“I asked them to be patient with us until after the election, and _I cited to them our experiences with monetary reform_. I reminded them how the Aldrich plan had failed because, at that time, a Republican President had lost control of a Congress ruled by a Democratic majority; how the Democrats in their platform damned this plan and any central banking system; and how, _once in full power, the National Reserve Association was evolved, not to say camouflaged, by them into the Federal Reserve System_.” Remembering this play before the public, and the play behind the scenes, this “camouflaging,” as Mr. Warburg says, of one thing into another, he undertook to assure his friends in Europe that regardless of what the political platforms said, the United States would do substantially what Europe hoped it would. Mr. Warburg’s basis for that belief was, as he said, his experience with the way the central bank idea went through in spite of the advertised objection of all parties. He believes that with Americans it is possible to get what you want if you just play the game skillfully. His experience with monetary reform seems to have fathered that belief in him. Politicians may be necessary pawns to play in the game, but as members of the government Mr. Warburg does not want them in banking. They are not bankers, he says; they don’t understand; banking is nothing for a government man to meddle with. He may be good enough for the Government of the United States; he is not good enough for banking. “In our country,” says Mr. Warburg, referring to the United States, “with every untrained amateur a candidate for any office, _where friendship or help in a presidential campaign, financial or political, has always given a claim for political preferment_, where the bids for votes and public favor are ever present in the politician’s mind, ... _a direct government management, that is to say, a political management, would prove fatal_.... There can be no doubt but that, as drawn at present (1913), with two cabinet officers members of the Federal Reserve Board, and with the vast powers vested in the latter, the Owen-Glass Bill would bring about direct government management.” And that, of course, in Mr. Warburg’s mind, is not only “dangerous,” but “fatal.” Mr. Warburg had almost his whole will in the matter. And what is the result? Turn to the testimony of Bernard M. Baruch, when he was examined with reference to the charge that certain men close to President Wilson had profited to the extent of $60,000,000 on stock market operations which they entered into on the strength of advance information of what the President was to say in his next war note—the famous “leak” investigation, as it was called; one of the several investigations in which Mr. Baruch was closely questioned.