tactless. This was that minor officials should make no announcements to the reporters; that such matter should come from his own official headquarters. A failure to cultivate the press, the politicians say, has wrecked more than one promising career. And they point to Mr. Taft as a "horrible example."

They

This attitude, however, illustrates precisely this point concerning Mr. McAdoo. Like everybody else the newspaper men like him. Despite the fact that they regard the Secretary as one of the most difficult problems, they do not "roast" him. For there is a touch of genius in his personality which charms and disarms all critics. It is impossible to remain in his presence for a few minutes without realizing that one is face to face with an exceptional man. Nearly all who write upon Mr. McAdoo feel called upon to discover a physical resemblance to Lincoln. As a matter of fact the only point of similarity is found in the eyes - deep, dark, indefinitely haunt ing, and slightly melancholy. suggest real kindness of heart, genuine loyalty to friends, sympathy, faithfulness in all the conventional relations of life, honesty, and sincerity in a word, the characteristics for which one human being instinctively loves another. In addition to these less easily defined qualities, Mr. McAdoo has other more outstanding traits. He is a master executive. He is capable of long periods of uninterrupted work, and has a tremendous capacity for detail. He displayed everywhere this latter quality when building his Hudson River tunnels; from the day he first conceived the idea his was the mind that directed all the company's activities; neither abstruse financial nor engineering problems had the slightest terrors for him. As part of this tunnel enterprise Mr. McAdoo constructed what was then New York's largest office building. He did not overlook a single detail in this structure. He bought the real estate, he helped the architects to plan the building and kept the closest personal supervision over its progress. In order to provide a tenant for the top floor -a problem which the real estate men regarded as insoluble Mr. McAdoo himself organized the now flourishing Railroad

Club. Here again he attended to every detail; he superintended the decorations, the purchase of furniture, the selection of table linen, silver, and china. In one respect, at least, Mr. McAdoo decided, his Railroad Club should stand preeminent: it must provide the best bread of any club in town. With this idea in mind, he invited all the master bakers to forward samples of their handiwork. One day his friends discovered Mr. McAdoo in his office surrounded by a large semi-circle of freshly baked loaves of bread. He spent an hour solemnly tasting the samples.

"The man who baked this one shall bake the Railroad Club's bread," he finally decided, indicating the premium loaf.

Mr. McAdoo is also noted for his resourcefulness; he has the happy faculty of never "getting left." He has been known to despatch a special train to bring a traveling bag which he has accidentally left behind -this incident really happened a few years ago in Arizona.

His fondness for fast automobiling amounts almost to recklessness; he has narrowly escaped death three times; and he was once arrested in Germany for "endangering a railroad train"- the offense consisting in racing with a locomotive to see which would have the right-of-way over a crossing. One day an enormous crowd collected in Church Street, New York, with eyes upturned toward a dizzy spectre several hundred feet up in the air. A large steel girder attached to a chain was making an ascent to the twenty-second story of the Hudson Terminal Building, then in its skeleton stage. Standing on this girder, with hand clasping the chain, stood Mr. McAdoo. He was making a personal inspection of his building - the only way, as things then stood, in which he could do so. Slowly he made the ascent; once arrived at the top, he picked his way about the fragmentary floor, stepping gingerly from crossbeam to crossbeam - a single inadvertent move would have plunged him to the pavement below.

"You'd better take the hod elevator down," said the foreman; "on the way down you're apt to get the 'zoop.'"' "What's that?"

"A drop that makes you feel like your stomach and nerves had fallen into your shoes."

"'Zoop' or no 'zoop'," said Mr. McAdoo, "I'm going down the way I came up." On the return trip he did not have the girder to stand on. He placed his foot in the hook at the end of the chain and gave the signal. One of the workmen joined Mr. McAdoo and threw his arm around him as a protection.

"You go ay-way from heah," said Mr. McAdoo. He preferred to make the trip all alone and did so.

