CHAPTER SEVEN Get Your Free 150 MB Website Now! SECRETS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE The London Connection By Eustace Mullins pt. 2 CHAPTER FOUR The Federal Advisory Council In steamrolling the Federal Reserve Act through the House of Representatives, Congressman Carter Glass declared on September 30, 1913 on the floor of the House that the interests of the public would be protected by an advisory council of bankers. "There can be nothing sinister about its transactions. Meeting with it at least four times a year will be a bankers’ advisory council representing every regional reserve district in the system. How could we have exercised greater caution in safeguarding the public interest? Carter Glass neither then nor later gave any substantiation for his belief that a group of bankers would protect the interests of the public, nor is there any evidence in the history of the United States that any group of bankers has ever done so. In fact, the Federal Advisory Council proved to be the "administrative process" which Paul Warburg had inserted into the Federal Reserve Act to provide just the type of remote but unseen control over the System which he desired. When he was asked by financial reporter C.W. Barron, just after the Federal Reserve Act was enacted into law by Congress, whether he approved of the bill as it was finally passed, Warburg replied, "Well, it hasn’t got quite everything we want, but the lack can be adjusted later by administrative processes." The council proved to be the ideal vehicle for Warburg’s purposes, as it has functioned for seventy years in almost complete anonymity, its members and their business associations, unnoticed by the public. Senator Robert Owen, chairman of the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, had said, as quoted in The New York Times, August 3, 1913 before passage of the act: "The Federal Reserve Act will furnish the bank and industrial and commercial interests with the discount of qualified commercial paper and thus stabilize our commercial and industrial life. The Federal Reserve banks are not intended as money making banks, but to serve a great national purpose of accommodating commerce and businessmen and banks, safeguard a fixed market for manufactured goods, for agricultural products and for labor. There is no reason why the banks http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/federal_reserve_secrets2.htm[11/11/2013 1:04:10 PM] CHAPTER SEVEN should be in control of the Federal Reserve system. Stability will make our commerce expand healthfully in every direction." 40 Senator Owen’s optimism was doomed by the domination of the Jekyll Island promoters over the initial composition of the Federal Reserve System. Not only did the Morgan-Kuhn, Loeb alliance purchase the dominant control of stock in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, with almost half of the shares owned by the five New York banks under their control, First National Bank, National City Bank, National Bank of Commerce, Chase National Bank and Hanover National Bank, but they also persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to appoint one of the Jekyll Island group, Paul Warburg, to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Each of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks was to elect a member of the Federal Advisory Council, which would meet with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors four times a year in Washington, in order to "advise" the Board on future monetary policy. This seemed to assure absolute democracy, as each of the twelve "advisors", representing a different region of the United States, would be expected to speak up for the economic interests of his area, and each of the twelve members would have an equal vote. The theory may have been admirable in its concept, but the hard facts of economic life resulted in a quite different picture. The president of a small bank in St. Louis or Cincinnati, sitting in conference with Paul Warburg and J.P. Morgan to "advise" them on monetary policy, would be unlikely to contradict two of the most powerful international financiers in the world, as a scribbled note from either one of them would be sufficient to plunge his little bank into bankruptcy. In fact, the small banks of the twelve Federal Reserve districts existed only as satellites of the big New York financial interests, and were completely at their mercy. Martin Mayer, in The Bankers, points out that "J.P. Morgan maintained correspondent relationships with many small banks all over the country."30 The big New York banks did not confine themselves to multi-million dollar deals with other great financial interests, but carried on many smaller and more routine dealings with their "correspondent" banks across the United States. Apparently secure in their belief that their activities would never be exposed to the public, the Morgan-Kuhn, Loeb interests boldly selected the members of the Federal Advisory Council from their correspondent banks and from banks in which they owned stock. No one in the financial community seemed to notice, as nothing was said about it during seventy years of the Federal Reserve System’s operation. To avoid any suspicion that New York interests might control the Federal Advisory Council, its first president, elected in 1914 by the other members, was J.B. Forgan, president of the First National Bank of __________________________ 30 Martin Mayer, The Bankers, Weybright and Talley, New York, 1974, p. 207. 