That is only half the answer. It must be remembered that themen who pulled the financial levers on this doomsday machine, thegovernors of the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve, werethemselves tied to strings which were pulled by others above them.
Their minds were not obsessed with concepts of nationalism oreven internationalism. Their loyalties were to
It must not be felt that these heads of the world's chief central banks were themselves substantive powers in world finance. They were not. Rather, they were the technicians and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised them up and were perfectly capable of throwing them down. The substantive financial powers of the world were in the hands of rhese investment bankers (also called "international" or "merchant"
bankers) who remained largely behind the scenes in their own unincorporated private banks. These formed a system of international cooperation and national dominance which was more private, more powerful, and more secret than that of their agents in the central banks.1
So, we are not dealing with the actions of men who perceivethemselves as betraying their nation, but technicians who are loyalto the monetary scientists and the political scientists who raisedthem up. Of the two groups, the financiers are dominant. Politicians come and go, but those who wield the power of moneyremain to pick their successors.
FARMERS BECOME DUCK DINNER
During the war, prices for agricultural products rose to anall-time high, and so did profits. Farmers had put part of thatmoney into war bonds, but much of it had been placed into savingsaccounts at banks within the farming communities, which is to say,mostly in the Midwest and South. That was unacceptable to the 1. Quigley,
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New York banks which saw their share of the nation's depositsbegin to decline. A way had to be devised to reclaim that money.
The Federal Reserve System, which by then was the captive of theNew York banks, was pressed into service to accomplish the deed.
Few of those country banks had chosen to become members ofthe Federal Reserve System. That added insult to injury, and it alsoprovided an excuse for the Fed to wage economic war againstthem. The plan was neither complex nor original; it had been usedmany times before by central bankers. It was (1) extend easy creditto the farmers to lure them into heavy debt, and then (2) create arecession which would decrease their income to the point wherethey could not make payments. The country banks then would findthemselves holding non-performing loans and foreclosed propertywhich they could not sell without tremendous losses. In the end,both the farmers and the banks would be wiped out. The bankswere the target. Too bad about the farmers.
