Eugene Meyer

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Eugene Meyer Eugene Meyer COMMITTEE ON THE HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM Register of Papers Processed: MA Date: 10/31/55 EUGENE MEIER The papers of Eugene Meyer, corporation head, banker, member of the Federal Reserve Board, newspaper publisher, are commonly said to be in his home at Mt. Kisco, New York. That collection was organized and listed by Miss Anna loungman (one-time assistant to H. Parker Willis; a writer on financial matters)• 7-3 diaries of an early period are said to be included. In addition to these, the working correspondence for his three years in the Federal Reserve Board is in the Board's files. Measure of size: Approximate number of items: Permission to use Mr. Meyer1s papers should be sought from his assistant, Mr. Floyd Harrison, who has an office in New York. Mr. Meyer is being interviewed by the Columbia Oral History Project, but this record is not yet ready. A biography of Mr. Meyer is now being written by Sydney Hyman, who is using the papers in that task. Mr. Bray Hammond has also examined some of them* Seel: Internal memorandum 3/2/54. Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Eugene Meyer II - 2 - Biographical Note 1875, Oct. 31 Born, Los Angeles, California 1895 A.B., Yale University, New Haven, Conn, 1901-17 Head of firm Eugene Meyer, Jr. & Co. and corporation director 1910, Feb. 12 Married Agnes Ernst (5 children) 1917-13 Service on various war boards in Washington 1918-20 Director, War Finance Corporation 1921- 1927-29 Member, Federal Farm Loan Board 1930-33 Governor, Federal Reserve Board 1932 Chairman, Board of Reconstruction Finance Corporation 1933--4O Publisher, The Washington Post, Washington D.C. 1941-42 Member, National Defense Mediation Boerd 1940-4.6 Editor and Publisher, Washington Post Company 194-6 (June-Dec.) First President, International Bank for Re- construction and Finance I947- Chairman of Board, Washington Post Co. 194B- Director, Radio Station WTOP, Washington See: Who's Who in America, 1952/53, vol. 27, Marquis Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/ Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Recommended publications
  • DIRECTING the Disorder the CFR Is the Deep State Powerhouse Undoing and Remaking Our World
    DEEP STATE DIRECTING THE Disorder The CFR is the Deep State powerhouse undoing and remaking our world. 2 by William F. Jasper The nationalist vs. globalist conflict is not merely an he whole world has gone insane ideological struggle between shadowy, unidentifiable and the lunatics are in charge of T the asylum. At least it looks that forces; it is a struggle with organized globalists who have way to any rational person surveying the very real, identifiable, powerful organizations and networks escalating revolutions that have engulfed the planet in the year 2020. The revolu- operating incessantly to undermine and subvert our tions to which we refer are the COVID- constitutional Republic and our Christian-style civilization. 19 revolution and the Black Lives Matter revolution, which, combined, are wreak- ing unprecedented havoc and destruction — political, social, economic, moral, and spiritual — worldwide. As we will show, these two seemingly unrelated upheavals are very closely tied together, and are but the latest and most profound manifesta- tions of a global revolutionary transfor- mation that has been under way for many years. Both of these revolutions are being stoked and orchestrated by elitist forces that intend to unmake the United States of America and extinguish liberty as we know it everywhere. In his famous “Lectures on the French Revolution,” delivered at Cambridge University between 1895 and 1899, the distinguished British historian and states- man John Emerich Dalberg, more com- monly known as Lord Acton, noted: “The appalling thing in the French Revolution is not the tumult, but the design. Through all the fire and smoke we perceive the evidence of calculating organization.
