This section is from the book "Other People's Money And How The Bankers Use It", by Louis D. Brandeis. Also available from Amazon: Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It.
The Pujo Committee has presented the facts concerning the Money Trust so clearly that the conclusions appear inevitable. Their diagnosis discloses intense financial concentration and the means by which it is effected. Combination, - the intertwining of interests, - is shown to be the all-pervading vice of the present system. With a view to freeing industry, the Committee recommends the enactment of twenty-one specific remedial provisions. Most of these measures are wisely framed to meet some abuse disclosed by the evidence; and if all of these were adopted the Pujo legislation would undoubtedly alleviate present suffering and aid in arresting the disease. But many of the remedies proposed are "local" ones; and a cure is not possible, without treatment which is fundamental. Indeed, a major operation is necessary. This the Committee has hesitated to advise; although the fundamental treatment required is simple: "Serve one Master only."
The evils incident to interlocking directorates are, of course, fully recognized; but the prohibitions proposed in that respect are restricted to a very narrow sphere.
First: The Committee recognizes that potentially competing corporations should not have a common director; - but it restricts this prohibition to directors of national banks, saying:
"No officer or director of a national bank shall be an officer or director of any other bank or of any trust company or other financial or other corporation or institution, whether organized under state or federal law, that is authorized to receive money on deposit or that is engaged in the business of loaning money on collateral or in buying and selling securities except as in this section provided; and no person shall be an officer or director of any national bank who is a private banker or a member of a firm or partnership of bankers that is engaged in the business of receiving deposits: Provided, That such bank, trust company, financial institution, banker, or firm of bankers is located at or engaged in business at or in the same city, town, or village as that in which such national bank is located or engaged in business: Provided further, That a director of a national bank or a partner of such director may be an officer or director of not more than one trust company organized by the laws of the state in which such national bank is engaged in business and doing business at the same place."
Second: The Committee recognizes that a corporation should not make a contract in which one of the management has a private interest; but it restricts this prohibition (1) to national banks, and (2) to the officers, saying:
"No national bank shall lend or advance money or credit or purchase or discount any promissory note, draft, bill of exchange or other evidence of debt bearing the signature or indorsement of any of its officers or of any partnership of which such officer is a member, directly or indirectly, or of any corporation in which such officer owns or has a beneficial interest of upward of ten per centum of the capital stock, or lend or advance money or credit to, for or on behalf of any such officer or of any such partnership or corporation, or purchase any security from any such officer or of or from any partnership or corporation of which such officer is a member or in which he is financially interested, as herein specified, or of any corporation of which any of its officers is an officer at the time of such transaction."
Prohibitions of intertwining relations so restricted, however supplemented by other provisions, will not end financial concentration. The Money Trust snake will, at most, be scotched, not killed. The prohibition of a common director in potentially competing corporations should apply to state banks and trust companies, as well as to national banks; and it should apply to railroad and industrial corporations as fully as to banking institutions. The prohibition of corporate contracts in which one of the management has a private interest should apply to directors, as well as to officers, and to state banks and trust companies and to other classes of corporations, as well as to national banks. And, as will be hereafter shown, such broad legislation is within the power of Congress.
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