Jekyll Island,
The Aldrich Plan,
The Federal Reserve Act,
The Federal Advisory Council

excerpted from the book

The Secrets of the Federal Reserve

by Eustace Mullins

Bankers Research Institute, 1983, paperback

(originally published in 1952 as "Mullins on the Federal Reserve")

foreword
Eustace Mullins 1983

In 1950 [I] began efforts to market this manuscript in New York. Eighteen publishers turned it down without comment, but the nineteenth, Devin Garrity, president of Devin Adair Publishing Company, gave me some friendly advice in his office. "I like your book, but we can't print it," he told me. "Neither can anybody else in New York".

... After two years of fruitless submissions, the book was published in a small edition in 1952 by two of [Ezra] Pound's disciples, John Kasper and David Horton, using their private funds, under title 'Mullins on the Federal Reserve'.

My original book had traced and named the shadowy figures in the United States who planned the Federal Reserve Act. I now discovered that the men whom I exposed in 1952 as the shadowy figures behind the operation of the Federal Reserve System were themselves shadows, the American fronts for the unknown figures who became know as the 'London Connection'. I found that notwithstanding our successes in the Wars of Independence and 1812 against England, we remained an economic and financial colony of Great Britain.

p3
The Jekyll Island Club was chosen as the place to draft the plan for control of the money and credit of the people of the United States... The New York Times later noted, on May 3, 1931, in commenting on the death of George F. Baker, one of J.P. Morgan's closest associates, that "Jekyll Island Club has lost one of its most distinguished members. One-sixth of the total wealth of the world was represented by the members of the Jekyll Island Club."

p4
The [Senator Nelson] Aldrich group journeyed [to Jekyll Island] in private to write the banking and currency legislation which the National Monetary Commission had been ordered to prepare in public. At stake was the future control of the money and credit of the United States. If any genuine monetary reform had been prepared and presented to Congress, it would have ended the power of the elitist one world money creators. Jekyll Island ensured that a central bank would be established in the United States which would give these bankers everything they had always wanted.

p5
The "monetary reform" plan prepared at Jekyll Island was to be presented to Congress as the completed work of the National Monetary Commission. It was imperative that the real authors of the bill remain hidden. So great was popular resentment against bankers since the Panic of 1907 that no Congressman would dare to vote for a bill bearing the Wall Street taint, no matter who had contributed to his campaign expenses. The Jekyll Island plan was a central bank plan, and in this country there was a long tradition of struggle against inflicting a central bank on the American people. It had begun with Thomas Jefferson's fight against Alexander Hamilton's scheme for the First Bank of the United States, backed by James Rothschild. It had continued with President Andrew Jackson's successful war against Alexander Hamilton's scheme for the Second Bank of the United States, in which Nicholas Biddle was acting as the agent for James Rothschild of Paris. The result of that struggle was the creation of the Independent Sub-Treasury System, which supposedly had served to keep the funds of the United States out of the hands of the financiers. A study of the panics of 1873, 1893, and 1907 indicates that" these panics were the result of the international bankers' operations in London. The public was demanding in 1908 that Congress enact legislation to prevent the recurrence of artificially induced money panics. Such monetary reform now seemed inevitable. It was to head off and control such reform that the National Monetary Commission had been set up with Nelson Aldrich at its head, since he was majority leader of the Senate.

The main problem as Paul Warburg informed his colleagues was to avoid the name "Central Bank". For that reason, he had decided upon the designation of "Federal Reserve System" This would deceive the people into thinking it was not a central bank. However, the Jekyll Island plan would be a central bank plan, fulfilling the main functions of a central bank; it would be owned by private individuals who would profit from ownership of shares. As a bank of issue, it would control the nation's money and credit.

p6
The proposed Federal Reserve Bank was to be "controlled by Congress' and answerable to the government, but the majority of the directors were to be chosen, "directly or indirectly" by the banks of the association ... the Federal Reserve Board of Governors would be appointed by the President of the United States, but the real work of the Board would be controlled by a Federal Advisory Council, meeting with the Governors. The Council would be chosen by the directors of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, and would remain unknown to the public.

... the proposed Federal Reserve System would be dominated by the masters of the New York money market.

p6
The primary deception which would prevent the citizens from recognizing that his plan set up a central bank was the regional reserve system ... of four (later twelve) branch reserve banks located in different sections of the country... the existing concentration of the nation's money and credit structure in New York made the proposal of a regional reserve system a delusion.

p6
The administrators of the proposed central banks should be subject to executive approval by the President. This patent removal of the system from Congressional control meant that the Federal Reserve proposal was unconstitutional from its inception because the Federal Reserve System was to be a bank of issue. Article 1, Sec. 8 Par. 5 of the Constitution expressly charges Congress with "the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof". Warburg's plan would deprive Congress of its sovereignty, and the systems of checks and balances of power set up by Thomas Jefferson in the Constitution would now be destroyed. Administrators of the proposed system would control the nation's money and credit, and would themselves be approved by the executive department of the government.

p11
Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., testifying before the House of Representatives Committee on Rules, December 15, 1911

