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Show IBRANDEIS TELLS ABOUT THE MONEY TRUST I Louis D., Brandeis, the famous lawyer and economist, is writing a ll r eg of articles for Harper's on the financial situation, in the last of which be explains the danger to our freedom and Individual development from the money monopoly in this coun-Iry, coun-Iry, and he presents this study ot the money mist. Vast fortunes lik-e those of the Aors are no doubt regrettable They are Inconsistent with democracy. 1 I he are unsocial. And they seem J peculiarly unjust when they ropre sen; largely unearned increment But j the wealth of the Astors does not en danger political of Industrial liberty, j li s Insignificant in amount as com ! .'' p;iied with ihe iiKcrrgate wealth of! America, or even of New York Cltjf If lackfi significance largely because it owners have only the income from i Their wealth. The Astor wealth Is Static The wealth of the Morgan associates is dynamk. The power and the growth of power of our fl 1 nnncial oligarchs comes from wield-I tw, ing the savings and quick capital of I others. In two of the three great life Insurance componlea the influ encc of J, P Morgan & Co and their .iHsoclaies Ifl exeited without any Individual In-dividual investment by them whatsoever. whatso-ever. Even in the Equitable, where Mr. Morgan bought an actual major-It major-It of all the outstanding stock, his Investment amounts to little more than one-half of one per cent of the assets of the company. The fetters which bind the people are forged from the people's own gold But the reservoir of other people's money, from which the investment .,hY bankers now draw their greatest Wr power, is not the lire Insurance com panies, but the banks and the trust companies. But deposits represent the really quick capital of the nation. na-tion. They are the life blood of business. busi-ness. Their effective force Is much greater than that of an equal amount of wealth permanently Invented. The ' 34 banks and trust companies which the Pujo committee declared to be directly controlled by the Morgan associate as-sociate held $1.9S3,000,000 in deposits. depos-its. Control of these Institutions means the ability to lend a large part of these funds, directly and indi-" indi-" tectly. to themselves; and what Is often oven more Important, the power to prevent the funds being lent to any rhal Interests These huge deposits de-posits can In the discretion of those in control, be used to meet the tem- . porary needs of their subject corpor ations. When bonds and stocks are ff1 Itsued to finance permanently these corporations, the bank deposits can in large part be loaned by the la-vestment la-vestment bankers In control to themselves them-selves and their associates; so that ihe securities' may be carried by them until sold to lavestors Or these bank deposits may be loaned to allied bankers or jobbers in securities, securi-ties, or to speculators, to enable them to carry the bonds or stocks. Easy money tends to make securities rise in the market Tight money nearly always makes them fall. The control by the leading Investment bankers over the bank and trust companies Is so great that they can often determine de-termine for a time the market for money by lending or refusing to lend on the Stock Exchange In this way. among others, they have power to affect the general trend of prices In bonds and stocks. Their power over a particular security is even greats) Its sale on he market may depend upon whether the security Is favored or discriminated against when offer-ed offer-ed to the banks and trust companies, mm collateral for loans Furthermore It Is the Investment banker's aOOSSI to other people I money In controlled banks and trust companies which alone enables any Individual banking concern lo take on large part of the annual output of bonds and strx-k Tlx1 banker's own capital, however large, would soon be exhausted And even the loanable funds of the banks deposits made In those banks by the life Insurance, railroad, public service, and Industrial Indus-trial corporations which the bankers also control On December 81, 1912, the three leading life insurance ocm-panler ocm-panler had aggregating 818,839,189.01 I As the Pujo committee finds The men who through their con-I con-I trol over the funds of our railroads and industrial companies are able to ' direct where such fund shall be kept and thus to create these great reservoir.1? reser-voir.1? of the people's money are the ones who are in position to tap those reservoirs for the ventures in which they are -nterested and to prevent j (heir being tapped for purposes of J which they do not approve. The latter lat-ter Is quite as important a factor as the former Ii la the controlling Consideration in its effect on competition com-petition iii the railroad and Industrial world " |