THE LOOT OF THE MONSTER
ERE is the proposition. The Federal Reserve System is the most gigantic parasite and despoiler of industry in the world's annals! You can search history from its first impression of stylus on parchment to this minute and you can find nothing which will approximate the bottomless greed and the fathomless lust for gold of this monstrous parasite. It isn't banking, it's banditry. It isn't business, it's pillage. The dirty paws of predacity are encased in the white gloves of officialdom and constantly dry-cleaned in propagandized hot air! Here follow some of the records—every figure in them taken from official reports—carefully concealed from your view by the money masters and by their lackeys who fatten and batten on the lootage.
And as you look over this record don't overlook this fact. No bank or no system of banks ever really makes or produces one copper cent in industry. They take toll from industry. Banks are a necessity to production and to commerce, but they should be servants, not masters. This touted and ballyhooed, propagandized and rainbow-painted "emancipator of credit" has proved itself to be the most leviathan industrial parasite of the ages. Here is what they call their "earnings" for the year 1920. Filchery from industry bulls-eyes the proposition.
For the calendar year 1920 the gross "earnings"—more properly called filcheries—of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks reached the stupendous sum of $181,297,338, as against $102,380,583 for the calendar year of 1919! Quite some money to suck from the teat of industry, isn't it? The expenses for the calendar year of 1920 were $29,889,307, as against $20,341,798 for the calendar year of 1919! Over nine million dollars more in expense account but over seventy-eight million dollars more in net "takings!" The net filcheries for the calendar year 1920 was the leviathan sum of $151,408,031, as against $82,038,785 for the calendar year 1919. Almost a two-for-one shot and every dollar of it peeled from industry's roll! And incidentally meditate on the titanic expense accounts of these twelve tentacles—$29,889,307, or more than an average of $2,490,000 apiece for the year 1920! Some luscious salaries nesting and nestling there—to which reference will hereafter be made—aren't there?
Here is a list of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks in the precise order of their pillage with the percentage of their takings to their paid in capital for the year 1920!
| Location | Capital | Per cent on Capital |
| New York | $24,618,000 | 217.4 |
| Chicago | 13,213,000 | 195.6 |
| Atlanta | 3,759,000 | 162 |
| San Francisco | 6,412,000 | 159.1 |
| Boston | 7,454,000 | 137.3 |
| Minneapolis | 3,265,000 | 131.5 |
| Kansas City | 4,295,000 | 129.3 |
| St. Louis | 4,229,000 | 124.3 |
| Cleveland | 10,070,000 | 119 |
| Philadelphia | 8,278,000 | 116.8 |
| Richmond | 4,884,000 | 110.3 |
| Dallas | 3,757,000 | 89.3 |
The total capital employed was $94,234,000, the total net earnings $151,408,031, and the average percentage of profit taken on this capital—after charging most exorbitant expenses—was 160.7 per cent! Is this a system of banking of, for and by the people, is this the "emancipation of credit," or is it the hugest parasite ever engrafted and wrapped about a nation's industry? Compare this with a savings bank rate of 4 per cent or compare it with a high bank stock dividend rate of 10 per cent! It's 40 times a savings bank rate, it's 16 times a high bank stock dividend rate! It's unconscionable, excessive, unfair, unjust, and a gigantic burden on industry's overloaded back. You're satisfied—and tickled pink too—to get a safe 8 per cent return on your investments, but your "emancipator of credit" wolfs down 20 times as much! Is this "credit emancipation" or is it the sandbagging of industry? Is this twenty-to-one shot "conserving the nation's resources" or is it practicing the arts of thuggery upon the real production of real wealth? Is this "binding up the nation's wounds" of finance or is it blood-letting to the point of exhaustion?