3° 
WAR BORROWING 
ternational situation.” 8 In the succeeding fort 
night history moved swiftly. On March 21, 1917, 
President Wilson had called Congress in special ses 
sion two weeks earlier than originally proposed “ to 
receive a communication concerning grave matters 
of national policy.” On April 6, 1917, a joint reso 
lution was passed by Congress declaring that a state 
of war with the Imperial German Government had 
been forced upon the United States. 
In these weeks the policy of the Treasury with 
respect to the huge borrowings which were then im 
mediately imminent may be supposed to have 
crystallized. No information is available as to the 
manner in which the determination was reached, 
and we are left in doubt in how far the counsels of 
the Federal Reserve Board, intent upon avoiding 
monetary strain, prevailed; in how far the fiscal ex 
periences of the Allies were considered; in how 
far an independent program, inspired by the sheer 
course of events, was formulated. Certainly the 
procedure adopted can fairly be described in the 
light of our own financial history as a new policy, 
approximating from the outset the European and 
notably the English rather than the American sys 
tem of funding and tending with the progress of 
borrowing to conform more and more closely to 
English practice — then still in vogue but destined 
soon to be abandoned. 
The characteristic feature of this new policy was 
the supply of treasury funds by the systematic use 
of certificates of indebtedness for short term bor- 
9 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, March 31, 1918, p. 
1209.