Carter Glass


Glass, Carter,

1858–1946, American politician, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury (1918–20), U.S. Senator from Virginia (1920–46), b. Lynchburg, Va. He learned the printer's trade and became owner of the Lynchburg Daily News and Daily Advance. Glass became prominent in local politics, then served (1902–18) in the House of Representatives. As chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, he was active in the framing of the Federal Reserve SystemFederal Reserve System,
central banking system of the United States. Established in 1913, it began to operate in Nov., 1914. Its setup, although somewhat altered since its establishment, particularly by the Banking Act of 1935, has remained substantially the same.
..... Click the link for more information. . In 1918 he became Secretary of the Treasury under President Wilson, but in 1920 he resigned to become Senator from Virginia by appointment. Elected Senator for the balance of the term, he was reelected four times, serving until his death. He violently opposed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's monetary and New Deal policies, but supported Roosevelt's foreign policy.

Bibliography

See biography by R. Smith and N. Beasely (1939, repr. 1972).

Glass, Carter

(1858–1946) newspaper publisher, U.S. representative/senator; born in Lynchburg, Va. Starting at age 14 as a printer's assistant on his father's newspaper, he became an editor and by 1895 owned three newspapers. An active Democrat, he served in the Virginia senate and then in the U.S. House of Representatives (1902–18); there he sponsored the act that established the Federal Reserve System (1913). He served as secretary of the treasury (1918–20), leaving to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate, where he served until his death (1920–46). A fiscal conservative and a defender of states' rights, he often opposed New Deal legislation, but he supported the League of Nations and the U.S. role in World War II.