a little wikipedia.....they seem to leave out that the reserve act was signed on christmas eve... when most of the guys on the hill were out buying presents....

Centralized banking was met with much opposition from politicians, who were suspicious of a central bank and who charged that Aldrich was biased due to his close ties to wealthy bankers such as J.P. Morgan and his daughter's marriage to John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Aldrich fought for a private bank with little government influence, but conceded that the government should be represented on the Board of Directors. Most Republicans favored the Aldrich Plan,[8] but it lacked enough support in the bipartisan Congress to pass because rural and western states viewed it as favoring the "eastern establishment".[9] Progressive Democrats instead favored a reserve system owned and operated by the government and out of control of the "money trust," ending Wall Street's control of the American currency supply.[8] Conservative Democrats fought for a privately owned, yet decentralized, reserve system, which would still be free of Wall Street's control.[8] The Federal Reserve Act passed Congress in late 1913[10][11] on a mostly partisan basis, with most all Democrats in support and most Republicans against it.[12]