Mr. McAdoo's appointment gave the ultra-radicals their only chance to assail the Wilson Administration. He was the only man whom they could hit upon as being even remotely tainted with the Wall Street miasma. When Mr. McAdoo came to New York as a young man of twenty-nine he committed the fatal error of establishing a law office with a Wall Street address. Before and after breaking in upon the metropolis he had had something of a corporation practice; he had even organized and served as president of trolley companies in Knoxville. His great enterprise, the Hudson River tunnels, had enlisted the support of several well known capitalists; there were even malicious rumors that the house of J. P. Morgan had had something to do with floating his securities. In raising $70,000,000, in other words, Mr. McAdoo had made the mistake of seeking the people who actually had the money to lend, instead of resorting to the corner groceryman or neighborhood pawnbroker. These circumstances, however, were incriminating evidence. The new Secretary was "Wall Street's representative," the man who was to turn the Nation's coffers into an annex of the National City Bank. Certain newspapers published a story that Mr. Bryan had declined to enter the Cabinet so long as Mr. McAdoo was there, and seemed somewhat mystified when Mr. Bryan promptly branded the report as false and paid a high tribute to Mr. McAdoo's integrity. When the new Secretary appointed Mr. Williams as his assistant, Senator La Follette at once announced that the spirit of the "interlocking direc

torates" had acquired possession of the Treasury Department. Was not Mr. Williams a bank president, a railroad organizer, a member of the Metropolitan Club in New York, and several other similarly malevolent things?

Senator La Follette and the other critics could hardly have hit upon a more unfortunate specification. For the last ten years the favorite beast of the "progressives" in the Democratic party has been Mr. Thomas F. Ryan. In this agile gentleman Mr. Bryan has found the target for his most impassioned invective. The public has not yet forgotten that he introduced a resolution, at the Baltimore convention, which called for Mr. Ryan's expulsion from that assembly. In his antagonism to this distinguished Virginian, Mr. Bryan could hardly find more sympathetic associates than Mr. McAdoo and Mr. Williams. Both men have spent the larger part of their business lives combating Mr. Ryan, and such success as both have achieved has been won in the teeth of Mr. Ryan's opposition. Mr. McAdoo fought his way into New York against the political and financial antagonism of the Metropolitan and the Interborough syndicates; when Mr. Williams was engaged in organizing the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, his idea being to make the property a Southernowned road, independent of Wall Street, he found the Ryan influence everywhere arrayed against him.

Mr. McAdoo's experiences with Mr. Ryan and his associates have the utmost public interest at this time, for they shed much light upon the inevitable question: Who, under the Wilson Administration, "owns" the Treasury Department? Mr. McAdoo had not gone far in his transit enterprises in New York when he found himself, almost without intending it, a "factor" in the general transit situation –— a competitor of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company, the elevated lines, and the subway. He was an interloper, an upstart, a man who had arrogantly encroached upon territory long since preempted by Thomas F. Ryan, William C. Whitney, P. A. B. Widener, August Belmont, and other important people. Many "outside" interests, at different

times, had attempted to gain a foothold, but without success. Mr. McAdoo had worked so quietly, however, and his plans had enlarged so naturally and so unobtrusively that he had practically settled himself upon several important thoroughfares before the entrenched monopolists actually realized what was going on. They decided at once to take the usual means to call him off, and so one day Mr. McAdoo was invited to lunch with Mr. Herbert H. Vreeland, the president of Mr. Ryan's Metropolitan Street Railway.

"Well, what are we here for?" said Mr. Vreeland, after the preliminary courtesies

were over.

"I happen to be your guest," replied Mr. McAdoo. "I suppose you know why you wanted to meet me."

"Yes," answered Mr. Vreeland. "It's about your tunnel. How much will you sell the whole thing for?"

In a few words Mr. McAdoo informed his friend that his company was not for sale at any price.

Mr. Vreeland opened wide his eyes. "Why, Mr. McAdoo," he said, "you don't suppose for a moment that we are going to let you build that tunnel, do you?"

"I didn't know you had anything to do about it," replied this innocent young lawyer from Tennessee. "I will withdraw my application to the Rapid Transit Commission and present it to the Metropolitan Street Railway."

"Oh, I don't quite mean that," said Mr. Vreeland. "Only no one we have ever opposed has yet succeeded in building a railroad in this town."

Mr. McAdoo rose abruptly from the half-eaten luncheon. "We'll prove your rule by becoming the exception," he declared. "I am going to build that line, Mr. Vreeland, whether you people like it or not."