    [Show full text]
  • Meet the New Boss, Same As the Old Boss (Part II)
    Samuel Miller CFA, CAIA Senior Analyst Deron T. McCoy CFA, CFP®, CAIA, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss (Part II) Four years ago in our December 2013 SEIA Report titled, “The Federal Reserve: Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss”, we offered reasons why analyzing the human makeup of the Board is so important (hint: they more or less set monetary policy for the world, affecting global capital markets everywhere). We opined that the new incoming Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen was very much in line with her predecessor and that her appointment was a “signal to all investors that easy monetary policy will be the policy of choice for the foreseeable future” and “short-term interest rates might be low for another three years extending through 2016.” We concluded by stating “Yellen’s policies should support ‘risk assets’ (Equities, High Yield Bonds, etc.) in the near term with her hopeful goal of higher inflation and economic overheating (not a typo) four years out which will in turn convolute her reappointment process (in 2017).” Four years have now passed and while we can claim victory on our assessment of the stock market, our view of an overheated economy came up a bit short. As such, the reappointment process caused nary a ripple in global markets as the new-new boss is the same as the old-old boss. Who is Jerome Powell? On November 2, 2017, President Trump nominated Jerome “Jay” Powell to be the next Fed chair, providing clarification for the market and lessening monetary policy uncertainty in the near and intermediate term.
    [Show full text]
  • The Transformation of Economic Analysis at the Federal Reserve During the 1960S
    The Transformation of Economic Analysis at the Federal Reserve during the 1960s by Juan Acosta and Beatrice Cherrier CHOPE Working Paper No. 2019-04 January 2019 The transformation of economic analysis at the Federal Reserve during the 1960s Juan Acosta (Université de Lille) and Beatrice Cherrier (CNRS-THEMA, University of Cergy Pontoise) November 2018 Abstract: In this paper, we build on data on Fed officials, oral history repositories, and hitherto under-researched archival sources to unpack the torturous path toward crafting an institutional and intellectual space for postwar economic analysis within the Federal Reserve. We show that growing attention to new macroeconomic research was a reaction to both mounting external criticisms against the Fed’s decision- making process and a process internal to the discipline whereby institutionalism was displaced by neoclassical theory and econometrics. We argue that the rise of the number of PhD economists working at the Fed is a symptom rather than a cause of this transformation. Key to our story are a handful of economists from the Board of Governors’ Division of Research and Statistics (DRS) who paradoxically did not always held a PhD but envisioned their role as going beyond mere data accumulation and got involved in large-scale macroeconometric model building. We conclude that the divide between PhD and non-PhD economists may not be fully relevant to understand both the shift in the type of economics practiced at the Fed and the uses of this knowledge in the decision making-process. Equally important was the rift between different styles of economic analysis. 1 I.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter Two. the Origin of the World Bank
    CHAPTER TWO. THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD BANK. CHAPTER TWO THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD BANK 2.1 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WORLD BANK The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is an institution, which was formed after the devastation of the economies of Europe, According to Harry Dexter White “No matter how long the war lasts nor how it is won, we shall be faced with three inescapable problems: to prevent the disruption of foreign exchange and the collapse of monetary and credit system to assure the restoration of foreign trade and to supply the huge volume of capital that will be needed virtually throughout the world for reconstruction, for relief and for economic recovery” 1. The idea of reconstruction was the first to be conceived, focusing only the involved allies in the war and not the rest of less developed countries. Together with its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), they were established 2. By December 31, 1945, 29 countries had approved the bank’s Articles of Agreement. In March 1946, the board of governors of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were inaugurated in Savannah, where they adopted the institutions’ statute and elected the bank's executive directors. The board first met on May 7, 1946. The bank’s first president, Eugene Meyer, took office on June 18, and the bank opened its world headquarters at 1818 H Street, NW, Washington, DC, on June 25 1 946. They are what have come to be known as Bretton Woods institutions. But, later there was a greater need for the 73 IBRD to widen its goal by thinking beyond reconstruction.
