1. How to stop the growing influence of small, rival banks and toinsure that control over the nation's financial resources wouldremain in the hands of those present;
2. How to make the money supply more elastic in order to reversethe trend of private capital formation and to recapture theindustrial loan market;
3- How to pool the meager reserves of all the nation's banks intoone large reserve so that at least a few of them could protectthemselves from currency drains and bank runs;
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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND
4. How to shift the inevitable losses from the owners of the banks tothe taxpayers;
5. How to convince Congress that the scheme was a measure toprotect the public.
It was decided that the first two objectives could be achievedsimply by drafting the proper technical language into a cartelagreement and then re-working the vocabulary into legislativephraseology. The third and fourth could be achieved by includingin that legislation the establishment of a lender of last resort; inother words, a true central bank with the ability to create unlimitedamounts of fiat money. These were mostly technical matters and,although there was some disagreement on a few minor points,generally they were content to follow the advice of Paul Warburg,the man who had the most experience in these matters and whowas regarded as the group's theoretician. The fifth objective wasthe critical one, and there was much discussion on how to achieveit. To convince Congress and the public that the establishment of abanking cartel was, somehow, a measure to protect the public, theJekyll Island strategists laid down the following plan of action:1. Do not call it a cartel nor even a central bank.
2. Make it look like a government agency.
3. Establish regional branches to create the appearance ofdecentralization, not dominated by Wall Street banks.
4. Begin with a conservative structure including many soundbanking principles knowing that the provisions can be quietlyaltered or removed in subsequent years.
5. Use the anger caused by recent panics and bank failures to createpopular demand for monetary reform.
6. Offer the Jekyll Island plan as though it were in response to thatneed.
7. Employ university professors to give the plan the appearance ofacademic approval.
8. Speak out
A CENTRAL BANK BY ANY OTHER NAME
