The intimate papers of Colonel House arranged as a narrative by Charles Seymour.

THE MONEY TRUST

159

Organized capital, 'Wall Street' in popular parlance, had
secured a control of banking credits which, if it were extended, might place the industrial life of the country in the
power of private and at least partially irresponsible interests.
Against this so-called 'credit trust' Mr. Bryan had protested
in 1896:' Let the Government go out of the banking business,'
the financial magnates had cried; to which Bryan retorted,
'Let the banks go out of the Government business.' If
private individuals could release or withhold credits at will,
it meant a control of industry and inequality of opportunity
at complete variance with traditional American principles.
Colonel House to Senator Culberson
MAGNOLIA, MASSACHUSETTS
July 26, 1911
DEAR SENATOR:... I think Woodrow Wilson's remark that the money
trust was the most pernicious of all trusts, is eminently
correct.
A few individuals and their satellites control the leading
banks and trust companies in America. They also control
the leading corporations; and if they are to be permitted on
the one hand to use the corporations as a bar against loss to
any speculation which they may make, and to use on the
other hand the banks and trust companies to borrow all the
funds they may need for such speculations, the stockholders
of the corporations which they dominate and the business
world that depends upon funds from the trust companies
and banks which they dominate, are bound to suffer....
Faithfully yours
E. M. HOUSE
During the autumn of 1912 and the spring of 1913, even in
the midst of the campaign and the process of forming a
Cabinet, House worked constantly on the currency problem,