A large part of these underwriting commissions is taken by the great banking houses, not for their services in selling the bonds, nor in assuming risks, but for securing others to sell the bonds and incur risks. Thus when the Interboro Railway--a most prosperous corporation--financed its recent $170,000,000 bond issue, J. P. Morgan & Co. received a 3 per cent. commission, that is, $5,100,000, practically for arranging that others should underwrite and sell the bonds. The aggregate commissions or profits so taken by leading banking houses can only be conjectured, as the full amount of their transactions has not been disclosed, and the rate of commission or profit varies very widely. But the Pujo Committee has supplied some interesting data bearing upon the subject: Counting the issues of securities of interstate corporations only, J. P. Morgan & Co. directly procured the public marketing alone or in conjunction with others during the years 1902–1912, of $1,950,000,000. What the average commission or profit taken by J. P. Morgan & Co. was we do not know; but we do know that every one per cent. on that sum yields $19,500,000. Yet even that huge aggregate of $1,950,000,000 includes only a part of the securities on which commissions or profits were paid. It does not include any issue of an intrastate corporation. It does not include any securities privately marketed. It does not include any government, state or municipal bonds. It is to exactions such as these that the wealth of the investment banker is in large part due. And since this wealth is an important factor in the creation of the power exercised by the Money Trust, we must endeavor to put an end to this improper wealth getting, as well as to improper combination. The Money Trust is so powerful and so firmly entrenched, that each of the sources of its undue power must be effectually stopped, if we would attain the New Freedom. HOW SHALL EXCESSIVE CHARGES BE STOPPED?