The Aldrich Bill fails to pass

A special section of the Aldrich-Vreeland Act provided for the appointment of the National Monetary Commission,—a body equipped with sufficient funds to undertake a thorough-going study of banking reform. Under the chairmanship of Senator Aldrich of Rhode Island, this commission heard the testimony of numerous banking and financial experts, and arranged for the publication of a number of works on important aspects of the money problem. At length it reported to Congress a bill for banking reform, a bill which became popularly known as the “Aldrich Bill.”

The details of this bill need not detain us here, as it was not destined to secure the assent of Congress. To analyze the cause of its failure would also be unprofitable, save perhaps to mention that it ignored popular objections to a central banking institution in the election of whose directorate bankers’ votes would be supreme. That it provided not for centralization but for banking cooperation was not sufficient to lull the general disapproval.