Page:Other People's Money - Louis Brandeis.djvu/21

 OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY AND HOW THE BANKERS USE IT

CHAPTER I OUR FINANCIAL OLIGARCHY

PRESIDENT WILSON, when Governor, declared in 1911: "The great monopoly in this country is the money monopoly. So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men, who, even if their actions be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who, necessarily, by every reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. This is the greatest question of all; and to this, states-