YOU have seen the birth of the monster; you have seen how it conscripted its capital at a petty six per cent interest rate; you have seen how it commandeered--at no interest rate--the mightiest mass of deposits ever gathered together on earth and you have seen how it did these things by its absolute control over the money and over the destinies of the National Banks in the United States. It could and it did and it does practically control their affairs. But it could not--except by intimidation, by oppression or by practical banditry--control the State Banks of the United States. It could not legislate them into its sheep pen for shearing, but it could attempt to intimidate, bulldoze and banditize them. This it attempted to do in this wise: One of the chief specialties of this Federal Reserve System of applied banditry is to attempt to force every bank in the United States--whether a member of its Shylockery or not--to collect checks for its benefit and advantage for nothing. In other words, where it couldn't conscript nor commandeer--purely for its own sordid profit--it proceeded to bulldoze. There are just two ways to collect money on checks, one by presenting them at the counter of the bank on which they are drawn and getting the cash and the other by sending them through the mail for remittance by draft drawn on some large city depository. The latter method obtains in 99 per cent of the hundreds of millions of checks drawn. The bank upon which the check is drawn makes a small charge of one tenth of one per cent to compensate for clerk hire, postage, stationery and the like. It is a perfectly legitimate charge in vogue and practiced for generations in banking circles. But the Federal Reserve System, with its customary greed, insists upon sandbagging this service for nothing. This arrogant rule--purely for its own sordid profit--it could and did and does enforce against its conscripted and commandeered National Banks. But State Banks--not wearing the Federal Reserve yoke of bondage--were at liberty to make the usual collection charge of one tenth of one per cent. Thereupon the Federal Reserve System had a series of fits and fell into them. From an enormous number of its banditries three typical ones are selected for your observation--merely straws showing whence blow the most arrogant winds of oppression. First take a look at the Cones State Bank of Pierce, Nebraska. "I don't want a smug lot of experts to sit down behind closed doors in Washington and play Providence to me." That is what President Wilson said--on page 60 of his book, "The New Freedom"--before he, himself, was sitting tight "behind closed doors in Washington."