Aldrich laid it out plainly. He said: "The organization proposed isnot a bank, but a cooperative union of all the banks of the countryfor definite purposes."1 Two years later, in a speech before thatsame group of bankers, A. Barton Hepburn of Chase National Bankwas even more candid. He said: "The measure recognizes andadopts the principles of a central bank. Indeed, if it works out as thesponsors of the law hope, it will make all incorporated bankstogether joint owners of a central dominating power."2 It would bedifficult to find a better definition of the word
The plan to structure the Creature conservatively at the startand then to remove the safeguards later was the brainchild of PaulWarburg. The creation of a powerful Federal Reserve Board wasalso his idea as a means by which the regional branches could beabsorbed into a central bank with control safely in New York.
Professor Edwin Seligman, a member of the international bankingfamily of J&W Seligman, and head of the Department of Economicsat Columbia University, explains and praises the plan: It was in my study that Mr. Warburg first conceived the idea of presenting his views to the public.3... In its fundamental features the Federal Reserve Act is the work of Mr. Warburg more than any other man in the country.... The existence of a Federal Reserve Board creates, in everything but in name, a real central bank.... Mr. Warburg had a practical object in view.... It was incumbent on him to remember that the education of the country must be gradual and that a large part of the task was to break down prejudices and remove suspicion. His plans therefore contain all sorts of elaborate suggestions designed to guard the public against fancied dangers and to persuade the country that the general scheme was at all practicable. It was the hope of Mi.
Warburg that with the lapse of time it may be possible to eliminate 1. Krooss, Vol. Ill, 1969 edition, p. 1202.
2. Quoted by Kolko,
3. Most historians share Seligman's view regarding Warburg's seminal role in the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Certain participants in the drama, however, apparently eager to capture some of the spotlight of fame for themselves, are in vigorous disagreement. For example, William McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury at the time, says: "This assertion is so completely erroneous that it must have emanated from ignorance rather than mendacity." See McAdoo, p. 281. Competing egos notwithstanding, an objective reading of the record leads to the conclusion that, while others no doubt provided great input in the areas of technical drafts and political negotiations, the
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from the law not a few clauses which were inserted largely, at his suggestion, for educational purposes.1
THE ALDRICH BILL