Carter Glass Papers

Carter Glass (January 4, 1858 – May 28, 1946) was born on January 4, 1858, in Lynchburg, Virginia, to Robert Henry Glass and Augusta Elizabeth Christian. He became a newspaper publisher (like his father)and after hearing a speech by William Jenning Bryan in 1896, entered politics in 1902 as a Democrat in the United States House of Representatives and was re-elected to eight terms. He was a United States Senator from Lynchburg, Virginia from 1920 until his death in 1946. In 1913, he became Chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, where he worked with President Woodrow Wilson to pass the Glass-Owen Federal Reserve Act and he went on to pass the Glass-Steagall Act in 1932 and the Banking Act in 1933 that made banking more stable in the United States. In 1918, President Wilson appointed him Secretary of the Treasury, where he marketed Victory Liberty Loans for World War I debts. At the 1920 Democratic National Convention Glass was nominated for President of the United States. Many of his supporters have said that at 5'4 inches tall, his speeches and political prowess made him seem larger than life.

Carter Glass became an apprentice printer to his father when he was 13 years old, and continued his education through reading literature in his father's library. At the age of 22, Glass became a reporter, a job he had long sought, for the "Lynchburg News". He rose to become the morning newspaper's editor by 1887. After acquiring the afternoon "Daily Advance", the competing "Daily Republican", he became Lynchburg's sole newspaper publisher. The "Lynchburg News and Advance" is the successor publication to his newspapers.

Carter Glass played a major role in the establishment of the U.S. financial regulatory system, helping to establish the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. He co-sponsored the 1933 Banking Act, also known as the Glass–Steagall Act, which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and enforced the separation of investment banking firms and commercial banks. His banking reforms (Banking Act of 1913, Glass Steagall Act 1932, Banking Act of 1933) earned him gratitude across the country, landing him on the cover of Time Magazine twice, and honoring him with many degrees from universities. Prior to Glass’s reforms, the country’s banking system was chaotic and regulated by bankers. The Glass-Steagall bill restricted banks from engaging in invesment banking. The country had suffered eight recessions between 1890 and 1914. Portions of the Glass-Steagall bill were repealed in 1999, allowing banks to combine their own investment activity with commercial banking and possibly contributing to the recession in 2008.

Not as well-publicized was Carter Glass’s lifelong opposition to voting rights for African Americans. One of Glass’s first political exploits was helping craft the revised 1902 Virginia Constitution to bar [African American] citizens from voting. The 1902 Constitution instituted a poll tax and required bulk payment after a voter missed elections, making voting a luxury. The Constitution also required that voters pass a literacy test with their performance graded by the registrar. When questioned as to whether these measures were potentially discriminatory, Glass exclaimed, "Discrimination! Why that is exactly what we propose. To remove every [African American] voter who can be gotten rid of, legally, without materially impairing the numerical strength of the white electorate." Indeed, the number of African Americans qualified to vote dropped from 147,000 to 21,000 immediately. More than 50 years after it was ratified, the Lynchburg senator remained opposed to the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted African Americans the right to vote. He said in the 1920's it “constituted an attempt to destroy white civilization in nearly one-third of the nation and to erect on its ruins an Ethiopian state ignorant, profligate, corrupt, controlled by manumitted slaves.” Glass was in step with his white constituents in Virginia, where African Americans did not receive equal voting rights until the 1960s. In 1928, during a debate involving prohibition, Glass said, “people of the original thirteen Southern States curse and deride and spit upon the Fifteenth Amendment — and have no intention of letting the [African American] vote” all the while maintaining Virginia was complying with the law.

Carter Glass remained one of the strongest advocates of segregation and continued to dedicate much of his political career to the perpetuation of Jim Crow laws in the South. He sponsored massive resistance legislation along with Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd of Winchester, another Virginia newspaperman who shared many of Glass's political views. Both Glass and Byrd were opposed to Roosevelt's New Deal policies. Each was a strong supporter of fiscal conservatism and states' rights. Carter Glass supported President Roosevelt but later criticized his policies, including the New Deal, attempts to pack the Supreme Court, third term presidency, and nominations for Federal Judgeships.

Glass had suffered from ill health throughout his life, and usually walked on tip toes because he believed that would help with his indigestion. He kept his seat in his final term in the Senate even though he was not able to be in attendance. He died in his hotel apartment in Washington, D.C., on May 28, 1946. His funeral in Lynchburg was attended by the Chief Justice, the Secretary of State, 11 Senators, 11 House members, and other notables. History remembers Carter Glass as the Father of the Federal Reserve Act but today history also considers his role in the 1902 Constitution that disenfranchised virtually every black voter in the state. The reduction in African American votes helped him politically and put him in a postion to create the banking reform legislation. Nationally, Glass might have been the architect of financial reform that stabilized the nation’s banking system, but at home, historian J. Douglas Smith calls him, “the architect of disenfranchisement in the Old Dominion.” Harvard University named their business school, Glass House, after Carter Glass achievements in banking, but they have now changed the name to Cash House, for James Cash, the first African American tenured professor at Harvard.

Sources: Wikipedia Joe Stinnett, retired editor of The News & Advance and The Roanoke Times. The Roanoke Times