New York's Bank: The National Monetary Commission and the Founding of the Fed

Abstract

I review the original Monetary Commission’s origins and contribution to the legislative effort that led to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. My immediate purpose is that of identifying that Commission’s merits and shortcomings, with the aim of informing the current effort to establish a new monetary commission. But I also seek, in passing, to respond to conventional, celebratory accounts of the Fed’s establishment by drawing attention to the way in which special interests, and representatives of the major New York City banks in particular, seized control of the pre-Fed currency reform movement, and then took it a direction better suited to preserving and enhancing Wall Street’s profits than to ending financial crises.

Keywords: Federal Reserve System, National Monetary Commission, Nelson Aldrich, Asset Currency, Central Banking, Monetary Reform

JEL Classification: E02, E42, E58, N11, N21