"A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men ... [W]e have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world-no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men." Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), 28th President of the United States, Excerpt from 1912 campaign speech, The Woodrow Wilson Presidential Liabrary. The Federal Reserve Act was signed into effect December 23, 1913