Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward полностью

•be called the Federal Reserve Board, appointed by the Presidentwith the advice and consent of the Senate.2 Thus, the public was tobe protected through a sharing of power, a melding of interests, asystem of checks and balances. In this way, said Wilson, "the banksmay be instruments, not the masters, of business and of individualenterprise and initiative."

The arrangement was heralded as a bold, new experiment inrepresentative government. In reality, it was but the return of theancient partnership between the monetary and political scientists.

The only thing new was that power was now to be shared openly inplain view of the public. But, of course, there would not be much tosee. All the deliberations and most of the decisions were to happenbehind closed doors. Furthermore, the division of power andresponsibility between these groups was left deliberately vague.

Without a detailed line of command or even a clear concept offunction, it was inevitable that, as with the drafting of the bill itself,real power would gravitate into the hands of those with technical'

knowledge and Wall Street connections. To the monetary scientistsdrafting the bill and engineering the compromises, the eventual1- Warburg, Vol. I, p. 409.

2. The original plan called for the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller ot the Currency to be on the board also, but this was later dropped.

Quoted by Greider, p. 277.

468 THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

concentration of effective control into their hands was never inserious doubt. And, as we shall see in the next chapter, subsequentevents have proved the soundness of that strategy.

BRYAN ENDORSES THE BILL

Bryan was no match for the Jekyll Island strategists and heaccepted the "compromises" at face value. Had there been anylingering doubts in his mind, they were swept away by gratitudefor his appointment as Wilson's Secretary of State. Now that he wason the team, he declared:

I appreciate so profoundly the service rendered by the President to the people in the stand he has taken on the fundamental principles involved in currency reform, that I am with him in all the details....

The right of the government to issue money is not surrendered to the banks; the control over the money so issued is not relinquished by the government.... I am glad to endorse earnestly and unreservedly the currency bill as a much better measure than I supposed it possible to secure at this time.... Conflicting opinions have been reconciled with a success hardly to have been expected.1