Overflight, 14
And so it came to pass that the monetary scientists carefully selected their candidate and set about to clear the way for his victory. The maneuver was brilliant. Who would suspect that Wall Street would support a Democrat, especially when the Party platform contained this plank: «We oppose the so−called Aldrich Bill or the establishment of a central bank; and … what is known as the money trust.»
What irony it was. The Party of the working man, the Party of Thomas Jefferson — formed only a few generations earlier for the specific purpose of opposing a central bank — was now cheering a new leader who was a political captive of Wall Street bankers and who had agreed to the hidden agenda of establishing the Federal Reserve System. As George Harvey later boasted, the financiers «felt no animosity toward Mr. Wilson for such of his utterances as they regarded as radical and menacing to their interests. He had simply played the political game.»
William McAdoo, Wilson’s national campaign vice chairman, destined to become Secretary of the Treasury, saw what was happening from a ringside seat. He said:
«The major contributions to any candidate’s campaign fund are made by men who have axes to grind — and the campaign chest is the grindstone… The fact is that there is a serious danger of this country becoming a pluto−democracy; that is, a sham republic with the real government in the hands of a small clique of enormously wealthy men, who speak through their money, and whose influence, even today, radiates to every corner of the United States.
Experience has shown that the most practicable method of getting hold of a political party is to furnish it with money in large quantities. This brings the big money−giver or givers into close communion with the party leaders. Contact and influence do the rest.»”
G. Edward Griffin, The Creature from Jeckyll Island, A Second Look at the Federal Reserve