    [Show full text]
  • The Federal Reserve Board Before Marriner Eccles (1931-1934)
    clevelandfed.org/research/workpaper/index.cfm THE FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD BEFORE MARRINER ECCLES (1931-1934) by Walker F. Todd Walker F Todd is an assistant general counsel and research officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. The author thanks Joseph G. Haubrich. Michele S. Lachman, Joseph C Reid. kchard C. Schiming. and James B. Thomson for helphl comments This paper was presented at the N'estern Economic Association International Conference at Lake Tahoe. hevada. on June 23. 1993. A related anicle was published by the author as "History of and Rationales for the Reconstmaion Finance Corpo- ration." Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Ecor~omrc J(t.~.rrtt.vol 28. no 4 ( 1992 Quaner 4). pp 22-35 U'orkin~papers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland are preiimlnary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and cntical comment The views stated herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reseme System April 1994 clevelandfed.org/research/workpaper/index.cfm ABSTRACT The political economy model followed by most orthodox, mainstream American economists before 1931 was classically liberal, albeit occasionally with peculiarly American permutations. After the United Kingdom suspended convertibility of sterling into gold (the bedrock of orthodox financial principles) in September 1931, American economic policymakers, including President Hoover and Eugene Meyer, governor of the Federal Reserve Board, became , increasingly unorthodox in their prescriptions. Although central planning measures of the corporate state variety had manifested k themselves vigorously but briefly in policymaking circles during and immediately after World War I, the Harding, Coolidge, and early Hoover years were supposed to be a return to prewar anormalcy,m as the slogan associated with Barding's campaign had it.
    [Show full text]
  • FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM the First 100 Years
    FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM The First 100 Years A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF CENTRAL BANKING FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM The First 100 Years A Chapter in the History of Central Banking n 1913, Albert Einstein was working on his established the second Bank of the United States. It new theory of gravity, Richard Nixon was was also given a 20-year charter and operated from born, and Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn 1816 to 1836; however, its charter was not renewed in as assistant secretary of the Navy. It was either. After the charter expired, the United States also the year Woodrow Wilson took the oath endured a series of financial crises during the 19th of office as the 28th President of the United and early 20th centuries. Several factors contributed IStates, intent on advocating progressive reform to the crises, including a number of bank failures, and change. One of his biggest reforms occurred which generated waves of bank panics and on December 23, 1913, when he signed the Federal economic instability.2 Reserve Act into law. This landmark legislation When Jay Cooke and Company, the nation’s created the Federal Reserve System, the nation’s largest bank, failed in 1873, a panic erupted, leading central bank.1 to runs on other financial institutions. Within months, the nation’s economic problems deepened as silver A Need for Stability prices dropped after the Coinage Act of 1873 was Why was a central bank needed? The nation passed, which dampened the interests of U.S. silver had tried twice before to establish a central bank miners and led to a recession that lasted until 1879.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fed's Year of Transition
    Social Education 70(2), pg 62–68 ©2006 National Council for the Social Studies The Fed’s Year of Transition Mark C. Schug Scott Niederjohn Many Americans regard the chair- He served for more than 18 years. He time, there were serious concerns about man of the Federal Reserve System as was originally appointed to the office how well a job Greenspan would do holding one of the nation’s most powerful as chairman on August 11, 1987 by following Volcker’s success in fighting jobs, second only to the president’s. The President Reagan. Greenspan was inflation. Today, it is Greenspan many influence of the Fed chairman stretches reappointed to the board to serve a consider the difficult act to follow. He beyond the borders of the United States full 14-year term that began February has earned widespread confidence for and effects monetary policy and market 1, 1992; he was appointed chairman by his ability to handle monetary policy. conditions of nations throughout the Presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and He faced several challenges while in world. Yet, to many Americans—peo- Bush, and served the second-longest office: ple not known for their high levels of term in the history of the Fed. (Only economic literacy—the workings of the William McChesney served longer.) • Ten weeks into his term, the stock Federal Reserve System and the duties Table 1 shows a list of past chairmen. market crashed—the Dow Jones of the chairman are a mystery.1 The pur- Greenspan succeeded Paul A. Average dropped 508 points on pose of this article is to: Volcker as Fed chairman in 1987.
