1912 – Our Best Year

In 1912 the United States had cars, trains, steel, telephones, electricity, window screen, subways, zippers, the bottle cap, mousetraps, cotton candy, volleyball, the auto muffler, roller bearings, a remote control, the semi truck, filing cabinet, nickel-zinc battery, the fly swatter, thumb tack, mercury vapor lamp, assembly line, safety razor, hearing aid, air conditioning, offset printing, the round baler, automatic transmission, paper towel, auto pilot, electric blanket, and so much more.

What we did not have in 1912 were computers, the internet or smart phones – and life was so much kinder and personal.  We had radio but no television – a drug that has not served us well.  We did not have Communism or the United Nations.  We did not have Social Security, Food Stamps, Medicare, and a host of other socialist programs.

Then came 1913.  Five significant downturns:

1. February 3, the 16th Amendment was ratified which allowed the Congress to levy income taxes from individuals.
2. March 18, King George I of Greece was assassinated.  The Balkins were beginning to blow up – a year later events there would thrust the world into a global war that actually did not fully end until April 6, 1994 when the last Soviet troops left Eastern Europe.
3. April 8, the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, taking the powers of the states and transferring them to Washington, by mandating the popular election of senators.  [From Free-man’s Perspective: The 17th Amendment took the powers of the states and transferred them to Washington, by mandating the popular election of senators.  Previously, senators were appointed by state legislatures, restraining the power of the national government.  This change gave political parties immediate and massive power, nearly all of which was consolidated in the city of Washington. The amendment was ratified in the name of restraining the rich and making government into a force for good.]
4. December 23, The Federal Reserve Act was signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, creating the Federal Reserve System.  It created a central bank and a money empire.
5. In 1913 Francis Patton stepped down as president of Princeton Theological Seminary. He had assumed the post in 1902 and proved a staunch defender of orthodoxy.  In that capacity, he opposed many that were given to change and modernism.  Patton retired in 1913 ending a long series of solid Presidents going back to Jonathan Edwards.  Princeton would never again be a defender of God’s truth.

From Robert Higgs at Independent Institute:
The United States coming into 1913 had no federal income tax, no central bank, no social security taxes, no general sales taxes, no SEC, no EEOC, no HHS, no NLRB, no federal this, that, and the other as far as the eye can see…All governments combined spent an amount equal to about 7 percent of GDP… Never before had so much prosperity been attained by a comparably large population, and never before had so many people enjoyed such spacious freedom to live their lives and go about their business as they chose in a context where voluntary transactions dominated economic affairs and governments were relatively inconsequential factors in the economy and society.