Editing Federal Reserve (section)

=== Jekyll Island and the push for the Federal Reserve ===
[[File:Jekyll Island traincar.png|thumb|467x467px|Men aboard Senator Aldrich's private train car on the trip to Jekyll Island, where the Federal Reserve was designed sometime during November 1910.]]
To this end, the National Monetary Convention was established by the Aldrich–Vreeland Act of May 8, 1908. Chaired by '''Nelson Aldrich''', the republican whip and most powerful senator at that time, the work was mainly carried on by him and economist '''A. Piatt Andrew''', assistant to the commission.<ref>Dewald, William G. 1972. “The National Monetary Commission: A Look Back.” ''Journal of Money, Credit and Banking'' 4 (4): 930. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.2307/1991235</nowiki>.</ref> They were to tour Europe, studying central banking practices there, and report back with a plan of banking reform for the United States. Morgan was intimately involved. During the leadup to the commission's departure, he received a coded cable saying that Henry P. Davison would advise Aldrich: “It is understood that Davison is to represent our views and will be particularly close to Senator Aldrich.”<ref name=":3">Chernow, ''The House of Morgan,'' 173</ref> And before the commission left for Europe, Davison went ahead to England in order to meet with Morgan, who requested a private central bank akin to the English model.<ref name=":3" />

Having grasped it, they brought it home. The National Monetary Commission returned from Europe fall 1908, and the product of their work, 23 volumes of studies and interviews, began to appear fall 1910. And November of that year, a secret meeting attended by representatives of the great financial houses was hammering out in substance the function and structure of the Federal Reserve. Already with the National Monetary Convention, men like Aldrich were aware of the hay muckrakers could make with the frank reality that a small circle of political and financial elites were planning to unilaterally remake the US banking. Aldrich had written privately, on forming the Convention that "My idea is, of course, that everything shall be done in the most quiet manner possible, and without any public announcement."<ref>Fisher, Keith. 2022. ''A Pipeline Runs Through It: The Story of Oil from Ancient Times to the First World War''. Penguin UK. 389</ref>

But this meeting was on another level of secrecy. Secretaries and wives were told that their bosses and husbands were off for 'duck hunting.' Full names were not used. At close to ten on a cold November night, the last few passengers boarded the last southbound train departing from a nondescript New Jersey rail station. As they began to pull out of the station, a the train shuddered to a stop and began to reverse, pulling back into the station. A moment of confusion was settled by a sudden lurch and the slam of couplers - a car had been connected to the back. But what car? When the passengers arrived at their destination, it was gone.<ref>Griffin, ''The Creature from Jekyll Island,'' 4-5</ref>

It would be years before anyone knew who boarded that train car that night, or what their destination and purpose were. The car belonged to '''Nelson Aldrich''', and its passengers were a veritable who's who of high-power finance. Nelson himself was a business associate of Morgan and the father in law of Nelson Rockefeller, future vice-president of the United States. He was also a political kingpin, the Republican whip from Rhode Island of whom Theodore Roosevelt confessed "Sure I bow to Aldrich. . . . I’m just a president, and he has seen lots of presidents.”<ref>Lowenstein, Roger. 2015. ''America’s Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve''. New York: Penguin Press. 43</ref> Representing the Morgan camp were '''Benjamin Strong''', head of Morgan's Bankers Trust, and '''Henry P. Davison''', senior partner at J. P. Morgan and Co. and Morgan's right hand during the 1907 Crisis. Under the banner of Rockefeller was '''Frank Vanderlip''', president of National City Bank of New York. '''Paul Warburg''', partner at Kuhn, Loeb & Co., represented that considerable interest, and in some capacity the Rothschilds - not to mention the Warburg consortium itself, headed by his brother Max back in Germany. With his intimate knowledge of continental banking practices, Warburg also provided most of the technical expertise. Finally there was '''A. Piatt Andrew''', the Harvard economist who assisted Aldrich on his tour of Europe, was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury at that time - representing (perhaps) a public interest. Their destination was Jekyll Island, a remote hunting lodge in Georgia. Since 1886 the Island was owned by the Jekyll Island Club, numbered among them J.P. Morgan, Joseph Pulitzer, William K. Vanderbilt, and William Rockefeller.<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20220127084144/https://www.jekyllisland.com/history/timeline/</ref> It is here that the Federal Reserve is designed in substance. 

If this meeting seems like ancient history: as of 2018, the two largest owners of the New York Fed were '''Citibank''' (formerly '''National City Bank of New York''') with 42.8% and '''JPMorgan Chase''' (formerly '''JP Morgan and Co.''') with 29.5% of shares.<ref name=":0" /> Both of these firms had representatives on Jekyll Island, and moreover the financial houses they represent, Rockefeller and Morgan respectively, were the prime movers of creating the Federal Reserve.