    [Show full text]
  • The Very Big Bankers II
    -VBIG KERS Gary Allen is author of None Dare Call It Conspiracy; The Rockefeller File; Kissinger; Jimmy Carter/Jimmy Carter; Ted Kennedy: In Over His Head. He is an AMERICAN OPINION Contributing Editor and also Editor of Insider Report. • IN PART ONE of this article we vestment bankers have not been ad­ introduced the arcane and seldom­ vocates of laissez-faire capitalism discussed field of investment bank­ but have actively sought government­ ing, and described some of the acti­ protected markets. Especially for vities in which investment bankers themselves. engage . After outlining their histori­ The price of deregulation is great­ cal background we examined the im­ er competition. This would be trau­ portant investment houses of Mor­ matic in a field which has tradition­ gan Stanley and Kuhn, Loeb. We ally had little price competition. The noted with special care that such in- securities industry has for years JAN UARY, 1984 35 been heavily regulated by a maze of heavily involved in supporting the rules from the Securities and Ex­ cause of a New World Order and in change Commission. The dominant encouraging strategic trade with houses in the field like it that way, Communist governments. because the regulations serve to pro­ Although Lazard's assiduously tect their oligopoly from interlopers strives to keep its powerful wheel­ who might give customers more at­ ings and dealings secret from the tractive alternatives. As Fortune public, it is known that the firm 's magazine admits, "Like other busi­ transactions involve an international nessmen who have faced the specter network which includes several im­ of deregulation (and lower profits), portant Swiss banks.
    [Show full text]
  • Membership of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1913-89
    September 1989 656 Membership of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1913-89 APPOINTIVE MEMBERS1 Federal Reserve Date of initial Other dates and information relating Name District oath of office to membership2 Charles S. Hamlin Boston Aug. 10, 1914 Reappointed in 1916 and 1926. Served until Feb. 3, 1936.3 Paul M. Warburg New York do. Term expired Aug. 9, 1918. Frederic A. Delano Chicago do. Resigned July 21, 1918. W.P.G. Harding Atlanta do. Term expired Aug. 9, 1922. Adolph C. Miller San Francisco do. Reappointed in 1924. Reappointed in 1934 from the Richmond District. Served until Feb. 3, 1936.3 Albert Strauss New York Oct. 26, 1918 Resigned Mar. 15, 1920. Henry A. Moehlenpah Chicago Nov. 10, 1919 Term expired Aug. 9, 1920. Edmund Piatt New York June 8, 1920 Reappointed in 1928. Resigned Sept. 14, 1930. David C. Wills Cleveland Sept. 29, 1920 Term expired Mar. 4, 1921. John R. Mitchell Minneapolis May 12, 1921 Resigned May 12, 1923. Milo D. Campbell Chicago Mar. 14, 1923 Died Mar. 22, 1923. Daniel R. Crissinger Cleveland May 1, 1923 Resigned Sept. 15, 1927. George R. James St. Louis May 14, 1923 Reappointed in 1931. Served until Feb. 3, 1936.4 Edward H. Cunningham...Chicago do Died Nov. 28, 1930. Roy A. Young Minneapolis Oct. 4, 1927 Resigned Aug. 31, 1930. Eugene Meyer New York Sept. 16, 1930 Resigned May 10, 1933. Wayland W. Magee Kansas City May 18, 1931 Term expired Jan. 24, 1933. Eugene R. Black Atlanta May 19, 1933 Resigned Aug. 15, 1934.
