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THE MONEY TRUST .
Part of the Remarks of Mr. Henry Before the Democratic Caucus of House Members
It is not possible for congress to intelligently
determine the vital economic questions of cur
rency legislation, the trusts and interstate com
merce corporations until it understands the
methods of the insidious and almost supreme
money power. No offective investigation can be
made into the ramifications of the one without
an examination of the other, so intimately inter
; related and linked together are the three great
:v:problems.
Nor can a cumbersome committee of twenty
odd members efficiently do the work. It will
require a small and compact body of not exceed
ing seven men to make a wise, sane, painstaking
and exhaustive inquiry. To break the resolu
tion into five fragments and refer it to fivo
separate committees would be sending it to an
aggregate of ninety-eight members to try to
do this work at a cost of $200,000, whereas a
select committee can take every phase of the
: resolution and make a genuine investigation at
a cost or $50,000, and save the government
.$150,000, thus preventing the perpetration of a
sham investigation on the country.
It is not my purpose here to recount how,
during the last five years the money power has
become concentrated in New York City but I
will state it as a fact that more than seyenty
five per cent of our financial resources, indus
trial and railroad corporations, is now domi
nated and controlled by not more than four
email groups of financiers. This financial
oligarchy now has within its grasp the resources,
deposits and funds with the power to paralyze
competition and destroy competitors. They now
have at their feet in merciless subiection more
than seventy-five per cent of the vast army of
banks and bankers throughout the country.
y:ney are combined and acting in strict accord
ith the railroads and industrial trusts by
throwing their protecting ' arms around them
ath the avowed purpose of assassinating in
uisiness all their competitors. There is no great
aitway system of the country that is not in com-
gjjinatlon with .them and under their protecting
Wing, and in identically the same way the ra
pacious trusts are sheltered by them.
To illustrate how successfully they have con
centrated the money and resources of the coun
try in their hands, I quote from the recent state
ment of Mr. Samuel TJntermyer, a public
spirited attorney of New York City. He said:
"The protecting wins of these banking houses is
a thing that has got to be considered by congress
in legislating In respect to the trusts.
It is becauso of what seems to me to be the gravity
of the situation that as a decent citizen I feel
that we ought to know where we are drifting, so
that when we come to meet these questions of
currency legislation and the question of. the trusts,
-congress will have the data on which to act. You
,seo how these things interlock with one another.
These two or three great issuing houses in New
York, having taken under their wings the great
railroad and industrial corporations of the coun
try and acting as their bankers and sponsors and
protectors, naturally are entitled to conduct the
finances of those companies and to direct them,
arid that means that this vast sum of money
of all these corporations is under their control;
whether they are on the boards of these corpora-
tions makes no difference. They have
all this money, the railroad money, tho money of
these trusts, the, money of the Steel corporation.
'The Steel corporation has an average dally balance
of $75,000,000. The number of other trusts runs
the average daily balance up to hundreds of mil
lions of dollars. But now this money has
drifted to New York and you see institutions there
now with balances of from $150,000,000 to $200,
000,000 daily balances when 15 years ago, I be
lieve, the biggest bank or trust company In New
York did not have $15,000,000. I think perhaps
$20,000,000 was tho largest at the outside. I think
the Chemical National bank has tho largest bank
balance. It is a mere pigmy now. these things have
mounted up with such rapidity."
We should have light as to how these things
have been accomplished and individual cases un
covered that would illustrate the system and
point the way to Bane and wholesome remedial
legislation.
It 1b also certain that these same financial
interests of New York have a close community
of interest with the bankers of the money
centers of Europe and act together in protect
ing one another and destroying competition. In
view of these alarming financial conditions, I
charge and state that it can be established by
Indisputable evidence:
First rThat the aforesaid groups of individ
uals, firms, national banks and moneyed cor
porations are in agreement . and combined to
gether with fixed purpose, and are now manag
ing the financial affairs of practically all the
interstate railroad and seventy-five per cent or
more of the industrial corporations, joined to
gether as trusts, and are using as they see proper
the bankable funds of such interstate and indus
trial corporations. They require these funds to
be deposited in New York and to be placed at
their disposal.
Second I charge, and it can be established
upon proper inqury by a committee with
ample power, that the management of the
finances of many of tho great industrial and
railroad corporations of the country engaged in
interstate commerce Is concentrated in the
hands of a few groups of financiers in the city
of Now York and their associates, and that
these groups, by roason of their control over
the funds of such corporations and tho power
to dictate the depositories of such funds, and
by other means, have secured domination over
many of the leading national banks and other
moneyed institutions In the city of New York
and In other cities to which they direct such
patronage and over the vast deposits of money
and of other assets of such institutions, and
enabled them and their associates to direct the
operations of the latter in the use of the money
belonging to their depositors and stockholders
and in the purchase and sale of securities and
loans of. money by such banks and other
moneyed institutions, and that these institu
tions and their funds are being used to further
the enterprises and increase the profits of these
groups of Individuals from such transactions
and to augment their power over the finances
of tho country and to control the money, ex
change, security and commodity markets, and
prevent competition with the enterprises in
which they are interested, to the detriment of
interstate commerce and the welfare of the
general public.
