The Federal Reserve Conspiracy

The very first meeting of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on October 5, 1914, was held in the offices of the Bank of Manhattan, 40 Wall Street, New York. Bank of Manhattan later merged with Chase National to become Chase Manhattan Bank.
Skipping intervening history for lack of space, we also find that in the mid-1970s, the leading Class A director of the New York Fed was none other than Chairman of the Trilateral Commission - David Rockefeller.

. LA FOLLETTE: Would it disturb the Senator to inform us who did participate in this conference and whether any Senator declined to participate?
Mr. BRISTOW: As to those who participated in the conference I am not advised. I was a member of the committee of conference appointed by the President of the Senate, but I had no knowledge as to the meeting of the conferees until after the report as it is before us had been made, printed, and placed upon the desks of Senators. I was then notified by the chairman of the committee that there would be a meeting of the committee of conference at 4 o'clock, two hours after this report of the committee of conference of the two Houses of Congress on the bill (H.R. 7837) to provide for the establishment of Federal reserve banks, for furnishing an elastic currency, affording means of rediscounting commercial paper, and to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes, had been placed upon my desk. I, in company with the Senator from Minnesota (Mr. Nelson), visited the room where we were invited to appear. We found the chairman of the committee and the Democratic members of the committee of conference there, and were given to understand that they had perfected the conference report. We were then invited to express our opinion of it, but I preferred to express my opinion where it might appear in the Record, rather than in the privacy of the committee room, and that I shall undertake to do this morning.
I see this report is signed by the Democratic members of the committee. Of course, I did not sign it because I was not invited to sign it, and I should not have done so, anyway, for I did not know at the time the report was prepared what it contained, and I had no opportunity of ascertaining what it contained.(5)

At midnight Sunday, December 21, either 20 or 40 (depending on the source) major points of disagreement required resolution. At 11 p.m. Monday, 23 hours later, the House voted 298 to 60 and passed the Federal Reserve Act. During this brief 23 hours the major differences were reconciled, worded, sent to the printer, set up in type, proofread, printed, distributed, read by every member of the House, discussed, pondered, weighed, deliberated, debated -and voted upon. This miracle of speediness, never equaled before or after in the U.S. Congress, is ominously comparable to the rubber stamp lawmaking of the banana republics.

In an effort to work out some of the major differences, the conferees agreed to meet all day Sunday. Further, on this Saturday the full House met and refused to accept the Senate version of the bill by a vote of 294 to 59 and then proceeded to pass amendments binding on the House conferees.

. M. Habliston, Chairman of the First National Bank of Richmond, stated, "It will result in an elastic currency which will avert panics," and Oliver J. Sands, President of the American National Bank, commented that
The passage of the currency measure will have a beneficial effect upon the country at large and its operation will help business. It seems to me the beginning of an era of general prosperity....

Senator Crawford of South Dakota didn't like the private monopoly aspects at all:
...you are simply creating a bank of big bankers, a bank to help big banks, but for which you assess the little banks to get the capital. The little banks are simply commanded to carry wood and water for the big banks. You say to the Vanderlips and the Hepburns and the Morgans and the Reynoldses, "come in with your short term paper and get the money" but you say to the Smiths and the Browns and the Joneses from the small country districts, "go somewhere else with your long term farmers paper; we cannot discount it."

is interesting to note that the Democratic majority was well aware of the discipline of gold and it was not the intent of Congress in 1913 in any way to reject, or even limit this discipline. In brief, the present day attempt to demonetize gold by phasing it out of the monetary system was not only rejected by the Congress of 1913 but the dangers of any such demonetization were recognized as ominous for the welfare of the United States.

no one denies that in the past from time to time great commercial nations have found themselves moving along a tide of optimism which, with the facilities of easy money has brought them to a point of most injurious and serious collapse.

instead of doing our duty as the responsible legislative branch of the Government of the United States, we are shirking that duty and throwing it upon a subordinate agency of the government.

Woodrow Wilson, who was to sign the Federal Reserve Act into law, was a deliberate creation of the Money Power, who was approved in the spring of 1912 at a weekend meeting at Beechwood, the Vanderlip estate at Scarborough on Hudson. According to one observer, Wilson passed the test because Vanderlip and William Rockefeller discussed the role of American capital abroad in front of Wilson.