Monday, January 21, 2013

Plus Ça Change… Barack Obama Gives Stirring 1913 Speech

In the International Herald Tribune's 100 Years Ago section, we learn the following:
1913 — Wilson Attacks Magnates
NEW YORK — Mr. Woodrow Wilson’s talk to business men in Chicago on Saturday night [Jan.11] has excited just as much stir in the business world as his recent threat that he would “provide a gibbet as high as Hainan’s” for any financier who might take advantage of Wall Street to precipitate a panic. The Chicago speech, almost the last to be made before the inauguration of Mr. Wilson as President, taken in conjunction with other addresses to captains of industry, is construed as evidence that the President-elect has now definitely aligned himself with the “advanced” wing of the Democratic party, which is pledged to make business men honest by the process of special inquiry and special law.