Abstract

McAdoo, Plunger

This article focuses on the book "McAdoo: The Man and His Times, a Panorama in Democracy," written by Mary Synon. The unforeseen ramifications of the oleaginous archaeology initiated by U.S. Senator Robert Marion La Follette and others seem likely to have converted this book, intended as a prompt and opportune campaign biography, into a political obituary. Synon confines herself almost entirely to an account of U.S. Senator William Gibbs McAdoo's activities as secretary of the treasury. There is a brief review of his early life, and more detail upon his triumph in building the Hudson tubes and linking them up with the traction system of the metropolis but the emphasis is upon the establishment of the federal reserve system, the creation of the merchant marine, the beginnings of rural credits, the floating of the Liberty Loans, the loans to the Allied countries, and government administration of railroads.