Our Reigning Bankocracy Orders the Workers' Living Standards Reduced!
Our Reigning Bankocracy Orders the Workers' Living Standards Reduced! WE devote the main space on this page this Week to this story by the Washington correspondent of the Federated Press. The...
...But the Socialists won't go along for reaaons good and sufficient...
...Albert H. Wiggin, until recently chairman of the Chase National Bank, Frey testified, was the first prominent capitalist in the country to demand that industrial wages be reduced...
...The Fur Will Fly at the New Leader Dinner MEXT Friday The New Leader's family 1 ' will celebrate a. big birthday party...
...They have the money vats and have the financial power to dictate labor policies...
...Testimony as to just how the bankers' decree of wage reductions was carried down through the industries, was postponed until January 31...
...This is the basic fact in this period of a decaying capitalism...
...Filbert, W. S. Gifford, D. F. Houston, Thomas W. Lamont, former Governor Nathan L. Miller of New York, Julius S. Morgan, Jr., and Myron Taylor...
...The information should be available for every victim of the mismanagement of our industrial system, A few great banking corporations are today dictators whose decrees affect millions of farmers and workers...
...He showed that the 133 directorships in rail and other transportation companies held by the Chase National directors reach into every section of the country and into Canada and South America...
...and he will be there to tell the Socialists why they should get together with his followers to toss Tammany onto the garbage heap...
...Had the bankers opposed the demand for wage reductions by the railroads," Frey contended, "no such demand would have been made...
...The upper layers are the bank, the Chase Securities Corporation, and the Chase-Harris-Forbes Corporation...
...The Other board members were George F. Baker, Farrell, W..J...
...Frey charged that Wiggin served notice on "one of the largest publications in this country" that if it did not cease advocating the maintenance of a high wage standard, it would "probably lose advertising...
...In that same year President Farrell of the United States Steel Corporation declared against wage cuts, saying that such a move would be economically unsound and socially and politically dangerous...
...The spiral of unemployment and social misery steadily widened...
...And if the bankers demanded it, the railroads could not avoid it...
...Ia there a basla upon which the Committee of 1,000, the City Party, the Citisena' Union ami sntlKoenig Republican elementa can unite with the Socialists aolely to.drlve out Curry and Curryism...
...The Morgan-Wiggin policy, Frey told the senators, was to use their power of withholding all credit, to compel every employer to cut wages, regardless of his profits...
...Drawing upon official directories of directors for his material, Frey showed 4htt a handful of private banking firms—J...
...only through directorship on Morgan banks, such as the Guaranty Trust Co...
...He wanta a general, elty-wide anti-Tammany fusion, and he will urge the Socialists to get Into it...
...Senator Black displayed the latest issue of the National City Bank's economic bulletin, in which that bank opposes the shorter work-day and workweek, and demands a further cut in wages...
...Who better to explain why than Morris Hillquit and Norman Thomas...
...They'll be there, and they will tell all and aundry why the Party muat decline...
...Farrell soon afterward "resigned," and United States Steel announced its first wage cut as a signal to all other big employers to liquidate labor standards...
...Frey said that Wiggin had been "the guiding spirit" in forcing wage reductions and demands for wage cuts by the railroads and other utilities...
...The Ninth Anniversary dinner, which will be held February 10th at Webater Hall, will resolve itaelf into a highly important political symposium...
...J. P. Morgan was chairman of the poard of United States Steel...
...As uaual, the anniversary of the appearance of The New Leader will be celebrated with a dinner at which notable apeakera will discuss an important aubject before the public at the moment, and aa uaual many hundreds of readers and aupportera of The New Leader will gather to celebrate the work of the past year and to pledge their support for the forthcoming year...
...The New Leader ia beginning ita tenth year of existence, and.ita large famity of readera and supporters realize that its services art more needed than ever before...
...Loeb & Co., •Dillon, Read & Co., and a few others—are so interlocked, through their directorates, with the dominant commercial banks, as to control an army of directors who in turn represent 4he interests of these great commercial banks on the boards of all other banks, the railroads and steamship lines, the utility corporations and the manufacturing and mining companies of this continent...
...Wiggin led in this demand...
...Now aa to Fiorello H. LsGuardia, the peppery Little Major...
...While these men were closely interlocked with Morgan banks 01 industrial concerns, Wiggin and the National City Bank were related to Morgan & Co...
...P. Morgan & Co., Kuhn...
...The publication was not named...
...By Lawrence Todd Scores of millions of Americans are impoverished and hungry or in despair today because a little group of bankers in New York have decreed wage reductions and other degradation of labor standards throughout American industries, according to John P. Frey, secretary of the Metal Trades Department of the American Federation of Labor...
...After the guests have finished disposing of the dinner the decks will be cleared for action, and four speakers will take up one of the moat Important questlona before the public of New York...
...He issued this decree in 1931...
...As wages went down, employment fell, because workers' buying power was less...
...Measures for the relief of the starving cannot be adopted without their consent...
...He ia on* of the moat dynamic, moat interesting and moat exciting men in New York...
...In the past twenty years they have ascended to the top of the capitalistic pyramid...
...Wiliam Jay' Schieffclin thinka there Is, and he will be at the dinner to tell why he thinks so...
...Maybe their reasons won't convince everybody, but a grand argument ia promised, and that's what New Leader dinners are always good for...
...The 24 largest banks had, through their directors, 6,250 directorships in the business field...
...Frey testified to this effect before the Norris-Black subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee while endorsing the Black 30-hour work-week bill...
...Seven of the private banks *re represented on the board of the Chase National, which in turn has 69 directorships in other commercial banks, 262 in miscellaneous corporations, 82 in insurance companies, 236 in manufacturing corporations, 133 in transportation companies and 73 in public utility corporations—a total of 855 directorships radiating from the" board room where Wiggin gave orders...
...The Socialist program has never been more essential than now...
...Here is the story of the banking over-lordship that dominates our lives...
...They order wage slashes in a whole range of industries and the cuts are made...
...Should all political elements of the city that are oppohed to Tammany Hall unite to clean out that organisation...
...Frey closed his preliminary testimony by showing that 21 holding companies and 2 voting trusts have been built up between 8 gas-producing companies in and near the District of Columbia and the Chase National Bank, to draw off the big profits paid by consumers...
...The directories of 1930 gave the eight chief commercial banks in New York a total of 310 directorships in other banks or corporations...
...These financial oligarchs also dictate to city and state governments...
...or the Bankers' Trust Co., or transportation, insurance or manufacturing companies...
...It would substitute industrial democracy for financial oligarchy...
...you don't have to agree with him, and he would be surprised if you did, but no one ever found him dull or unintereating...
Vol. 15 • February 1933 • No. 5
