As we saw in the
previous posting on this subject, a serious problem developed in the United
States following the Civil War: wealth became concentrated. Many people had no realistic hope of ever
owning land or technology that could generate an income to supplement or even
replace wage income from labor.
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| The Factory/Wage System |
True, wealth in
the form of land had been concentrated before the war, particularly in the
South, where the institution of chattel slavery permitted a relatively few
owners of land to operate large plantations by purchasing other human beings. When, after the war, the wage system
developed and supplanted capital ownership as the primary means of making a
living, the financial system permitted a relatively small number of owners of
technology to operate large factories by purchasing the labor of other human
beings.
Thus, the
institution of “wage slavery” in industry and commerce replaced the institution
of chattel slavery in agriculture. This,
as commentators since the days of Aristotle have noted, is not an acceptable
situation for nominally free human beings.
A “wage slave” is not, of course, actually owned as a thing, but his
labor is purchased, which in the end is more cost efficient for the owner of
productive wealth if human labor is required.
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| Judge Peter S. Grosscup |
Concentrated
ownership of productive wealth is a recipe for political and economic
instability. Soon after the turn of the twentieth
century, Judge Peter Stenger Grosscup (1852-1921), one of Theodore Roosevelt’s
“Trust Busters,” published a series of articles in popular magazines
highlighting the dangers of monopolies and the need for broad-based ownership
of America’s corporate wealth. Although
he was a Protestant, Grosscup was acquainted with Archbishop John Ireland
(1838-1918), also a friend of Roosevelt, and may have been led to realize the
importance of expanded capital ownership by Ireland, considered America’s
leading authority on Rerum Novarum.
Grosscup, noting
that monopolies and trusts were buying out small businesses, advocated greater
regulation through the institution of federally chartered corporations and
stronger anti-trust laws to supplement the inadequate Sherman Antitrust Act of
1890. (26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1-7.
Grosscup may have influenced the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, Pub.L.
63-212, 38 Stat. 730.) Most of all, he pushed for a policy of widespread
ownership of corporate shares with the full rights of private property in order
to “people-ize” and save the corporation from becoming the means whereby the
few could control the many. (It is possible that Chesterton was familiar with
Grosscup’s articles, which would have influenced his recommendation that large
enterprises be broadly owned by the workers on shares. See G.K. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity. Collected Works, Volume V, San Francisco,
California: Ignatius Press, 1987, 148.)
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| J. Pierpont Morgan |
The problem was
that Grosscup limited financing for his proposal to what people had accumulated
in savings. This meant that wage workers
and the poor, who needed capital ownership at least as much as former small
owners, would have lacked the means to participate in the program. Neither Grosscup nor Roosevelt at that time
appeared to appreciate the need for major monetary and tax reforms if Lincoln’s
“government of the people, by the people, and for the people” was to survive.
Nevertheless,
although opposed by the financial interests and the wealthy and championed by
both socialists and populists, nothing substantive was done about monetary and
tax reform until the Panic of 1907, “the Bankers Panic.” The panic was triggered — probably
inadvertently — by the successful attempt by financier John Pierpont Morgan, Sr. (1837-1913) to drive a rival bank out of
business by denying emergency credit and shutting off clearinghouse
privileges. As shock waves reverberated
throughout the global financial system, Morgan avoided a depression by
extending emergency credit to other banks once he had his rival securely in his
own hands. (See U.S. Congressional House Committee on Banking and Currency, Report of the Committee Appointed Pursuant
to House Resolutions 429 and 504 to Investigate the Concentration of Control of
Money and Credit, February 28, 1913.
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1913.)
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| Woodrow Wilson |
A properly
regulated central bank would immediately have provided the emergency credit
Morgan first denied and then extended to his own advantage, and overseen
clearinghouse operations to prevent Morgan’s tactic. Not surprisingly, reform of the financial
system was the key campaign issue for both progressives and populists in the
1912 presidential campaign.
At the risk of
alienating his Wall Street supporters who might have gone over to the
Republican incumbent William Howard Taft (1857-1930), Democratic candidate
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) was forced into an alliance with the populist
champion William Jennings Bryan to counter the progressive Theodore
Roosevelt. Very much against his will,
monetary and tax reform became Wilson’s top priority. (Arthur S. Link, Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1954,
43.)
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| Carter Glass |
Once inaugurated,
in addition to breaking his promises to appoint a commission to study the race
issue, Wilson — safely back in the pocket of Wall Street — did everything he
could to avoid meeting his obligations.
Only an alliance between Representative Carter Glass (1858-1946) and
Bryan kept Wilson’s feet to the fire.
After months of debate and almost vicious infighting in the House and
the Senate as the vested interests pulled out all stops to prevent reform, the
Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was finally enacted. (There was a meeting in 1910
on Jekyll Island to develop a plan for reform that would keep Wall Street in
control, but the Federal Reserve Act was a vast improvement over the so-called
“Aldrich Plan.” See Harold G. Moulton, The Financial Organization of Society. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution,
1930, 531n.)
Along with the
income tax, the Federal Reserve Act was considered a populist triumph. Bryan regarded it as the crowning achievement
of his political career. (William
Jennings Bryan, The Memoirs of William
Jennings Bryan. Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania: The United Publishers of America, 1925, 372.) Assuming the system worked as intended, the
Federal Reserve would provide the private sector with an “elastic,” (A currency
that expands and contracts directly with the needs of the economy.) asset-backed,
stable and uniform reserve currency for agriculture, commerce, and industry. The income tax would ensure sufficient funds
to run government without adding to the costs of production or raising prices
to consumers.
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| Salmon P. Chase |
Matters did not,
however, work out as planned. Although
the system operated as intended for two years, the U.S. preparation for
possible entry into World War I presented politicians with a dilemma: should
they finance the war effort by raising taxes and face the possibility of not
being reelected, or float debt and risk damaging the newly restored faith and
credit of the U.S. government?
As had Salmon P. Chase
during the Civil War, the politicians chose not to rely on the patriotism and
good sense of their constituents and chose politically safe and financially
precarious bond issues over taxation.
This quickly drained all the liquidity out of the economy, and the
commercial banks resorted to a loophole in the Federal Reserve Act to monetize
government debt. A provision intended to
retire the debt-backed United States Notes, National Bank Notes, and Treasury
Notes of 1890 and replace them with asset-backed Federal Reserve Notes was used
instead to back the new Federal Reserve Notes with government debt instead of
private sector assets.
Fortunately, the
politicians did exercise restraint, and after the war much of the debt was
gradually retired. The Federal Reserve’s
quick action in pumping asset-backed liquidity into the system immediately
following the war greatly reduced the length and severity of the post-war
recession.
Unfortunately,
this accommodation between money and politics was not to last.
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