Third These same groups of financiers have
so entrenched themselves in their control of
the aforesaid financial institutions . and other
wise in the direction of the- finances of the
country, that they are enabled thereby to use
the funds and property of the great national
banks and other moneyed corporations in the
leading money centers to control the security
and commodity markets, to regulate the interest
rates for money, to create, avert, and c.ompose
panics at will, to dominate the New York Stock
Exchange and the various clearing house associ
ations throughout the country, and through
such associations and by reason of their afore
said control over the railroads, Industrial cor
porations and moneyed institutions, and in other
ways resulting therefrom, have wielded and are
wielding a power over the business commerce,
credits and finances of the country that is
despotic and perilous and deadly to the welfare
of the entire country. And that their direc
torates and agencies are so interlocked and in
separably linked with one another that it would
be impossible to adequately and fairly investi
gate the affairs of one .without exhaustively
probing the affairs of the others. Hence we
can not possibly know what paths to travel in
regard to currency, trust and Interstate com
merce legislation till a genuine investigation
is had.
Fourth I charge, and it can be proved, that
these national banks and other- moneyed cor
porations, controlled, as above set out, by the
moneyed oligarchy of four groups, have been
and are engaged .in the promotion, underwrit
ing and exploitation of speculative enterprises,
many of them dangerous and questionable, wild
and visionary, and many in other countries,
and in the purchase and sale of securities of
such enterprises, an.d In acquiring stocks of
other banks and banking Institutions, and in
absorbing and crushing competitors by the use
of their concentrated corporate funds for such
purposes, either alone, or in conjunction, agree
ment and conspiracy with one another. These
financiers in New York have in their hands
hundreds of millions of dollars that should be
distributed throughout the country where the
railroads run and the corporations have their
domiciles. These men have In their coffers in
New York all this railroad money, the money of
the trusts, the money of the Steel corporation,
The average daily balance of the Steel corpora
tion amounts to $75,000,000, and added to that
the money of the other trusts and the railroada
runs tho amount up into tho hundreds of mil
lions of dollars. Tho country is poorly advised
as to tho real situation and as to how theso
things can be and have been done. And wo
sorely nocfd tho blazing light of publicity In
order to wisely legislate on the three great
problems in hand.
Fifth Theso individuals, firms, national
banks, and moneyed corporations are interested
in and connected with interstate corporations
and are constantly conspiring and agreeing with
them and aro onablod by reason of such con
nection to prevent and suppress competition in
tho interest of such interstate corporations and
protect the lattor from competition, and fre
quently to crush out competitors by moans of
questionable and vicious financial warfare. In
fact they aro in combination with them In such
a fashion that they aro ;iaily violating tho pro
visions of the anti-trust low If the rottl facts
were known. And only a most rigid probing
of a compact congressional committee endowed
with plenary power can ever got to the root of
thoso evils.
Sixth Theso national banks and other
moneyed corporations and institutions arc
owned, dominated and controlled through their
directors, stock ownership, oJIlcial management,
patronage, and In other ways, by the same per
sons, interests, groups of individuals, and cor
porations that are also in( crested In other na
tional banks and moneyed corporations locate
in the same city and In interstate commerce
corporations that are customers and really co
conspirators of said national banks and other
moneyed corporations. And tho same individ
uals are officers and directors and aro Interested
In, dominate and control and have heretofore
dominated and controlled more than one na
tional bank or other moneyed corporation.
Seventh I charge, and it can be established
by abundant proof, that tho funds and credit
of national banks and other moneyed corpora
tions are and have been used and employed in
other ways than in making current loans to
merchants and on commercial paper, and such
funds have been and are employed (1) In tho
purchase of securities from bankers or others
interested in or connected with such corpora
tion; (2) in the guaranty and underwriting of
securities and syndicate transactions, alone and
in conjunction with others; (8) and in loans on
notes secured by bonds, stocks, or pther col
lateral; (4) and in loans on and purchases of
stocks of other banks and of trust and invest
ment companies and financial and moneyed cor
porations, and have profited by joint action,
understanding and conspiracies to shut out com
petition. Eighth-pin agreeing and confederating to
gether such national banks and other moneyed
corporations, directly and indirectly, and by
means of other corporations having substan
tially the same Officers, management, control or
stockholders, or with stock paid for by tho
dividends of a parent or affiliated company, and,
alone and with others, have acted as issuing
houses in offering securities to the public and
to investors by prospectus, advertisement and
solicitation; and have and are speculating in
stocks and are diverting tho funds of tho banks
from legitimate banking and commercial chan
nels in order to get the railroad and industrial
corporations within their protection and destroy
competition as far as possible.
Ninth The management and operations of
the New York Stock Exchange and tho New
York Clearing House association are dominated
and controlled by the aforesaid financial groups
and national banks in New York City, and the
officers of the Clearing House association aro
mere dummies under their absolute dominion,
and can wreck banks and destroy competitors
upon their orders.
Tenth These groups of men have It within
their absolute power, in controlling the money
in tho banks and trust companies, their do
minion over corporations and their connection
with the Clearing House association, to make
and unmake panics, make "bull" and "bear"
markets'easy money" and "tight money," when
ever it suits, their pleasure. In-a financial way,
It is not overstating the danger to say that they
are almost omnipotent and hold the' destiny of
the business world within the hollow of their
hands. Five years have brought about the con
trol secured by a few banking houses and their
allies over tho funds of the great corporations,
and that this power has been cemented through
the interlocking directorates in financial insti
tutions that were naturally competitive; that
this control is constantly widening and becom
ing more direct and pronounced, and the groups
(Continued on Page 10.)
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