When J.P. Morgan, Sr., died in 1913, people were shocked tolearn that his estate was valued at only $68 million, a paltry sumcompared to the fortunes held by the Vanderbilts, Astors, andRockefellers. It was even more unbelievable when Jack Morgandied in 1943 and left an estate valued at only $16 million. A smallamount had been transferred to members of their families prior totheir deaths, but that did not account for the vast fortunes whichthey visibly controlled during their lives. Surely, there had been a bookkeeping sleight-of-hand. On the other hand, it may have been
true. When Alphonse Rothschild died in Paris in 1905, it was revealed that
1. Wheeler, pp. 16-17.
THE LONDON CONNECTION
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The Rothschilds in Britain undoubtedly held an equally large bloc.
Furthermore, many of these securities were handled
How much of Morgan's apparent anti-Semitism was real andhow much may have been a pragmatic guise is, in the final analysis,of little importance, and we should not give unwarranted emphasisto it here. Regardless of one's interpretation of the nature of therelationship between the Houses of Morgan and Rothschild, the factremains that it was close, it was ongoing, and it was profitable toboth. If Morgan truly did harbor feelings of anti-Semitism, neitherhe nor the Rothschilds ever allowed them to get in the way of theirbusiness.
To put the London connection into proper perspective, it will benecessary once again to abandon a strict chronological sequence ofevents and jump ahead to the year 1924. So let us put our cast ofcharacters on hold for a moment and, before allowing them to actout the drama of creating the Federal Reserve System, we shall pickup the storyline eleven years after that event had already takenplace.
ENGLAND FACES A DILEMMA
At the end of World War I, Britain faced an economic dilemma.
