CHAPTER 12B - The Great Depression

There had been some warnings of the approaching crash in England, which American newspapers never saw. The London Statist on May 25, 1929 said:

"The banking authorities in the United States apparently want a business panic to curb speculation."

The London Economist on May 11, 1929, said:

"The events of the past year have seen the beginnings of a new technique, which, if maintained and developed, may succeed in 'rationing the speculator without injuring the trader.'"

Governor Charles S. Hamlin quoted this statement at the Senate hearings in 1931 and said, in corroboration of it:

"That was the feeling of certain members of the Board, to remove Federal Reserve credit from the speculator without injuring the trader."

Governor Hamlin did not bother to point out that the "speculators" he was out to break were the school-teachers and small town merchants who had put their savings into the stock market, or that the "traders" he was trying to protect were the big Wall Street operators, Bernard Baruch and Paul Warburg.

When the Federal Reserve Bank of New York raised its rate to six percent on August 9, 1929, market conditions began which culminated in tremendous selling orders from October 24 into November, which wiped out a hundred and sixty billion dollars worth of security values. That was a hundred and sixty billions which the American citizens had one month and did not have the next. Some idea of the calamity may be had if we remember that our enormous outlay of money and goods in the Second World War amounted to not much more than two hundred billions of dollars, and a great deal of that remained as negotiable securities in the national debt. The stock market crash is the greatest misfortune which the United States has ever suffered.

The Academy of Political Science of Columbia University in its annual meeting in January, 1930, held a post-mortem on the Crash of 1929. Vice-President Paul Warburg was to have presided, and Director Ogden Mills was to have played an important part in the discussion. However, these two gentlemen did not show up.

Professor Oliver M.W. Sprague of Harvard University remarked of the crash:

"We have here a beautiful laboratory case of the stock market's dropping apparently from its own weight."

It was pointed out that there was no exhaustion of credit, as in 1893, nor any currency famine, as in the Panic of 1907, when clearing-house certificates were resorted to, nor a collapse of commodity prices, as in 1920. What then, had caused the crash? The people had purchased stocks at high prices and expected the prices to continue to rise. The prices had to come down, and they did. It was obvious to the economists and bankers gathered over their brandy and cigars at the Hotel Astor that the people were at fault. Certainly the people had made a mistake in buying over-priced securities, but they had been talked into it by every leading citizen from the President of the United States on down. Every magazine of national circulation, every big newspaper, and every prominent banker, economist, and politician, had joined in the big confidence game of urging people to buy those over-priced securities. When the Federal Reserve Bank of New York raised its rate to six percent, in August 1929, people began to get out of the market, and it turned into a panic which drove the prices of securities down far below their natural levels. As in previous panics, this enabled both Wall Street and foreign operators in the know to pick up "blue-chip" and gilt-edged" securities for a fraction of their real value.

The Crash of 1929 also saw the formation of giant holding companies which picked up these cheap bonds and securities, such as the Marine Midland Corporation, the Lehman Corporation, and the Equity Corporation. In 1929 J.P. Morgan Company organized the giant food trust, Standard Brands. There was an unequaled opportunity for trust operators to enlarge and consolidate their holdings.

Emmanuel Goldenweiser, director of research for the Federal Reserve System, said, in 1947:

"It is clear in retrospect that the Board should have ignored the speculative expansion and allowed it to collapse of its own weight."

This admission of error eighteen years after the event was small comfort to the people who lost their savings in the Crash.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 was the beginning of a world-wide credit deflation which lasted through 1932, and from which the Western democracies did not recover until they began to rearm for the Second World War. During this depression, the trust operators achieved further control by their backing of three international swindlers, The Van Sweringen brothers, Samuel Insull, and Ivar Kreuger. These men pyramided billions of dollars worth of securities to fantastic heights. The bankers who promoted them and floated their stock issue could have stopped them at any time, by calling loans of less than a million dollars, but they let these men go on until they had incorporated many industrial and financial properties into holding companies, which the banks then took over for nothing.

Insull piled up public utility holdings throughout the Middle West, which the banks got for a fraction of their worth. Ivar Kreuger was backed by Lee Higginson Company, supposedly one of the nation's most reputable banking houses. The Saturday Evening Post called him "more than a financial titan", and the English review Fortnightly said, in an article written December 1931, under the title, "A Chapter in Constructive Finance":

"It is as a financial irrigator that Kreuger has become of such vital importance to Europe."*

"Financial irrigator" we may remember, was the title bestowed upon Jacob Schiff by Newsweek Magazine, when it described how Schiff had bought up American railroads with Rothschild's money.

The New Republic remarked on January 25th, 1933, when it commented on the fact that Lee Higginson Company had handled Kreuger and Toll Securities on the American market:

"Three-quarters of a billion dollars was made away with. Who was able to dictate to the French police to keep secret the news of this extremely important suicide for some hours, during which somebody sold Kreuger securities in large amounts, thus getting out of the market before the debacle?"

The Federal Reserve Board could have checked the enormous credit expansion of Insull and Kreuger by investigating the security on which their loans were being made, but the Governors never made any examination of the activities of these men.

The modern bank with the credit facilities it affords, gives an opportunity which had not previously existed for such operators as Kreuger to make an appearance of abundant capital by the aid of borrowed capital. This enables the speculator to buy securities with securities. The only limit to the amount he can corner is the amount to which the banks will back him, and, if a speculator is being promoted by a reputable banking house, as Kreuger was promoted by Lee Higginson Company, the only way he could be stopped would be by an investigation of his actual financial resources, which in Kreuger's case would have proved to be nil.

Ivar Kreuger, we may recall, was occasionally the personal guest of his old friend, President Herbert Hoover, at the White House. Hoover seems to have maintained a cordial relationship with many of the most prominent swindlers of the twentieth century, including his partner, Emile Francqui. The receivership of the billion dollar Kreuger Fraud was handled by Samuel Untermeyer, former counsel for Pujo Committee hearings.

The leader of the American people during the Crash of 1929 and the subsequent depression was Herbert Hoover. After the first break of the market (the five billion dollars in security values which disappeared on October 24, 1929) President Hoover said:

"The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis."

His Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, stated on December 25, 1929, that:

"The Government's business is in sound condition."

His own business, the Aluminum Company of America, apparently was not doing so well, for he had reduced the wages of all employees by ten percent.

The New York Times reported on April 7, 1931,

"Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, conferred with the Federal Reserve Board here today. Mellon, Meyer, and George L. Harrison, Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, were present."

The London Connection had sent Norman over this time to ensure that the Great Depression was proceeding according to schedule. Congressman Louis McFadden had complained, as reported in The New York Times, July 4, 1930,

"Commodity prices are being reduced to 1913 levels. Wages are being reduced by the labor surplus of four million unemployed. The Morgan control of the Federal Reserve System is exercised through control of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the mediocre representation and acquiescence of the Federal Reserve Board in Washington."

As the depression deepened, the trust's lock on the American economy strengthened, but no finger was pointed at the parties who were controlling the system.

89 Clarence W. Barron, They Told Barron, Harpers, New York, 1930, p. 353
90 Col. Curtis B. Dall, F.D.R., My Exploited Father-in-Law, Liberty Lobby, Wash., D.C. 1970

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