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the instrument of his demise. *The final electoral vote in 1912 was 

Wilson - 409; Roosevelt - 167; and Taft - 15.

To further confuse the American people and blind them to the real 
purpose of the proposed Federal Reserve Act, the architects of the 
Aldrich Plan, powerful Nelson Aldrich, although no longer a senator, 

and Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank, set up a 

hue and cry against the bill. They gave interviews whenever they 

could find an audience denouncing the proposed Federal Reserve 
Act as inimical to banking and to good government. The bugaboo 
of inflation was raised because of the Act’s provisions for printing 
Federal Reserve notes. The Nation, on October 23, 1913, pointed 

out, "Mr. Aldrich himself raised a hue and cry over the issue of 
government "fiat money", that is, money issued without gold or 

bullion back of it, although a bill to do precisely that had been 
passed in 1908 with his own name as author, and he knew besides, 

that the ‘government’ had nothing to do with it, that the Federal 
Reserve Board would have full charge of the issuing of such 

moneys."

Frank Vanderlip’s claims were so bizarre that Senator Robert L. 
Owen, chairman of the newly formed Senate Banking and 
Currency Committee, which had been formed on March 18, 1913, 

accused him of openly carrying on a campaign of 
misrepresentation about the bill. The interests of the public, so 

Carter Glass claimed in a speech on September 10, 1913 to 
Congress, would be protected by an advisory council of bankers. 
"There can be nothing sinister about its transactions. Meeting with it 
at least four times a year will be a bankers’ advisory council 

representing every regional reserve district in the system. How could 
we have exercised greater caution in safeguarding the public 
interests?"

Glass claimed that the proposed Federal Advisory Council would 
force the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to act in the best 

interest of the people.

Senator Root raised the problem of inflation, claiming that under 
the Federal Reserve Act, note circulation would always expand 

indefinitely, causing great inflation. However, the later history of the 
Federal Reserve  

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