1914

The Federal Reserve System began its operations in 1914 with the activity of the Organization Committee, appointed by Woodrow Wilson, and composed of Secretary of the Treasury William McAdoo, who was his son-in-law, Secretary of Agriculture Houston and Comptroller of the Currency John Skelton Williams. […] The certification of incorporation of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was filed May 18, 1914. It provided for three Class A directors representing member banks in the district, three Class B directors representing commerce, agriculture, and industry, and three Class C directors representing the Federal Reserve Board. The original directors were elected in 1914; they proceeded to generate an energetic program. In the first year of organization the Federal Reserve Bank of New York held no fewer than 50 meetings. For many years, there has been considerable mystery about who actually owns the stock of the Federal Reserve Banks. Congressman Wright Patman, leading critic of the System, tried to find out who the stockholders were. The stock in the original twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks was purchased by national banks in those twelve regions. Because the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was to set the interest rates and direct open market operations, thus controlling the daily supply and price of money throughout the United States, it is the stockholders of that bank who are the real directors of the entire system. The original organization certificates of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, giving the ownership of shares by the national banks in each district provide the details: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York issued 203,053 shares, and, as filed with the Comptroller of the Currency May 19, 1914, the large New York City banks took more than half of the outstanding shares. The Rockefeller Kuhn, Loeb-controlled National City Bank took the largest number of shares of any bank, 30,000 shares. J.P. Morgan’s First National Bank took 15,000 shares. When these two banks merged in 1955, they owned in one block almost one fourth of the shares in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which controlled the entire system, and thus they could name Paul Volcker or anyone else they chose to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Chase National Bank took 6,000 shares. The Marine Nation Bank of Buffalo, later known as Marine Midland, took 6,000 shares. This bank was owned by the Schoellkopf family, which controlled Niagara Power Company and other large interests. National Bank of Commerce of New York City took 21,000 shares. These interests have merged and consolidated in recent years, so that the control is much more concentrated. National Bank of Commerce is now Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. Lehman Brothers has merged with Kuhn, Loeb Company, First National Bank has merged with the National City Bank, and in the other eleven Federal Reserve Districts, these same shareholders indirectly own or control shares in those banks, with the other shares owned by the leading families in those areas who own or control the principal industries in these regions. The “local” families set up regional councils, on orders from New York, of such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, and other instruments of control devised by their masters. They finance and control political developments in their area, name candidates, and are seldom successfully opposed in their plans. […] These developments following the passing of the Federal Reserve Act proved every one of the allegations Thomas Jefferson had made against a central bank in 1791: that the subscribers to the Federal Reserve Bank stock had formed a corporation, whose stock could be and was held by aliens; that this stock would be transmitted to a certain line of successors; that it would be placed beyond forfeiture and escheat; that they would receive a monopoly of banking, which was against the laws of monopoly; and that they now had the power to make laws, paramount to the laws of the states. No state legislature can countermand any of the laws laid down by the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for the benefit of their private stockholders. This board issues laws as to what the interest rate shall be, what the quantity of money shall be and what the price of money shall be. All of these powers abrogate the powers of the state legislatures and their responsibility to the citizens of those states. […] The ten largest bank holding companies in the United States are firmly in the hands of certain banking houses, all of which have branches in London. They are J.P. Morgan Company, Brown Brothers Harriman, Warburg, Kuhn Loeb and J. Henry Schroder. All of them maintain close relationships with the House of Rothschild, principally through the Rothschild control of international money markets through its manipulation of the price of gold. Each day, the world price of gold is set in the London office of N.M. Rothschild and Company. (Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Griffin, 1952) Congress passes the Clayton Anti-trust Act. Congress passed the Federal Trade Commission Act. Arch Duke Ferdinand is assassinated. World War I Begins. US President, Woodrow Wilson proclaims US neutrality. J. Henry Schroder Banking Company played an important role behind the scenes of WW I. No historian has a reasonable explanation of how World War I started. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated at Sarajevo by Gavril Princeps, Austria demanded an apology from Serbia, and Serbia sent the note of apology. Despite this, Austria declared war, and soon the other nations of Europe joined the fray. Once the war had gotten started, it was found that it wasn’t easy to keep it going. The principal problem was that Germany was desperately short of food and coal, and without Germany, the war could not go on. John Hamill in The Strange Career of Mr. Hoover explains how the problem was solved. He tells us that the initiative came from the German authorities in Belgium through their continuous relations with the American Relief Committee. Hamill points out “That is what the Belgian Relief Committee was organized for–to keep Germany in food.” The Belgian Relief Commission was organized by Emile Francqui, director of a large Belgian bank, Societe Generale, and a London mining promoter, an American named Herbert Hoover, who had been associated with Francqui in a number of scandals which had become celebrated court cases, notably the Kaiping Coal Company scandal in China, said to have set off the Boxer Rebellion, which had as its goal the expulsion of all foreign businessmen from China. Hoover had also carried out a number of mining promotions in various parts of the world as a secret agent for the Rothschilds, and had been rewarded with a directorship in one of the principal Rothschild enterprises, the Rio Tinto Mines in Spain and Bolivia. Hoover had been barred from dealing on the London Stock Exchange because of one judgement against him, and his associate, Stanley Rowe, had been sent to prison for ten years. With this background, Hoover was called an ideal choice for a career in humanitarian work. ( John Hamill, The Strange Career of Mr. Hoover, William Faro, New York, 1931 – Copies of Hamill’s book were systematically located and destroyed by government agents, because it was published on the eve of President Hoover’s re-election campaign). Although his name is unknown in the United States, Emile Francqui was the guiding spirit behind Herbert Hoover’s rise to fortune. Hamill (on page 156) identifies Francqui as the director of many atrocities committed against natives in the Congo. “For every cartridge they spent, they had to bring in a man’s hand”. Hamill also says that Francqui “tricked” the Americans out of the Hankow-Canton railroad concession in China in 1901, and at the same time had “stood by” in case Hoover needed any further help in the “taking” of the Kaiping coal mines. This is the humanitarian who had sole charge of the distribution of the Belgian “relief” during the World War, for which Hoover did the buying and shipping. Francqui was a director with Hoover, in the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company (the Kaiping mines), through which Hoover transported 200,000 Chinese slave workers to the Congo to work Francqui’s copper mines.” Hamill says on page 311 that “Francqui opened the offices of the Belgian Relief in his bank, Societe Generale, as a one-man show, with a letter of permission from the German Governor General von der Goltz dated October 16, 1914. Francqui and Hoover threw themselves into the seemingly impossible task of provisioning Germany during the First World War.” President Wilson gives an address at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. He utters the famous words, “Our country, right or wrong.” Ellen Wilson’s health begins to fail early in the year from Bright’s Disease. Informed that she is dying, Congress hastily passes a bill for slum clearance in Washington that she had very much to heart so that she can be told of it before she dies. She dies on August 6th. The president will become lonely and depressed. Canada, Ontario. Eight witnesses saw a UFO floating on the water of Georgian Bay. Entities were manipulating a hose dipped into the water. On seeing the witnesses they returned inside, all except one who was still outside when the craft took off.