If Alexander Hamilton, Richard Nixon and Al Capone had a love child, he would be Senator Nelson W. Aldrich. The London Times called him, “the general manager of the United States”. Writer for The Cosmopolitan, David Graham Philips, described him as, “the organizer of treason”. The New York Times called him, “… pretty close to being the most powerful man in the United States” and “a disgusting hypocrite”. And author Ron Chernow described him as “the Czar of the Republican party and the maestro of the smoked-filled room”. Probably guilty of all these dubious distinctions, Nelson Aldrich’s political power, banking and economic erudition, spectrum of friends that included the most powerful men in the world, and predilection for corruption made him the perfect political representative for the enclave of financial demigods who christened the US Federal Reserve System.

Born in 1841, Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich grew up in East Killingly, Rhode Island. He attended the local elementary school and went on to East Greenwich Academy for a year. Aldrich family lore tells of a time when Nelson was nine years old and his mother gave him money to buy lunch and go to the circus. He went to the circus, but skipped lunch and used that money to buy a copy of The Tinker’s Son, or I’ll Be Somebody Yet, a kind of self-help book, but not one for a nine year old.

He was fascinated with the preachers in his East Killingly church. He noted the influence that oration commanded over people. A young Aldrich “… felt an uncontrollable yearning to become at some time a public speaker, to wield myself this wonderful power.” His Calvinist upbringing was no doubt a part of his license for control and privilege. John Calvin preached that every man’s goodness or evil is predestined, and the more successful he is – the more God has favoured him. The poor are obviously sinners, doomed to hell and the rich are obviously deemed by God to be good, as their status and class in life on earth attest.