As a result of the recommendations of the National Monetary Commission, there was presented before Congress the Aldrich-Vreeland Bill - Emergency Currency Act, which had the support of the business men and bankers of the country, in general. Its principles permitted the organization of group banks in numbers of ten, the added capital, of which, as a means of association, would amount to not less than five million dollars, and through which group organization the member banks could make application for securing the circulation of bank notes. One or two other minor emergency changes were recommended, with a trend toward centralization.

But it was evident, however, that these improvements would not suffice. There was something more needed in the banking system of the country. The nation was in need of a better credit system-some standard of commercial paper having possibilities of supporting an open discount market - liquidity of reserves-and a central head which could collect such reserves, and so use them as to be able to render assistance in times of need to any part of the country, and thus foreshadow any troublesome times in the country's economic life.

The next chapter leads us to the Federal Reserve Act and the defects which the system is remedying. Let us see, therefore, how the Federal Reserve System transformed American banking from decentralization to a basis of cooperative and centralized control, and gave to the country a credit system far superior to those previously existing.