Our financial system is a false one and a huge burden on the people ... I have alleged that there is a Money Trust. The Aldrich plan is a scheme plainly in the interest of the Trust.

p11
Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., testifying before the House of Representatives Committee on Rules, December 15, 1911

The Aldrich Plan is the Wall Street Plan. It is a broad challenge to the Government by the champion of the Money Trust. It means another / panic, if necessary, to intimidate the people. Aldrich, paid by the Government to represent the people, proposes a plan for the trusts instead. It was by a very clever move that the National Monetary Commission was created... Most Senators and Representatives fell into the Wall Street trap and passed the Aldrich-Vreeland Emergency Currency Bill. But the real purpose was to get a monetary commission which would frame a proposition for amendments to our currency and banking laws which would suit the Money Trust... Wall Street speculation brought on the Panic of 1907. The depositors' funds were loaned to gamblers and anybody the Money Trust wanted to favour. Then when the depositors wanted their money, the banks did not have it. That made the panic.

p15
A central bank attains a commanding position from its government granted monopoly of the note issue. This is the key to its power. Also, the act of establishing a central bank has a direct inflationary impact because of the fractional reserve system, which allows the creation of book-entry loans and thereby, money, a number of times the actual "money" which the bank has in its deposits or reserves.

p16
Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.

Our financial system is a false one and a huge burden on the people... This [Federal Reserve] Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth.

p18
The Presidential campaign of 1912 records one of the more interesting political upsets in American history. The incumbent, William Howard Taft, was a popular president, and the Republicans, in a period of general prosperity, were firmly in control of the government through a Republican majority in both houses. The Democratic challenger, Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New jersey, had no national recognition, and was a stiff, austere man who excited little public support. Both parties included a monetary reform bill in their platforms: The Republicans were committed to the Aldrich Plan, which had been denounced as a Wall Street plan, and the Democrats had the Federal Reserve Act. Neither party bothered to inform the public that the bills were almost identical except for the names. In retrospect, it seems obvious that the money creators decided to dump Taft and go with Wilson. How do we know this? Taft seemed certain of reelection, and Wilson would return to obscurity. Suddenly, Theodore Roosevelt "threw his hat into the ring' He announced that he was running as a third party candidate, the "Bull Moose". His candidacy would have been ludicrous had it not been for the fact that he was exceptionally well-financed. Moreover, he was given unlimited press coverage, more than Taft and Wilson combined. As a Republican ex-president, it was obvious that Roosevelt would cut deeply into Taft's vote. This proved the case, and Wilson won the election. To this day, no one can say what Theodore Roosevelt's program was, or why he would sabotage his own party. Since the bankers were financing all three candidates, they would win regardless of the outcome. Later Congressional testimony showed that the firm of Kuhn Loeb Company, Felix Warburg was supporting Taft, Paul Warburg and Jacob Schiff were supporting Wilson, and Otto Kahn was supporting Roosevelt. The result was that a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President were elected in 1912 to get the central bank legislation passed.

p27
George Sylvester Viereck in 'The Strangest Friendship in History: Woodrow Wilson and Col. House"

The Shiffs, the Warburgs, the Kahns, the Rockefellers, the Morgans put their faith in [Colonel Edward Mandell] House. When the Federal Reserve legislation at last assumed definite shape, House was the intermediary between the White House and the financiers.

p28
Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr. to the House of Representatives, December 22, 1913

This [Federal Reserve] Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the \I President signs this bill, the invisible government by the Monetary Power J) will be legalized. The people may not know it immediately, but the day 'o[ reckoning is only a few years removed. The trusts will soon realize that J they have gone too far even for their own good. The people must make / a declaration of independence to relieve themselves from the Monetary ( Power. This they will be able to do by taking control of Congress. Wall Streeters could not cheat us if you Senators and Representatives did not make a humbug of Congress .... If we had a people's Congress, there \ would be stability. The greatest crime of Congress is its currency system. while worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking bill. The caucus and the party bosses have again operated and prevented the people from getting the benefit of their own government?

p30
HW Loucks in the book 'The Great Conspiracy of the House of Morgan'

In the Federal Reserve Law, they [the financiers] have wrested from the people and secured for themselves the constitutional power to issue money and regulate the value thereof... The House of Morgan is now in supreme control of our industry, commerce and political affairs. They are in complete control of the policy making of the Democratic, Republican and Progressive parties.

p32
Ferdinand Lundberg in his book 'America's Sixty Families'

In practice, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York became the fountainhead of the system of twelve regional banks, for New York was the money market of the nation. The other eleven banks were so many expensive mausoleums erected to salve the local pride and quell the Jacksonian fears of the hinterland.

p34
The shareholders of [the] banks which own the stock of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are the people who have controlled, our political and economic destinies since 1914. They are the Rothschild's, of Europe, Lazard Freres (Eugene Meyer), Israel Sieff, Kuhn Loeb Company, Warburg Company, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, the Rockefeller family, and the J.P. Morgan interests. These interests have merged and consolidated in recent years so that the control is much more concentrated.

... The "local" families [in the eleven Federal Reserve Districts] 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.

Secrets of the Federal Reserve

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