Senator Hitchcock—“Mr. Warburg, _one of the important functions of the board is to guard the gold supply of the country_, and it has been thought that _it is very important to have men on the board who had at heart only the interests of the United States_, and had no foreign interests or alliances. You have said that you proposed to divest yourself altogether of your banking connections in Germany. Have you any other interests in Europe?” “No, not to speak of,” said Mr. Warburg. “I may have very unimportant things, like everybody has; but I could dispose of those; it would not amount to anything.” Senator Hitchcock—“Nothing in the line of banking?” Mr. Warburg—“No.” A few moments later the chairman, Senator Owen, said—(the date was August 1, 1914)—“We are on the eve of a great European war, and the organization of this board is of great national importance.” At this time, Mr. Warburg was a member of the Hamburg firm. He testified (p. 7)—“I am going to leave my Hamburg firm, though the law does not require me to do so.” A part of the German firm of his father and brothers, a part of the American firm to which he and his brother were related by marital as well as financial ties, Mr. Warburg repeatedly said he would break off all business relationships so that he, like Caesar’s wife (to quote himself), should be above suspicion. —— Issue of June 25, 1921. LIX. Jewish Idea of Central Bank for America According to his own statements and the facts, Paul M. Warburg set out to reform the monetary system of the United States, and did so. He had the success which comes to few men, of coming an alien to the United States, connecting himself with the principal Jewish financial firm here, and immediately floating certain banking ideas which have been pushed and manipulated and variously adapted until they have eventuated in what is known as the Federal Reserve System. When Professor Seligman wrote in the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science that “the Federal Reserve Act will be associated in history with the name of Paul M. Warburg,” a Jewish banker from Germany, he wrote the truth. But whether that association will be such as to bring the measure of renown which Professor Seligman implies, the future will reveal. What the people of the United States do not understand and never have understood is that while the Federal Reserve _Act_ was governmental, the whole Federal Reserve _System_ is private. It is an officially created private banking system. Examine the first thousand persons you meet on the street, and 999 will tell you that the Federal Reserve System is a device whereby the United States Government went into the banking business for the benefit of the people. They have an idea that, like the Post Office and the Custom House, a Federal Reserve Bank is a part of the Government’s official machinery.