"Fifty men in these United States have it within their power, by reason of the wealth which they control, to come together within twenty-four hours and arrive at an understanding by which every wheel of trade and commerce may be stopped from revolving, every avenue of trade blocked, and every electric key struck dumb. Those fifty men can paralyze the whole country, for they control the circulation of currency and can create a panic whenever they will."
-Chauncey M. Depew.
"The greatest financial mistake of my life was in what I had to do with the passage of the present National Bank Act. It ought to be repeated; but before it can be done there will be such a contest between the banks on the one side, and the people on the other as has never been witnessed in this country."
-Salmon P. Chase.
In this volume the author endeavors to give an accurate history of the present National Bank System of currency, including an account of the first United States Bank,- both of which were borrowed from Great Britain by those statesmen who, like the father of Sir Robert Peel, believed that a national debt was the source of prosperity.
It is believed that the facts adduced in the following pages will be productive of some good, in pointing out the immense evils lurking in that system of banking, a system which has produced panics at will, and which is the active abettor of the stock gamblers, railroad wreckers, and those industrial tyrants of modern times, the enormously overcapitalized and oppressive trusts.
It is sought to point out the great dangers of delegating purely government powers to these greedy monopolists, by which they are enabled to organize a money trust, far more tyrannical than all the other combinations now in existence; and by which they absolutely defy the authority that endowed them with corporate life.
The issue between these banks and the people will be joined in the near future, and the greatest struggle the world ever witnessed will take place between the usurping banks on the one hand and the people on the other.
In the nature of things, unjustly acquired power of man over man generally rises to such heights of arrogance, as to eventually create a public opinion that will grind tyranny of every form to atoms, hence, The Coming Battle that will surely take place in the near future and the victory that will be won by justice will be the noblest events in American history.
...With much sorrow, the people saw their chosen idol ally himself with the national banking money power, and they perceived that he intended to use the immense patronage of his office to coerce Congress into submission to his will.To add further to their misgivings, the President.... , in the appointment of editors of influential newspapers to highly-salaried offices,evidenced his plain purpose to subordinate the press to his views....The number of leading journalists appointed by him to the most lucrative and honorable posts, far exceeded similar appointments made by any of his predecessors...
...This power knew that the President... was a man whose firmness, energy, and ability, had been seldom equaled by any of his predecessors in office, that he was a staunch friend ... of the national banking system, and, therefore, it determined to wreck the country, if necessary, to teach the people an "object lesson."
It resolved to bring an a panic, the like of which had never been visited upon any people.
Every monetary panic from which the American people had suffered, was the deliberate work of that class of men who pompously ascribed to themselves the sum and substance of all the financial wisdom of the nation....
...There are scores of these banks, which, after distributing great dividends to their stockholders, have a surplus and undivided profits exceeding their entire capital stock...
...the loan and trust companies, and of the majority of the enormously wealthy life, fire, and marine insurance companies of the United States. Wall street is the arena of the railway, gas, street railway, sugar, coffee, and oil magnates. It is a city where a fortune of less than ten millions is not considered worthy of public notice. The great banking house of Rothchild is ably represented by the Belmonts; Lombard street, London, has its agent there in the person of J. Pierpont Morgan.
New York City is the center of exchange of America. Thirteen thousand banks of the United States, private, state and national, continually maintain large deposits of money in her national banks for the payment of drafts.
These deposits of money from all pans of the nation amount to many millions, and tend to make money scarce in the South and West, and concentrate it in a few banks in the metropolis.
According to the provisions of the national banking law, the national banks of the great cities of the country were selected as the reserve agents of the 3,700 national banks throughout the country. By that law, these banks were required to keep in reserve from fifteen to twenty-five per cent. of the total amount of deposits in their custody; and they were authorized to deposit this great Reserve Fund in the national banks of New York City, a system which further added many millions of dollars to the holdings of those banks, with a consequent drain of money upon all other districts of the nation. The banks of New York City were thus enabled, from these immense accumulations of money...
...Many of these corporations, whose stocks are so held by the capitalists of New York City, are bonded from two to five times their actual value, thus operating as a heavy burden upon those communities who have granted these corporations valuable franchises...This money power, with the eyes of Argus and the hands of Briareus, has likewise seized upon the natural gas resources of the West...
...Nevertheless, many thousands of suits for foreclosure were instituted on the slightest failure to pay the interest coupons; decrees of sale were accordingly entered, and the land sold to pay the debt, whereupon these mortgagers would bid in the entire mortgaged premises for a fraction of the claim, obtain the property for a mere nominal sum, and yet hold a large residue of the judgment over the head of the unfortunate debtor to seize what other property the mortgagor would happen to Possess, and thus sweep away all into the coffers of these voracious usurers.
This iniquitous use of the process of the law to rob the debtors of the West and South of their whole -substance, is a dark and damnable blot on the jurisprudence of the United States, and it would shame the hardened nature of a Bashi Bazouk.
The future historian will marvel at the patience displayed by these people under the circumstances.
Closely allied to the moneyed corporations of New York City, and having an unity of interest with them, are the 3,700 other national banks scattered over the country.
An examination of the list of officers and directors of the national banks of New York City, Boston, Hartford, New Haven, Providence, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Chicago, and other leading cities, reveals some marvelous facts.
It will demonstrate that the presidents and directors Of the national I banks of the first-named city, control the operations of the loan and trust companies, the gigantic life insurance corporations, the sugar trust, and the Stock 10, exchange....
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