Hon. Leslie M. Shaw has pertinently inquired, "Is it not strange that Nelson W. Aldrich and his affiliations are tired of their great power and vast opportunities, and are now trying to divest themselves of them," through the innocent-looking National Reserve Association? It will be well remembered by all of you, that at the time that the Aldrich scheme made its first bow to the dear people, the public discovered that the National City Bank owned bank stock to the amount of $10,000,000 in other National Banks located throughout the United States. Possibly the same interests owned several times that amount. I was informed about that time that they controlled at least one hundred banks in the leading cities of the United States. Now, let us assume that to be true, and let us meditate upon what such an organization could accomplish if they wanted to elect every officer in every local association, and every officer in charge of every branch, and the board of directors of the National Reserve Association, and so name the "Governor" and the rest of the executive committee of nine which is to control this great Central Bank.
To appreciate the power of such an organization, you must keep in mind the fact that practically every bank in the United States would be carrying a balance with some one of these banks immediately under their control. There is your machine. It is a perfect duplicate of the political machine in this state. The state "Boss," whom you know stands in precisely the same position as the National City Bank would stand.
As you are fully aware, I am the "Boss" of this county; and I am in identically the same position that one of these hundred banks would be that are controlled by the National City Bank. When I get my orders, I immediately communicate with every so-called local leader in every township. This political machine works three hundred and sixty-five days and three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year. In the sense of an organization, we are working all the time, and it is the organization work that does the business. All the rest of the people are unorganized. So it would be with the banks. The men who belong to the organization or machine "like it and fear it"; because as things have stood, no one could get anywhere without being a part of the machine. This fact forces acquiescence. It has been, as you know, a perfect feudalism from top to bottom. We have had a machine government in this state as perfect as the Manchu Government in China.
Can you imagine anything easier than for the National City Bank with this complete banking organization all over the United States to name every man practically that went into this organization from top to bottom? This would not be done by holding a majority of the stock in all the twenty-five thousand banks; they don't care about that; because it is a matter of no consequence to them, and if they attempted to do anything so crude, it would spoil their whole game. They attain their ends in more subtle but no less certain and powerful ways. They get influences to work. They put forces into operation. Their interests are not limited to the banking business. They have affiliations with great transportation companies and manufacturing interests, and therefore control large bank deposits everywhere that the banks want and are always working to get. Then there are favors to be granted; commissions to be paid; "melons to be cut." Opportunities are suggested. In one respect at least they are like the Lord, they "work in a mysterious way their wonders to perform."
They had established their ramifications throughout the United States by making the National City Bank a holding company of bank stocks, and the culmination of their power was to be realized through the devious methods of organizing the National Reserve Association. The same money and the same power that filled the columns of the newspapers of the country with the unqualified praise of the Aldrich scheme for two years—the same power that rushed resolutions of one uniform stereotyped kind through twenty or thirty state bank associations, and steam rollered the same unconsidered declarations through two annual conventions of the American Bankers' Association, would have made this so-called altruistic, benevolent, coöperative association the most powerful machine ever organized; because, it would have absolutely dominated all the bank credit in the United States, or 45 per cent of the banking power of the world. You must remember that these interests are by far the greatest speculators in the United States. Yes, the greatest in the world.
Mr. Banker: But don't you remember that the bill provided in Section 26 that the paper rediscounted by it must "be issued or drawn for agricultural, industrial, or commercial purposes," and not "for the purpose of carrying stocks, bonds, or other investment securities"?
Mr. Lawyer: Yes, but that is all folderol. It is the purest kind of poppycock. If a bank wanted to take on a speculative deal, it could sell its commercial paper, could it not, and use the money for speculation just the same? That is on precisely the same level with its declaration that the institution was not a Central Bank. It is such subterfuges that disgust every candid man.
Listen to Mr. Aldrich in his report upon the bill upon the selection of the "Governor" of the National Reserve Association by the President of the United States. He says, "Further restraint upon the administration of the association upon narrow or selfish lines, is imposed by the provision that four of the highest officials of the Government are made ex officio members of the controlling board, and by the requirement that the governor shall be selected by the President of the United States. The fear has been expressed that the selection of the governor by the President, and the provisions making the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, and the Comptroller of the currency, ex officio members of the board of directors of the reserve association, might lead to an attempt to control the organization for political purposes."
Please note the sham, fraud and false pretense covered by this comment. The bill provides that the "Governor" of the association, as they call him, shall be selected by the President of the United States from a list of at least three names, furnished by the directors. Will any honest man say that the President of the United States would have had any more to do with the selection of the "Governor" of the so-called National Reserve Association than the King of Siam? Again note this cheap, false pretense, "Fear has been expressed that the selection of the governor by the President," and the four ex officio members of the board of directors, "might lead to an attempt to control the organization for political purposes." These four ex officio members have just four votes upon a board of forty-six which proceeds immediately to eliminate all of the ex officio members forever, by selecting an executive committee consisting of nine members to manage its affairs, from which all of them are excluded except the Comptroller of the currency. Can any intelligent man doubt the purpose of all these sham declarations and false pretenses? If so, let him spend a day or two trying to find out how the members of the boards of the local associations are to be chosen; try to unravel the process by which the members of the boards of the branches are to be evolved; and, having grown tired and dizzy with his task, let him undertake to prove how the board of directors of the National Reserve Association are to be manufactured through the machinations born of ulterior purposes.
I have studied puzzles before, but for complications, wheels within wheels, evident designs upon evident designs, occult purposes under occult purposes, and a combination of powerful forces, born of sinister influences, this project will forever stand alone as an illustration of what the human mind can do to conceal its real object.