1913 Society (2)

Society (2)

1913. Suffragist Emily Davison, who has been imprisoned several times and force-fed, is killed June 4 when she runs in front of the king's horse at the Derby.

1913. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to fight anti-Semitism in America is founded by the B'Nai B'rith.

1913. Mohandas Gandhi in South Africa leads 2,500 Indians into the Transvaal in defiance of a law. They are violently arrested, Gandhi refuses to pay a fine, he is jailed, his supporters demonstrate and Natal police fire into the crowd, killing two.

1913. Economic Interpretation of the Constitution by Columbia University history professor Charles a. Beard points out that America's founding fathers were all men of property when they drafted the Constitution in 1787. Beard suggests certain consequent inequities.

1913. The Federal Reserve System created by a measure signed into law by President Wilson will reform U.S. banking and currency. The Glass-Owen Currency Act, drafted to prevent panics such as the one in 1907, establishes 12 Federal Reserve banks in America's 12 major cities and requires member banks to maintain cash reserves proportionate to their deposits with the Fed---which loans money to the banks at low rates of interest relative to the rates the banks charge customers. The Fed's Board of Governors determines the amount of money in circulation at any given time; it provides elasticity to the supply of currency and can act to control inflation.