“Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”

— Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States
The New Freedom, 1913, Chapter I: “The Old Order Changeth”

In the ongoing synchronicity of a larger consciousness, a friend of mine referenced this quote yesterday. I had made a mental note recently to source this old quote, and have done so in the link above (it is on page 12 of this particular book).

This does not appear to be a particularly astonishing work, but it is a snapshot of a place and time in history that is very much relevant to our own. Wilson notes that no country can afford to have its prosperity originate only through a small controlling class of men. The greatness of America lies in the total of its energies and ambitions, and those cannot be restricted to just a special favoured class.

The President proceeds to note that there had come over the land an un-American set of conditions which enabled a small number of men to control the Government and to get special favours from the Government. They used those ‘favours’ to extend their network of control, a network which had grown to command every industry in the country. Gone was the time when “America lay in every hamlet… when America displayed her great forces on the broad prairies… and eager men were everywhere captains of industry, not employees; not looking to a distant city to find out what they might do, but looking about among their neighbours, finding credit according to their character, not according to their connections…”

There is no indication in what I have read so far that would provide the insight into why Wilson would sign the Federal Reserve Act into law mere months later, except that he himself was afraid of the very power of which he spoke. Yet one more reminder that Presidents themselves are only puppets to a larger order.

The New Freedom by Woodrow Wilson, 1913
^{(same link as above)}