41 Chicago. Rand McNally Bankers Directory for 1914 lists the principal correspondents of the large banks. The principal correspondent bank of the Baker-Morgan controlled First National Bank of New York is listed as the First National Bank of Chicago. The principal correspondent listed by the First National Bank of Chicago is the Bank of Manhattan in New York, controlled by Jacob Schiff and Paul Warburg of Kuhn, Loeb Company. James B. Forgan also was listed as a director of Equitable Life Insurance Company, also controlled by Morgan. However, the relationship between First National Bank of Chicago and these New York banks was even closer than these listings indicate. On page 701 of The Growth of Chicago Banks by F. Cyril James, we find mention of "the First National Bank of Chicago’s profitable connection with the Morgan interests. A goodwill ambassador was hastily sent to New York to invite George F. Baker to become a director of the First National Bank of Chicago."31 (J.B. Forgan to Ream, January 7, 1903.) In effect, Baker and Morgan had personally chosen the first president of the Federal Advisory Council. http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/federal_reserve_secrets2.htm[11/11/2013 1:04:10 PM] CHAPTER SEVEN James B. Forgan (1852-1924) also shows the obligatory "London Connection" in the operation of the Federal Reserve System. Born in St. Andrew’s, Scotland, he began his banking career there with the Royal Bank of Scotland, a correspondent of the Bank of England. He came to Canada for the Bank of British North America, worked for the Bank of Nova Scotia, which sent him to Chicago in the 1880’s, and by 1900 he had become president of the First National Bank of Chicago. He served for six years as president of the Federal Advisory Council, and when he left the council, he was replaced by Frank O. Wetmore, who had also replaced him as president of the First National Bank of Chicago when Forgan was named chairman of the board. Representing the New York Federal Reserve district on the first Federal Advisory Council was J.P. Morgan. He was named chairman of the Executive Committee. Thus, Paul Warburg and J.P. Morgan sat in conference at the meetings of the Federal Reserve Board during the first four years of its operation, surrounded by the other Governors and members of the council, who could hardly have been unaware that their futures would be guided by these two powerful bankers. Another member of the Federal Advisory Council in 1914 was Levi L. Rue, representing the Philadelphia district. Rue was president of the Philadelphia National Bank. Rand McNally Bankers Directory of 1914 listed as principal correspondent of the First National Bank of New York, __________________________ 31 F. Cyril James, The Growth of Chicago Banks, Harper, New York, 1938. 42 the Philadelphia National Bank. First National Bank of Chicago also listed Philadelphia National Bank as its principal correspondent in Philadelphia. The other members of the Federal Advisory Council included Daniel S. Wing, president of the First National Bank of Boston, W.S. Rowe, president of the First National Bank of Cincinnati, and C.T. Jaffray, president of the First National Bank of Minneapolis. These were all correspondent banks of the New York "big five" banks who controlled the money market in the United States. Jaffray had an even closer connection with the Baker-Morgan interests. In 1908, to reinvest the large annual dividends from their First National Bank of New York stock, Baker and Morgan set up a holding company, First Security Corporation, which bought 500 shares of the First National Bank of Minneapolis. Thus Jaffray was little more than a wage-earning employee of Baker and Morgan, although he had been "selected" by stockholders of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis to represent their interests. First Security Corporation also owned 50,000 shares of Chase National Bank, 5400 shares of National Bank of Commerce, 2500 shares of Bankers Trust, 928 shares of Liberty National Bank, the bank of which Henry P. Davison had been president when he was tapped to join the J.P. Morgan firm, and shares of New York Trust, Atlantic Trust and Brooklyn Trust. First Security concentrated on bank stocks which rapidly appreciated in value, and paid handsome annual dividends.