Credit Union Times - Centennial Edition - (Page I30) CeLeBrAtiNg 100 YeArS , SPeCiAL CeNteNNiAL editioN America 1909: economic Woes When CUs Were Founded By clauDe r. MarX CU Times Washington Reporter WASHINGTON – A popular president had left office and was replaced by a Yale graduate from a prominent political family who almost immediately faced a series of economic challenges. George W. Bush in 2001? No, William Howard Taft in 1909. Taft, a long-time public servant who had held several key foreign and domestic policy posts, defeated threetime Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan by a landslide in 1908. Unfortunately for Taft, he was less charismatic and politically savvy than his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt. With an oversized personality and zeal for reform had captivated the nation (and made him many enemies), Roosevelt was active until the end. On Feb. 9, 1909, Congress passed (with Roosevelt’s support) the Opium Exclusion Act, which banned the import of smoking opium and was the nation’s first anti-drug law. On March 4, 1909, Taft was sworn in during a snowstorm that was so severe that the ceremony had to be moved inside the Capitol’s Senate chamber. That would be an omen for some of the problems he faced in office. At the time, the nation was still feeling some of the effects of the Panic of 1907 and Taft joined the chorus supporting a major overhaul of the banking system. A commission set up by Roosevelt was examining the state of the nation’s banking laws and would eventually come up with a series of recommendations, including the creation of the Federal Reserve, which was started during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. In Taft’s inaugural address he called for a “change in our monetary and banking laws, so as to secure greater elasticity in the forms of currency available for trade and to prevent the limitations of law from operating to increase the embarrassment of a financial panic.” Although the American first credit union was founded in the spring of that year in New Hampshire, credit unions were not yet a part of the national discussion on financial services. St. Mary’s Bank in Manchester, N.H., was founded by a group of Canadian immigrants in November 1908 but did not become a credit union until the following year. In 1909, Massachusetts became the first state to establish credit union legislation, spearheaded in large part by Boston merchant Edward Filene. The credit union movement would not develop a national presence until 1921, when the Credit Union National Extension Bureau (the predecessor to CUNA) was founded. In 1934, Congress passed the Federal Credit Union Act, which created the dual state and federal chartering system. In 1908 and 1909, the sluggish economy was taking its toll on citizens. New York City experienced its highest number of suicides–1,000–prompting Columbia University economics professor Edward Devine to say in a speech that “there are more kinds of misery in New York than Milton imagined in his hell,” according to an account in the March 24, 1909 edition of The New York Times. Some banks, however, were seeing improvements. New York State Banking Superintendent told a March 11 meeting of the New York Bankers’ Association: “Recovery [from the 1907 panic] has been complete; we are now stronger by $500 million than we were then.” Taft, however, addressed problems in other parts of the economy. One of his first political fights with Congress (which was controlled by his fellow Republicans) was over the tariff. Taft initially supported a moderate increase in the tariff that passed the House but the Senate passed a more conservative version of the bill with higher tariffs (though it included exemptions for false teeth and hog bristles). Reformist Republicans had hoped Taft would support them in backing the House version but Taft refused and he eventually signed a more conservative version that passed after a House-Senate conference committee ironed out differences. To stave off a growing move among progressives for a national income tax, Taft convinced lawmakers to pass a corporate income tax. He would subsequently back the 16th Amendment, which created income tax and was ratified by the states 30 days before Taft left office in 1913, following his third-place finish in the 1912 election behind Wilson and Roosevelt. The United States was in many ways a segregated country that year. To change that, at a Feb. 12 conference on civil rights in New York City, a group of progressive whites and blacks formed the National Negro Committee, the forerunner of the NAACP, which would go on to become the nation’s best-known civil rights organization. It was not, of course, all work and no play in 1909. It was the first year Mary Pickford –who became known as America’s Sweetheart— appeared in movies. Her first film was “Mrs. Jones Entertains,” and she was in 51 films that year, including several directed by D.W. Griffith, considered by many to be the nation’s first significant director. The best selling book in the United States was “The Inner Shrine,” a spiritual novel published anonymously but later determined to be the work of Basil King, a Canadian-born minister who turned to writing after becoming blind. In baseball, the Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Detroit Tigers during the World Series in seven games. The series featured future Hall of Fame ballplayers Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner. —cmarx@cutimes.com New York detective Condemns Moving Pictures for Promoting Crime NEW YORK, Feb. 21, 1909 — The officer in charge of the New York City Detective Bureau said he believes that moving pictures can turn young men to a life of crime. Inspector James McCafferty said moving picture halls, especially those on the Lower East Side, show scene after scene featuring safe crackers and “others of the burglarious gentry.” These halls, he said, have become favorites of the criminally inclined because the moving pictures offer valuable lessons to them on how to ply their trade. “Too much cannot be said for the harmful effect exerted on young men and boys by some of the scenes which are most popular in many of the moving picture places,” McCafferty said. He added that the movie halls on the Lower East Side seem to specialize in depictions of safe blowing and looting of banks and houses. “The thieving hero is more popular to the crowds who patronize these places than is the hero who does some noble act,” complained McCafferty. “It is the criminal scene which catches the fancy of many a young man or boy who haunts those places. The moving picture men know it and had no scruples in pandering to the popular fancy which prevails in their section of the city.” He added that “crooks get new ideas from the moving pictures. Some of these resorts are nothing more or less than thief incubators.” Inspector McCafferty recalled “the Third Avenue job”–the looting of a large safe in the S. Jackel jewelry store to support his contention. Although the burglars got away with the loot, they were later captured. One of the thieves, Mickey Hefferan, aka Mickey the Rat, had been under surveillance for several months. He had been frequenting the moving picture shows of the Lower East Side. Mickey’s partners in crime had several times joined him there. The detectives assigned to the Jackel case had no trouble finding Mickey; they arrested him inside one of the movie halls. One aspect of the way moving pictures are shown McCafferty found particularly distasteful. “This is the man who stands at the side of the screen at some of the shows and explains the scene,” he explained. “Each detail of the theme, be it burglary or highway robbery, is called to the attention of those who have paid a nickel to see the show.” www.cutimes.com Bogus Money Palmed off on immigrants HOBOKEN, N.J., June 11, 1909 — The Immigration Bureau has launched an investigation to track down a band of counterfeiters who are swindling Italian immigrants. The band is apparently working in the United States, making bogus money and sending it to confederates in Italy, who exchange it with emigrating Italians for good Italian money. The investigation was launched after it was discovered that many of steerage passengers on a ship that recently reached here from Italy had possession of counterfeit U.S. half-dollar coins. 30 Credit Union Times, December 2008 http://www.cutimes.com
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