the last major country without a central bank, which might provide stability and emergency credit in times of financial crisis. While segments of the financial community were worried about the power that had accrued to JP Morgan and other 'financiers', most were more concerned about the general frailty of a vast, decentralized banking system that could not regulate itself without the extraordinary intervention of one man. Financial leaders who advocated a central bank with an elastic currency after the Panic of 1907 included Frank Vanderlip, Myron T. Herrick, William Barret Ridgely, George E. Roberts, Isaac Newton Seligman and Jacob H. Schiff. They stressed the need for an elastic money supply that could expand or contract as needed. After the scare of 1907 the bankers demanded reform; the next year, Congress established a commission of experts to come up with a nonpartisan solution. Aldrich Plan Rhode Island Senator Nelson Aldrich, the Republican leader in the Senate, ran the Commission personally, with the aid of a team of economists. They went to Europe and were impressed with how the central banks in Britain and Germany appeared to handle the stabilization of the overall economy and the promotion of international trade. Aldrich's investigation led to his plan in 1912 to bring central banking to the United States, with promises of financial stability, expanded international roles, control by impartial experts and no political meddling in finance. Aldrich asserted that a central bank had to be, paradoxically, decentralized somehow, or it would be attacked by local politicians and bankers as had the First and Second Banks of the United States. The Aldrich plan was introduced in 62nd and 63rd Congresses (1912 and 1913) but never gained much traction as the Democrats in 1912 won control of both the House and the Senate as well as the White House. A regional Federal Reserve system The new President, Woodrow Wilson, then became the principal mover for banking and currency reform in the 63rd Congress, working with the two chairs of the House and Senate Banking and Currency Committees, Rep. Carter Glass of Virginia and Sen. Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma. It was Wilson who insisted that the regional Federal Reserve banks be controlled by a central Federal Reserve Board appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. Agrarian demands partly met William Jennings Bryan, now Secretary of State, long-time enemy of Wall