*

HE election of Woodrow Wilas President+ brought

TH

son

into the White House the first Democratic executive, with the exception of Cleveland's two terms, since James Buchanan's retirement in 1861. The return of the electoral vote

showed 435 for Wilson and Marshall,

the candidate for the Vice-Presidency, as against 88 for Roosevelt and 8 for Taft. Their popular vote was 6,300,000, which was nearly 2,500,000 less than the combined votes of all opponents. In the 63d Congress, beginning in 1913, the Democrats would have a majority of five in the Senate and 135 in the House. Thus, for the first time since 1895, the Democratic Party would have power to pass legislation on party lines.

The Administration.

President Wilson came into office with a distinct program of legislation

Prepared by Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor of Government in Harvard University. See pp. 300-302, ante.

which was set forth in a brief collection of his campaign speeches entitled The New Freedom. According to the tone of this unquestionable authority, the President was a radical. He argued that the people of the United States had grown tired of their institutions, and had the right to change their political and governmental machinery to meet their own demands. He was much out of sympathy with the concentrated business interests, who, he said, " are so great that it is almost an open question. whether the government of the United States can dominate them or not." He proposed to curb monopoly, and suggested that Congress must pass new laws for regulating these monopolies. He assailed the then existing Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909, though he believed that free trade was. not possible in a country which so much needed the revenues levied on imports.

These general principles were stated more specifically in the President's inaugural address of March 4, 1913, and in a communication on April 7, when Congress was summoned in special session. For the first time in more than a century, the President appeared in person before the two Houses of Congress, and read a speech instead of sending in a written message. In it, he proposed a revision of the tariff, a new banking system, including rural credits, conservation of natural resources, further regulation of capital, a public railway in Alaska, independence of the Philippines, and primary elections to select candidates for the Presidential election.

To carry out these far-reaching policies, the President needed a strong Cabinet and a willing majority in Congress. To the post of Secretary of State, he named William J. Bryan, whose influence in the Baltimore convention had been strongly exerted in favor of Wilson's nomination. Mr. Bryan was without previous diplomatic experience, but had travelled widely, had served four years in Congress, and had three times been the candidate of his party for the Presidency. Associated with him for a time as official counselor was John Bassett Moore, of New York. The Secretary of the Treasury, William G. McAdoo, was the head of one of the great traction

companies of New York and chairman of the Democratic national committee in the campaign. Lindley M. Garrison, of New Jersey, a lawyer of distinction, was made Secretary of War. James C. McReynolds was AttorneyGeneral, having previously served the government in prosecutions of trust concerns. Albert S. Burleson, of Texas, the Postmaster-General, had served seven terms in Congress. Josephus Daniels, of North Carolina, Secretary of the Navy, had been a journalist and an active member of the Democratic national committee. Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior, had been for eight years a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission. David F. Houston, Secretary of Agriculture, had been president of several universities and, at the time of appointment, was chancellor of Washington University, St. Louis.

William C. Redfield, of New York, Secretary of Commerce, had been a manufacturer and leader in organizations of business men. The new Department of Labor, created just at the end of the previous administration, was filled by William B. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, who had been a prominent official in several labor unions and had served six years in Congress. This cabinet of ten men, as a whole, accepted the President's personal leadership and supported his policy of sweeping legislation.

The Underwood Tariff and the Reserve Bank. The Democrats and tariff reform Republicans had prepared the way for the revision of the tariff in 1911 and 1912 by passing four bills for reducing duties on specific groups of articles; but all four were vetoed by President Taft.* After Wilson's election, the Democrats of the Ways and Means Committee prepared a draft of a new tariff. It was introduced in the special session which began April 7, 1913, by Oscar W. Underwood, of Alabama, who was to be the chairman of the Committee and the party leader in Congress; and it was approved in principle by President Wilson before it came up for public discussion. As explained by its draftsman, the bill was intended to keep high rates on luxuries and to fix a low revenue rate on the "necessities of life." At the same time, it undertook to allow competition by foreign manufacturers in lines of manufacture which tended toward monopoly in the United States. The bill as finally worked out greatly increased the free list, and sufficiently lowered duties so that in the next full revenue year (1913-14) the proceeds of the customs were about $26,000,000 less than in 1912-13.

A few weeks before these debates, the Sixteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which had been pending for three years and a half, received the necessary three-fourths

of the Constitution.† Congress was thus authorized to lay an income tax without apportioning the amount among the States. This authority was at once used by adding to the tariff act a section providing an income tax to apply to incomes above $3,000 ($4,000 for married couples). The tax was 1 per cent. on the annual income up to an income of $20,000 and then was increased to 2 per cent. and 3 per cent. on higher incomes. The proceeds were expected to make good to the treasury the loss of revenue expected from the lowering of tariff duties. In the course of the debate, some of the Democratic members opposed the bill, because it did not protect manufactures in which their districts were especially interested. The Democratic party caucuses in the House and Senate compelled most of the objectors to submit, and the President used his powerful personal influence to support the Underwood bill, which became a law. October 3, 1913. Another which was measure, pressed even harder by the President, was the so-called Federal Reserve Act. For several years, efforts had been made to re-organize the National bank system, and Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, of Rhode Island, a Republican leader, drew up an elaborate bill in 1911.* The main point was to make the currency and the reserves more flexible. To this end a new Democratic measure was introduced, com

See p. 288 et seq., ante.

See p. 280, ante.

which replaced the old National banks

See p. 296, ante.