A Very Bad Year

     It came to my attention today, while eating dinner at a friend's house, that 1913 was one of America's worst years. Ever. This was for three things:

1. Amendment XVII to the United States Constitution was ratified
2. Woodrow Wilson was elected
3. U.S. Federal Reserve was created

     Beginning with the first item on the list, this issue might appear a tad strange. As a refresher, the XVII amendment calls for the popular election U.S. senators. Why on earth is that a bad thing? Well, it effectively forced the states from any position in the federal government. You see, before 1913, the governors and legislatures of the individual states used to appoint federal senators, thus giving state governments some voice in the national government. Also, since the Senate is required to ratify or deny all foreign treaties, the states could control, in part, the nation's foreign policy. This created a political situation where the federal government was answerable not only to the people, but also the states. If there was a trend of congressmen who refused to listen to the people, at least they could rely on the senators, who could be recalled by the governors. Also, instead of acting as a strange extension of the House of Representatives, it empowered the Senate to act in the interests of the state government. This would have been useful in a few occasions, for example, when President Obama was shoving federal funds down everybody's throat, the Senate, with the governors behind them, could have said no. Instead, the political systems at work allowed this to happen.

     Second, Woodrow Wilson was elected. He was the president who not only suppressed anti-government voices during WWI, but also fathered the League of Nations. It was totally unconstitutional to jail government protesters, and remains a blight on his record in my view. Any time that the president disallows the most basic of civil rights, free speech, it shows serious and fundamental flaws in his governing philosophy and the state of the nation as a whole. In addition, he invented the notion of an international governing body in the mold of the U.N. Basically, without Wilson and his happily failed League of Nations, we would not have the national sovereignty defying, civil rights destroying United Nations. Surely his election will go down in history as one of the worst ever.

     Capping off this evil of evil years was the creation of the Federal Reserve. Basically, it institutionalized federal control of the economy. This goes against every free market principle ever. Allowing the government to control the value and distribution of a nation's currency may seem quite normal. However, its main purpose is to give the national government more power, which has no knowledge of satiation. Instead of having regionalized depressions and business busts created by speculation or other market forces, it extrapolated them across the entire country. This was first shown to be true in the Great Depression. Without the Federal Reserve, we would have been able to continue the stable economic policies of 19th century, the latter period of which is known as the "Gilded Age". There has not been a denoted "Gilded Age" since then.

    Thus we have seen that 1913 was one of the worst years ever. It proved to largely expand federal power, reduce national sovereignty, and destroy economic stability, the effects of which we are experiencing today.