In October 1907 another financial panic hit Wall Street.
Banker opinion, led by J. P. Morgan and associates, together with Jacob Schiff, Paul Warburg, and other leaders in the banking industry, coalesced behind the idea of "banking reform," i.e., a central bank, to replace the National Banking System.
Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, a Republican and head of the Senate Finance Committee, ran a committee from 1908 to 1910 to investigate the currency question.
It concluded with a secret meeting at the Jekyll Island Club in Georgia, which produced the Aldrich Plan, the forerunner to the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.