose opinion
was worth while. He asked questions
He went into small banks in Virginia
and familiarized himself with banking
customs. He went TO New York and
other large cities and from bankers
learned the customs Of big banks. He
interviewed small merchants and great
industrialists as to their financial needs.
He spent hours with college professors
and other economists He mastered the
history Of finance. And then he evolved
q set Of finance principles of his own.
Memory Is Amazing.
His knowledge of this subject alone
gives Glass an advantage over most
other legislators. But to this founda-
ton he has brought two other impor-
tant qualities. One is his memory for
facts, which constantly amazes his COL
Leagues: the other is his ability to eX-
press himself. Finance is no mystery to
him. 1t is simple and he can make
it sound simple and understandable
when he talks about it. He can even
make it dramatically interesting.
Accident, again. made Glass the
author of the Federal Reserve act.
During the first seven years that he
served on the Banking and Currency
Committee one after another of the
Democrats above him dropped out
until, by the operation of the prac-
tically inviolable rule of seniority. he
became the ranking Democratic mem
Der. Then, in 1910, the Democrats
carried the House. and Glass automat-
ically became chairman of the commit
tee by reason of the retirement of Rep
resentative Pujo of Louisiana, who made
an unsuccessful race for the Senate.
That much was accident or fate.
The manner in which he handled the
fight for the bill, however, and his
ultimate success in passing it and be-
holding the creature of his brain come
into being were due almost wholly to
the fact that he had equipped himself
for the job which fate had put into
his hands.
Glass is tremendously proud of his
paternity of the Federal Reserve Bank,
During the last 18 years he has watched
the administration of the Federal Re
serve System like a jealous mVther
casting eagle eyes out into the ya.d to
see that no croSS-eyed neighb6Fhood
boy picks on her angel child And
when the cross-eyed boy has appeared,
from time to time, Glass has rushed out
of the house and f1ayed him with cauS-
tic tongue lashings.
Has Set Principles.
Out of his 80 years study Glass has
evolved certain, definite set of prin-
ciples for American finances, and fights
for them tenaciouSly in season and out.
He insists that the Government, rather
than private bankers, shall be the dom
inant factor; that the benefits and aid
of the Federal Reserve System shall go
to productive agricultural,
commercial and industrial-manufac-
turers and merchants making and SELL
ing goods; that the regional Federal
Reserve banks shall be decentralized
from and independent of New York
and that the credit and resources of
the system shall not be used as the basis
Of speculation. He has fought to estab-
lish or maintain these principles for l8
years and he has not the slightest idea
of ever giving up. As was the case
when he was boy, he can be licked in
q given scrap, but he has yet to ac-
knowledge that he has been defeated
There is yet another reason for Glass
strength In financial leadership-the
fact that he formerly was Secretary of
the Treasury. When a member can
rise on the floor Of the Senate during
discussion of a question pertaining to
finance and say, when I was Secretary
of the Treasury found such and such,
and for that reason now tell you so
and So" other members are somewhat
handicapped in making their opposition
sound convincing. This is especially
the case when the Senator was admit
tedly success as the head of the
Treasury Department.
A lot OF pressure has been concen-
trated on Glass during the last few
months to induce him to yield a point
mere and there on issues which he be-
heVeS involve one or the other of his
financial principles. He has been flooded
with letters and kilograms. Bankers,
politicians, business men, acquaintances
and old personal friends have besieged
him, and have tried to convince him
that some of the plans for which he is
nghtlng are def1ationary. and so will do
more harm than good. Still he fights on.
The same type of concentration and
tenaclty which he has applied to finance
Is applied by Glass to any issue in the
settlement Of which he desires or feels
mpelled to participate. He has a one
track mind. He can do only one thing
at time. He can think of only one
thing at time. Frequently he strives
70 avoid taking part in a controversy
because his mind is absorbed by some
thing else. That is the reason he sell
dom speaks in the Senate He abhors
the practice of many members of jump
ing up every little while and "spouting.
as he calls it, on almost any subject,
often with incomplete knowledge and
half-baked opinions.
Much of a Puritan.
Despite his birth and rearing in the
South, Carter Glass is a good deal of
a Puritan, which undoubtedly helps to
explain his rigid sense of duty and his
conscientious attitude in public and
private affairs. The almost identical
character of the early settlers of Massa-
chusetts Bay Colony and the Colony
of Virginia still shows in this Southern
descendant. He was brought up in
comparatively isolated section, where
old Puritan standards Of personal in
tegrity and conduct had survived in
considerable degree from the rugged
forefathers. The easy. aff1uent. slave
owning, tobacco raising, fox hunting,
hard drinking. hard riding traditions
common in some parts of the Old Do
minion evidently made little impress
sion on the simple life of the Glass
family or the Glass neighborhood. The
deeply religious Methodists of this Sec
t1on must have inculcated in the boy
that sense of personal integrity which
has survived nearly 40 years of the
rough and tumble of modern American
politics
Carter Glass boyllood and young
manhood must have left its mark upon
his life. To it, perhaps, can be traced
some OF his seeming bitterness, his
habit of caustic retort. his general rem
utatiOn for belliperenrv Por,, II, 1850