A "MONEY TRUST" AMERICAN FINANCE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 31, 6 February 1913, Page 3

A "MONEY TRUST" AMERICAN FINANCE

MORGAN'S GREAT INFLUENCE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, 25th December. There is a great deal of money in tho United States. Naturally, there has to be with nearly 100,000,000 people earning and spending and saving. Whether or not it is possible for any person or group of persons to control this wealth, and, if so, who the controllers are, is a problem thai is being investigated with marked energy by the so-called "Money Trust" Committee of Congress. Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, the tallest poppy of them all in the financial world, has spent two days , on the witness stand under the probe of the inquisitive com' mitteemen and their lawyers. Other lesser lights have contributed their views. Mr. William Rockefeller has succeeded in evading the committee's process servers, who in six months have not been able to find him. Certainly, the public is learning some startling facts from the public enquiry. Not since the_ Exposure of the life lnsurance companies seven years ago has there been so much* light directed into the innermost recesses of " high finance." As one newspaper puts it ; the investigation "is doing the public at least one good in showing up the grand larceny methods of the Wall-street brokers who act as agents of prominent and notorious generals and captains of finance." The tar-reaching influence of the firm of J. P. Morgan and Co. in the financial and industrial affairs of this country is the one fact that has been most promihently brought out; and, indeed, that firm exercises a power and authority that the Rothschilds never attained to in European finance. It has been Bhown to the committee by expert testimony that through " interlocking directorates," by which firm members of J. P. Morgan and Co. and seventeen other financial in* stitutions hold directorates in corporations—from banks to railroads— resources and capitalisation in the neighbourhood of £5,200,000,000 is under the control of

the Morgan group of financiers. Of course in the last analysis J. P. Morgan and Co. is J. Pierpont Morgan himself. Through this system of lcprcsehtatioh on the directorates of many< concerns-Morgan has a hand in the direction of the anaiiß of forty -one banks and-tmst companies, eleven insurance companies, thivty*pne railroad systems, two express companies, one steamship company 9 . and twenty •flight producing and trading corporations." 'When J. P. Morgan,, aa the very embodiment of financial operations on n. stupendous scale, took the witness stand he was accompanied aijd surrounded by nbout fifteen ] la wyera and experts, with whom he consulted during lna examination by Samuel Uttteimyer. the" committee's couneel. NfeverthelcSß, ho answered willingly, and his nonchalance in referring to mere millions of dollars ttiorw than once raised a laugh in the conjmiltee room. Asked ns to his holding* of stock in ono bank, lie replied, *JNoIj very lunch— -nboUt a' J million dollfijis.'' He seemed surprised ,at the rippf« of laughter that followed," but joined 1(1 it. Tho financier js no very hearty believer in competition, he frankly admitted. "I'd rather have combination than competition," he eaid. "I 'like a little fcompetition, but I like combination better. Control i« the important thing 5 without it you cannot do a thing, but no,*on& man coulA monopolise monoy. One Jnan might get control of railroads, or TOer* chandiee, but never money or credtt." Morgan v/as very emphatic as io' the impossibility of auch a \tliing as a money trust. With a bang of his fist on. the arm of his chair, ho poid •. "There;, can be no money trust. All the bankeand all the money in Chrietondoni could not control money. Tho question of control is pereonal q« to money and credits." Many men had great credit who had no money, ho said. "Is it not because it is believed they, have money back of them?" asked Un-' Urmyev. "No, sir. It i« just because people believe in the man," replied Morgan. "I have known a man" to come into my office fthd I have given him a check for a million dollars, when I knew he had not a cent in the world/ The vast influence exercised by the money power in controlling industry was shown by Morgah's admission that practically ho alone uahied the directors of the United States Steel Corporation, which is the official name of the eteel trust. No man became a director until Morgan had approved of him, and no one has ever gone on ,the bb»rd against the financier's protest. As a matter at course, the liouse of J.t Pierpont Morgan aro the bankers for the steel truat. The witneen thought it probable, but didn't remember, that he had. selected E. H. Gary fov chairman of tile Finance Committoe of the Steel Corporation, and admitted that it was le,ft to him, to detemine the figure at which subsidiary companies should come into the combine. "I do not know it. sir," he replied, when asked if he did, not have vaefc power in the financial world, Untermyer asked in fturpriae : "You do *not {eel X©ur power at oil?" and Morgan answered :' "No, I do not feel it at all." And then, shortly after iv his testimony, he said he had "a small holding"in the National City, Banking Company. Looking it up, he admitted this "email holding ' was worth about *ix million dollars. The findings of the' "money' trust" committee will be the 'basis of'impoitant fiscal legislation introduced in Congress next year. The .plan of a Federal National Bank, so widely discussed a year ago, seems to have been abandoned. ' ' '