And he did, though only after the strongest opposition. The Metropolitan attempted to depress his credit; it organized "citizens' associations" to appear before the authorities against the McAdoo schemes; and tried to get impossible conditions in his franchises. Mr. McAdoo won by virtue of a new force which was then making itself felt in popular govern

ment the force of public opinion. His personality laid hold of the popular mind. and won for him in a struggle that lasted for several years.

Mr. McAdoo battled not only against Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, but against another famous leader and financial supporter of the old Democratic party- Mr. August Belmont. His tunnel system was an open challenge to the Belmont Interborough Subway. These things, however, were minor matters; he really seriously interfered with the Interborough when he took a hand in the famous subway dispute of three years ago. This story cannot be told in detail; the point was that the city's transit needs were pressing, that the existing lines were greatly overcrowded, and that elaborate extensions to the subway system were required. A situation that had been a scandal for several years reached a crisis in the fall of 1910. Apparently, however, the Interborough system dominated the field. The Interborough flatly refused to build any more lines, except on terms that were extremely disadvantageous to New York. But the need was so pressing that many good citizens, particularly Mayor Gaynor, advised the acceptance of these terms. The fact that no possible competitor against the Interborough appeared strengthened this position. At the precise moment when the Interborough was about to pick the plum, something unexpected happened - Mr. McAdoo, just recovering from an operation for appendicitis, offered to build $300,000,000 worth of subways on terms immensely more favorable than the Interborough's. This timely offer entirely changed the situation. Competitors now sprung up on several sides. In the proceedings that rapidly followed, Mr McAdoo's company retired from the field; but he had done the city a remarkable service. The fact that New York's subway problem is now satisfactorily adjusted, that the city is safeguarded from the Interborough monopoly, is largely owing to his interference.

Whatever Mr. McAdoo's prepossessions in his present position may be, therefore, he can hardly be catalogued as "Wall Street's man." The ideals of the Wilson

Administration necessarily exclude any direct participation by any influence such as Wall Street in the government of the country. The Administration primarily stands for the liberation of the Government from any control except that of the people themselves. This policy affects the Treasury Department with a peculiar emphasis. Nor, in order to sympathize with this point of view, is it necessary to accept as gospel all the wild talk which has become so popular in recent years about "Wall Street," the "Money Trust," and the concentration of capital. Upon this theme the demagogues have certainly played with a pretty liberal hand. After making all allowances for this state of mind, however, there is a settled conviction that there is a great and unhealthy concentration of credit in Wall Street. Certainly after such a reputable financial authority as Mr. George F. Baker has publicly acknowledged as much, outsiders can hardly be expected to entertain any other view. It is similarly true that certain great New York financiers have had altogether too much influence in the Treasury Department. Many good people doubtless sincerely believe that our large financial institutions should dominate the Treasury; should virtually name the Secretary, constantly advise him in his official acts, serve as mediators or connecting links between the Government and the business world. It is hardly necessary at this time to discuss this attitude; it is sufficient to say, as a matter of current history, that President Wilson does not accept this idea. The Democratic Administration represents the opposite conception. Under the new order of things, Wall Street's "ownership" of the Treasury Department, however extensive or insignificant that "ownership" may have been, is to end.

Mr. McAdoo certainly has not hesitated to accept this conception of his duties. Whatever success or failure he may make, so long as he holds his present office he will be Secretary of the Treasury. He repudiates any idea that he is "making war" on Wall Street; his last ambition is to figure as a baiter of the "money trust." The fact remains, however, that his official life,

so far, has been spent in a duel with the large banking interests in New York. An early incident, slight in itself, signalized this new state of affairs. For several years a young woman, a salaried employee of the National City Bank of New York, had occupied a desk in the office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Her duties were to obtain information concerning the condition of national banks, as disclosed by the visits of the Comptroller. There seemed to be nothing necessarily nefarious in this activity; this information, of course, was public property; in due course the Treasury Department published it. From one point of view, her activities might have been regarded as ordinary business enterprise; the purpose was to obtain certain legitimate information in advance of the National City's competitors. Mr. McAdoo, however, immediately dislodged this young woman and, in a newspaper statement, stigmatized her presence in the Treasury Department as "irregular and improper." He had no objection to any statistical bureau maintained in the City Bank; he regarded it as a scandal, however, that its representative should have desk room in a government building.