    [Show full text]
  • Eugene I. Meyer, Jr. 1875–1959 Financier and Chinese Art Collector
    Eugene I. Meyer, Jr. 1875–1959 Financier and Chinese Art Collector Eugene Meyer, Jr., was descended from a distinguished Jewish family in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. His father left France and established himself in California before settling in New York, where he became a partner in the distinguished financial firm of Lazard-Frères. Meyer attended the University of California, Berkeley, for one year and finished his undergraduate studies at Yale University in 1895. He traveled in Europe and worked at several banks before he founded his own highly successful equities firm in 1904. Meyer began collecting Asian art following his 1910 marriage to Agnes Ernst (1887–1970) and their honeymoon travels to Japan, Korea, and Russia. This interest grew when he and renowned collector Charles Lang Freer (1854–1919) served on a committee, jointly sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America and the Smithsonian Institution, to establish the American School of Architecture in Peking and thus ensure the removal of Chinese art was handled by trained archaeologists. Although this effort proved unsuccessful, Meyer and Freer remained lifelong friends and mutual collectors of Asian art. Through most of their collecting career, Eugene and Agnes Meyer relied on Freer as a connoisseur of early Chinese art. They sometimes collaborated with Freer on purchases by negotiating the price and dividing the objects between their respective collections. In 1915, for example, dealer Marcel Bing in Paris owned an outstanding group of bronzes that were to be sold through C. T. Loo’s gallery. Freer led the negotiations with Bing, and Meyer advised on the transaction.
    [Show full text]
  • William Mcchesney Martin, Jr., Papers: 1951-1968
    Series V, Subseries A William McChesney Martin, Jr., Papers Box 21/Folder 1 FRB Official Correspondence, 1951-68 Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis ELTING ARNOLD Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Fisqal Assistant Secretary Mr. Bartelt Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Digitized for FRASER http://fraser.stlouisfed.org Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis STANDARD FORM NO. 64 Office L\\£mOTanClUni • UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT T0 : Mr. Martin DATE: ^^ 1 9 1951 FROM : Elting Arnold SUBJECT: 0 Problem You have asked my opinion as to whether there would be any legal obstacle to your retaining the position of Executive Director, without compensation, of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Develop- ment after becoming Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Conclusions 1. There is no general provision of law or provision of the Bretton Woods Agreements Act which would preclude your retaining the position of Executive Director after becoming Chairman of the Board of Governors; but 2« Members of the Board are required by section 10 of the Federal Reserve Act to "devote their entire time to the business of the Board. # # #«; and 3. Section 10 of the Act also provides that no member of the Board shall be "a director of any bank.11 While it might be argued that Congress could not have had in mind such a post as a director- ship of an international banking institution when this provision was adopted in 1913* it literally would preclude your holding the directorship of the International Bank.
    [Show full text]
  • Eugene Meyer Papers [Finding Aid]. Library of Congress
    Eugene Meyer Papers A Finding Aid to the Collection in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Library of Congress Washington, D.C. 2014 Revised 2015 November Contact information: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact Additional search options available at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms013146 LC Online Catalog record: http://lccn.loc.gov/mm82052019 Prepared by C. L. Craig, Paul Ledvina, and David Mathisen with the assistance of Leonard Hawley and Susie Moody Collection Summary Title: Eugene Meyer Papers Span Dates: 1864-1970 Bulk Dates: (bulk 1890-1959) ID No.: MSS52019 Creator: Meyer, Eugene, 1875-1959 Extent: 78,500 items ; 267 containers plus 2 oversize ; 107.6 linear feet ; 1 microfilm reel Language: Collection material in English Location: Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Summary: Investment banker, financier, public official, and newspaperman. Correspondence, memoranda, minutes, diaries, oral history interviews, speeches, writings, congressional testimony, press statements, financial papers, family papers, biographical material, printed material, scrapbooks, photographs, and other papers relating to Meyer's life and career. Selected Search Terms The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the Library's online catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically therein. People Baruch, Bernard M. (Bernard Mannes), 1870-1965--Correspondence. Bixby, Fred H.--Correspondence. Blythe, Samuel G. (Samuel George), 1868-1947--Correspondence. Friendly, Alfred--Correspondence. Friendly, Alfred. Graham, Philip L., 1915-1963. Hyman, Sidney. Kahn family. Meyer family. Meyer, Eugene, 1875-1959. Weill family. Wiggins, James Russell, 1903-2000--Correspondence.
    [Show full text]