THE BIRTH OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
"SLICKER than an eel in a bucket of soap suds" is a fair description
of the accomplished financial accoucheurs who ushered this monster
into legal existence. You must understand that the real object was
to establish what was in truth and fact a Central Bank which would
dominate and control currency issues and bank credits in the United
States. To weld those chains upon American industry without appearing
to do it was the object in view. It could be done only by encasing
dirty hands of real pillage in the white gloves of a "Reserve System."
The Invisible Empire must remain invisible. Visibility would defeat its
object. The Money Masters had read history and knew that the American
people stood four square against a Central Bank. If their monster
of pillage were called a Central Bank they knew it would die in the
legislative womb.
Two such attempts had been made and had resulted disastrously thusly.
The first attempt was the First United States Bank. It was the child
of Alexander Hamilton's astute brain. It began business on December
12, 1791. It met violent opposition from its birth. It was branded as
a "Money Trust," struggled along with varying fortunes and finally
died on March 3, 1811, when its charter expired--with its renewal
vainly sought. American industry rebelled at the idea of a Central Bank
domination. It savored too much of that aristocracy and oligarchy whose
chains they had recently chiseled.
The second attempt to engraft a Central Bank on American industry was
the Second Bank of the United States. It was chartered on April 10,
1816, and was a stormy petrel of finance. About it waged a running
battle. It was from birth to death the center of a conflict. Against
its domination American industry rebelled. Real producers of real
wealth constantly fought this parasite of finance. Andrew Jackson was
its bitter foe and it went out of existence during his administration
"unwept, unhonored and unsung" except in the doleful dirges of the
then Money Masters who mourned its demise. The Money Masters of those
two eras read the handwriting on the wall. American industry would
not endure a Central Bank and the Money Masters of 1914 read the
same symbols. History was against them and the genius of American
institutions was against them. Their idea of a Central Bank had never
changed. It was the very core and center of their scheme to dominate
American industry. But to "get it across" or to "put it over" they must
re-christen the monster. Twice the people had violently repudiated the
Central Bank banditry. Hence in the fertile brainery of predacity was
born the idea of the Federal Reserve System--a camouflage, a deception
and a mere cloak of Pecksniffian hypocrisy. A clever nation-wide
propaganda was at once instituted with every "prop" put under it that
wily astuteness could suggest. A subsidized press ballyhooed, touted
and paeanized the proposed Federal Reserve System. It was hailed as
the Moses which was going to lead America into the Promised Land of
industrial freedom. It was paeanized as an absolutely new discovery in
finance--when in truth and in fact it was one of predacity's oldest
cards soiled in many a game. But it was varnished o'er and played again.
There wasn't to be any "Central Bank" you understand. The sponsors
of this monster abhorred the idea of a "Central Bank." It was the
furthest possible from their pure thoughts of altruistic finance! They
were going to have twelve banks, each one established in a center of
industry and catering to and upbuilding the industries in its regional
zone. Each one was going to be a separate and distinct corporation
absolutely disconnected from its eleven brethren. This idea was
advertised, adulated, and saccharinely paeanized until America was
lulled to sleep. For month after month this cone of chloroform was held
over American citizens until the anesthetic took effect. Then came
forth what was known as the Glass-Owen bill. The smoothness of its
head sponsors' name was symbolic. The ground had been prepared for its
reception. Propaganda seed had been diligently sown. Years of the most
astute scheming and plotting of the brainiest schemers who ever schemed
bore its fruit in the Glass-Owen bill. On rails greased by years of
propaganda it slid into the legislative hopper, came through in an oil
bath and went to President Wilson. Whether he was the deceived or the
deceiver none but himself knows. But he painted the Federal Reserve
System with his most magnificent verbal rainbow colors, prated of it
as "the emancipator of credit," signed it in the midst of a coterie
of sycophantic Pecksniffs and the pen whose strokes made it a law was
religiously preserved!
Its real authors--who had spent years in weaving its phrases and scores
of thousands of dollars in propagandizing for its passage--winked,
smiled in their sleeves and prepared for pillage. The Federal Reserve
System was born with a caul--concealing its grin of greed--and
was brought into being by the most astute coterie of legislative
accoucheurs who ever delivered a babe of legislation.
Here and now read just two of the sample promises made by the Money
Masters at the birth of their monster. They told you that the Federal
Reserve System would "prevent unfair and undue constriction of credits
with its consequent paralyzing effect on business and on the productive
energies of the nation." They told you that "men will not be thrown
out of employment wholesale throughout the country by the fright of
financial and commercial panic, but finance and commerce will be
steady. Hundreds and thousands of men will not suddenly be thrown out
of employment during these national waves of depression nor undue
feverish buoyancy." Peg these specious promises in your brainery and
compare them later on with the actual performances of this monster
of depression with the Federal Reserve Board at Washington really
functioning as a Central Bank.