No Secretary of the Treasury had publicly lectured this great Standard Oil institution before. It was the first time in a hundred years, its officers said, that it had been called upon publicly to defend its honor. Bad as was the feeling which this created, however, it was nothing compared with the unpopularity of Mr. McAdoo's next official act. This was a notification that all treasury depositories must pay two per cent. interest on government balances. Banks all over the country, and especially the large banks in New York, had had the free use of many millions of United States deposits for many years. In this way the Government was throwing away money. In less than a generation, Mr. McAdoo figured, the Government had lost $33,000,000; the thing was not only bad morals, it was bad business. There seemed no reason why these banks should not pay interest on government deposits; they paid interest on deposits made by other governments than their own. One of the banks which

most vociferously objected to the new ruling, for example, was at the very moment of its objecting carrying a large balance for a foreign government, upon which it was paying 2 or more per cent. interest. Several of Mr. McAdoo's predecessors had approached the problem and threatened to take action; none of them, however, had accomplished anything. anything. His single act has saved the American people more than $1,000,000 a year the operation is as simple as finding the money. For the banks, when faced with the possibility of losing the deposits, are apparently willing to pay a reasonable. interest. Of the 559 banks that carry treasury balances, only seven have refused to pay this interest, and among them are the National City and the Bank of Commerce of New York. Since issuing this new order, Mr. McAdoo has placed an additional $60,000,000 on deposit, and the eagerness with which the national banks in all parts of the country have scampered to obtain a share, even at the penalty of paying interest, shows that Mr. McAdoo's action was a wise stroke.

As a result of these and other acts, however, the Wilson Administration is enormously unpopular in Wall Street. It is so unpopular that a "Wilson panic" has been freely predicted by enemies of the Administration. Whatever the outsiders may think, and whatever the facts may be, the belief exists in Washington that, under existing conditions, the great money powers of this country can produce a panic almost at will. Most financial authorities ridicule this idea; whether it is true or false is not the point; the fact remains that this conception so generally prevails that it exerts an important influence upon business conditions. Many impartial observers believe that "Wall Street" so cordially detests the existing régime that it will go to almost any extreme, even the artificial stimulation of a panic, to discredit it. The fear of this "panic" has given business men many sleepless nights. If human foresight and ability can prevent any such convulsion, the Wilson Administration can be depended upon to make use of it. Naturally, Mr. McAdoo is the chief Administration agency in this

work. One of his most important roles has been that of a "panic-preventer." He has already made two important moves in this direction. The fear of panic conditions arises largely from that autumnal phenomenon known as "moving the crops." One of the curiosities of American life is that great national pros perity should necessarily be regarded as a signal for national disaster. Every fall our abounding harvests send shivers up the spines of our business men. The more abundant the yield - the more wheat, corn, cotton, and potatoes there may be the greater this anxiety becomes. These crops must be "moved" from farm to market; this "moving" process takes money, which the farmers have to borrow. They borrow it from their banks; their banks get the money from the larger banks; and so the ultimate draft is made upon the big institutions in Chicago and New York. Thus the harvest season is dependent upon the large reservoirs of liquid capital in the great money centres. There is an idea, which has greatly influenced American politics, that the big banks "squeeze" the little farmers at these critical periods. Much of this feeling is doubtless irrational; monetary experts believe that our "unelastic" currency system in itself sufficiently explains this annual stringency. ertheless, business men anxiously await this fall "crop moving" season, and are relieved when the crisis is safely passed.

Nev

In early June of this year, the usual monitory signs appeared - this time intensified by other disquieting symptoms. Everywhere the utmost pessimism prevailed as to the outlook. There was no great anxiety about the crops themselves, or other signs of widespread prosperity: the money situation, however, seemed especially acute. Widely published statements, some of them emanating from the most reputable and conservative quarters in New York, virtually warned the public to prepare for an approaching storm. The tariff bill, we were told, was bound to cre ate a readjustment in American industrialism; trialism; Europe would presently be calling upon us for large exportations of gold; the approaching movement of the crops presented a problem of peculiar