the reserve banks. This was one of the most notable domestic achievements of the Wilson administration which modernized the nations banking and currency systems, laying the basis for federal management of the economy and providing the legal basis for an effective national banking system. The final major item on Wilsons domestic agenda was the reform of big business. Big businesses worked against the public by fixing prices and restraining competition. Business and politics worked together, and Wilson sought to stop that. Determined to accept big business as an inevitable, but to control its abuses and to maintain an open door of opportunity for "the genius which springs up from the ranks of unknown men,"1 Wilsons hoped to curb big business. He thought that government should intervene in the regulation of business, and that it was essential to control corporate behavior to prevent corporations from stifling opportunities for creative and ambitious people. Business consolidation was inevitable and might be beneficial, yet he insisted that great corporations behave in the public interest: These were the balances Wilson sought to achieve and maintain. "Our laws are still meant for business done, by individuals that have not been satisfactorily adjusted to business done by great combinations and we have got to adjust them,"2in that big business was unjust and somebody needed to watch out for the people, and Wilson was just the man to do that. First, the Federal Trade commission, authorized to order companies to "cease and desist"3 from engaging in unfair competition. Later came the Clayton Anti-trust Act which outlawed a number of widely practiced business tactics. Wilsons' "New Freedom" domestic policies produced what turned out to be four constitutional amendments. The 16th amendment assembled a graduated income tax beginning on incomes over $3,000. The 17th, achieved direct election of senators by the people. The 18th, was prohibition (o...
