RETURN OF THE NEW YORK "MONEY TRUST"

The greatest power struggle arose from the New York Reserve Bank which was headed by Benjamin Strong. Strong had the contacts and the experience. It will be recalled that he was one of the seven who drafted the cartel's structure at Jekyll Island. He had been head of J.P. Morgan's Bankers Trust Company and was closely associated with Edward Mandell House. He had become a personal friend of Montagu Norman, head of the Bank of England, and of Charles Rist, head of the Bank of France. Not least of all, he 1. Galbraith, p. 130.

THE GREAT DUCK DINNER

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was head of the New York branch of the System which representedthe nation's largest banks, the "money trust" itself. From the outset,the national board and the regional branches were dominated bythe New York branch. Strong ruled as an autocrat, determining Fedpolicy often without even consulting with the Federal ReserveBoard in Washington.

The United States entry into World War I provided the impetusfor increasing the power of the Fed. The System became the solefiscal agent of the Treasury, Federal Reserve Notes were issued,virtually all of the gold reserves of the nation's commercial bankswere gathered together into the vaults of the Federal System, andmany of the legislative restraints placed into the original Act wereabandoned. Voters ask fewer questions when their nation is at war.

The concentration of power into the hands of the very "moneytrust" the Fed was supposed to defeat, is described by FerdinandLundberg, author of America's Sixty Families:

In practice, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York became the fountainhead of the system of twelve regional banks, for N e w York was the money market of the nation. The other eleven banks were so many expensive mausoleums erected to salve the local pride and quell the Jacksonian fears of the hinterland. Benjamin Strong,... president of the Bankers Trust Company [J.P. Morgan] was selected as the first Governor of the N e w York Reserve Bank. An adept in high finance, Strong for many years manipulated the country's monetary system at the discretion of directors representing the leading New York banks.

Under Strong the Reserve System, unsuspected by the nation, was brought into interlocking relations with the Bank of England and the Bank of France.

BAILING OUT EUROPE

It will be recalled from Chapters Twelve and Twenty that it wasthis interlock during World War I that was responsible for theconfiscation from American taxpayers of billions of dollars whichwere given to the central banks of England and France. Much ofthat money found its way to the associates of J.P. Morgan asinterest payments on war bonds and as fees for supplying munitions and other war materials.

Seventy per cent of the cost of World War I was paid byinflation rather than taxes, a process that was orchestrated by the 1- Lundberg, p. 122.

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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

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