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The Wall Street Money Trust from Pujo through Medina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Vincent P. Carosso
Vincent P. Carosso
Affiliation:
Professor of History, New York University
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Abstract

Assaults on the “money power” had a profound influence on public policies in twentieth-century America. Tracing the history of the “money trust” controversy through the first half of this century, Professor Carosso concludes that the attacks were largely unjustified, either on economic or legal grounds.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , Winter 1973 , pp. 421 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1973

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References

1 A brief version of this paper was read at the meeting of the Business History Conference, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, April 1971.

2 The six institutions cited as being “the most active agents in forwarding and bringing about the concentration of control of money and credit” were: J. P. Morgan & Co.; the First National Bank of New York; the National City Bank of New York; Lee, Higginson & Co.; Kidder, Peabody & Co.; and Kuhn Loeb & Co. See U.S. House of Representatives, 62d Cong., 3d Sess., Report of the Committee Appointed… to Investigate the Concentration of Control of Money and Credit (Washington, 1913), 56Google Scholar. Hereafter cited as Money Trust Investigation, Report.

3 Ibid., 131–33.

4 Quoted in the Commercial & Financial Chronicle, XCIII (December 30, 1911), 1756Google Scholar.

5 Hofstadter, Richard, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (New York, 1967), 29Google Scholar.

6 Sullivan, Mark, Our Times (6 vols., New York, 1946), IGoogle Scholar, 137.

7 Carosso, Vincent P., Investment Banking in America: A History (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 111, 131, 135Google Scholar; Klebaner, Benjamin J., “The Money Trust Investigation in Retrospect.” National Banking Review, III (March, 1966), 394–96Google Scholar.

8 On the one-sidedness of the Pujo investigation see: U.S. v. Henry S. Morgan, et al., “Transcript of Trial: Defendants' Opening — Mr. [Arthur H.] Dean” (December 11, 1950), 708–713; Ibid., “Mr. [Ralph M.] Carson” (January 16, 1951), 1752–53. Consult also Ibid., “Mr. [William Dwight] Whitney” (February 1, 1951), 2618–2620; ibid. (February 2, 1951), 2663–2687; “The Late Pujo Committee,” The Outlook, CIII (March 15, 1913), 568–69Google Scholar.

9 Brandeis, Louis D., Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It (New York, 1914), 10–12Google Scholar.

10 Money Trust Investigation, Report, 164–65.

11 Pecora summarized his and the Senate Banking and Currency Committee's findings in Wall Street Under Oath: The Story of Our Modern Money Changers (New York, 1939)Google Scholar.

12 Wiltz, John E., In Search of Peace: The Senate Munitions Inquiry, 1934–1936 (Baton Rouge, 1963), 27–32Google Scholar.

13 U.S. v. Henry S. Morgan, et al., “Corrected Opinion of Harold R. Medina” (February 4, 1954), 63.

14 Ibid., 392–93.

15 Ibid., “Testimony of Harold L. Stuart — Cross” (March 12, 1952), 13584–87; Ibid., “Transcript of Trial” (May 1, 1952), 15282; Bryson, A. E., “Halsey, Stuart & Co., Inc.: A History” (Chicago [1945]), 6Google Scholar; The New York Times, July 1, 1966.

16 U.S. v. Henry S. Morgan, et al., “Corrected Opinion,” 47.

17 Ibid., 225; Ibid., “Testimony of Harold L. Stuart — Cross” (April 9, 1952), 14818–14823; Ibid. (May 14, 1952), 15858–59. See also Carosso, Investment Banking in America, ch. xxi.

18 U.S. v. Henry S. Morgan, et al., “Corrected Opinion,” 392–93.

19 Ibid., 214.

20 Ibid., 123–24.

21 Compare, for example, Berle, Adolf A. Jr., The Future of American Banking (New York, 1933), 5–6Google Scholar, and Anderson, Benjamin M., Economics and the Public Welfare (New York, 1949), 321–23Google Scholar.

22 Stigler, George J., “Public Regulation of the Securities Markets,” Journal of Business, XXXVII (April, 1964), 124Google Scholar.

23 Carosso, Investment Banking in America, 505. See also Samuel L. Hayes, III, “Investment Banking: Power Structure in Flux,” Harvard Business Review (March–April, 1971), 136–38.

24 Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, 215.