The Federal Reserve Bank is a key institution in America’s
economy and society, designed to provide financial stability
by ensuring currency flexibility. As such, since its establishment, the Fed (as the U.S. central bank is known by most observers and businesspeople) has consistently played a vital
role in U.S. economic and monetary policies.
The Federal Reserve system was established during the
second decade of the 1900s, so the history of the monetary
policies and regulations of the Fed goes back only to the early
years of the twentieth century. Prior to 1900, the United
States did not have a central banking and financial system,
but debates on feasible banking reforms actually began in the
mid-nineteenth century. Consequently, it is reasonable to divide the history of the Federal Reserve system into two distinct phases. The first phase, covering the monetary history of
the United States from the second half of the nineteenth century up to the early twentieth century, was dominated by intense discussions on the existing financial and banking structures and the attempts to reform them. Reform proposals
advanced during this period laid the foundations of a banking system regulated by national control, as the Federal Reserve system would be within a few decades. In the second
phase of this history, beginning with the 1913 establishment
of the Federal Reserve system, the focus was on the Fed’s role
and functions in U.S. financial and economic arenas during
the twentieth century.
In nineteenth-century America, the banking system was
shaken by several economic and financial crises, and the effects of these recurrent downturns shaped the debates and
proposals that arose on how to reform that system. As such,
most of the proposed and enacted reforms were thought of as
ways to cope with current financial crises and to stabilize the
currency.
Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century,
there was an economic crisis almost every ten years. The first
one occurred in 1861 and resulted from the Civil War’s effects
on the American financial structure. To deal with this crisis, a
reform was passed to give any national bank the right to issue
paper currency on its own. What economists usually regard
as a national system for chartering banks was thus established. This reform was also the first step toward instituting a
coordinated and regulated monetary system. The second crisis occurred the following decade and was the product of the
government’s efforts to carry out a reform that would have
replaced paper money with specie (payment in gold or silver
only). In this case, the bank reserve system proved too weak
to avoid an overall panic provoked by the demand for bank
reserves. Yet another crisis occurred in the ensuing decade
when, in 1884, the overall stability of the banking system was
threatened by massive international pressures for payment in
gold for American firms’ securities owned by Europeans. Just
nine years later, another major economic and financial crisis
began, caused by the demise of the Reading Railroad and the
failure of the stock market shortly thereafter. The twofold collapse was followed by the failure of other prominent firms.
This major economic distress stimulated, even more than in
the past, discussions and controversies among economists
and bankers on the best way to provide monetary stability
within the U.S. banking system.
During the 1890s, two main proposals were brought before
the business and political communities. The first proposed
bank reform, presented in 1894 at the American Bankers Association meeting by a banker from New York and another
from Baltimore, was known as the Baltimore Plan and rested
on the idea that financial and currency stability could only be
provided by a new currency that was backed by a central fund
provided by the banking system. This central fund would cope
with financial panics and downward economic trends. The
plan foresaw that bank loans to the business community
would have been based on the gold standard (with gold only
as legal tender). The second bank reform proposal arising out
of discussions on the economic crisis of the 1890s came from
a report presented at the 1897 Indianapolis Monetary Convention. According to the author of that report, the economist
J. Lawrence Laughlin, it was critical for the system to be flexible in times of economic uncertainty. As Laughlin argued
about a decade later while reflecting upon the 1907 financial
crisis, monetary stability should be reached through national
control. And in his view, some institution that was wholly free
from politics or outside influence should exert this national
control: By this, however, he did not mean a central bank, as
was later established. Rather than a government-led institution, he proposed a sort of bank of banks, backed by the banking system and committed to regulated banking. This vision
for the achievement of financial and currency stability would
be realized within ten years’ time, when the U.S. economy fell
in the grip of a fifth major economic slump.
A couple of observations should be made regarding these
1890s proposals to reform the banking system. First, both the
Baltimore Plan and the Laughlin report did not have wide
consensus within the business community. The former was
sharply criticized and consistently opposed by many nationwide banks, whereas numerous state-chartered banks and
some small banking institutions did not agree on the Laughlin report.
Second, both these monetary reforms ran counter to the
cause of the silverites (those who wanted silver included as
legal tender) and the silver principles underpinning the Populist protest movement that arose during these financial
crises, especially among midwestern agricultural sectors and
greenbackers (who wanted paper currency used as legal tender) and against the financial elites and industrial development based in the East Coast. The 1896 general elections
brought Republicans back to power. This political turnover
stopped the rise of the Populist movement, whereas the two
bank reforms proposed during the decade reassessed the role
and strength of more traditional centers of power, such as the
bankers and the eastern financial and business communities.
During the first decade of the twentieth century, there was,
as mentioned, a fifth major economic and financial crisis,
which accelerated the move toward a national coordination
of monetary policy and an overall control of the stability and
flexibility of the currency. In fact, the 1907 economic crisis,
which cut the net national product by 11 percent in one year,
looked like a sharp economic downturn that had the potential to lead the country to the brink of a financial collapse.
In 1908 not only economists and the business community
but also politicians and the Congress began to approach the
ongoing economic crisis by planning a reform of the banking
system. For the first time, bank reform was on the top of the
congressional agenda. A number of bills came out of this
wider interest in the problem, and to bring into harmony as
many reform views and interests as possible, a committee was
established. Cochaired by Nelson Aldrich from the Senate
and Edward Vreeland from the House of Representatives, the
committee produced a final bill known by historians and
economists as the Aldrich-Vreeland Act. This act established
the National Monetary Commission, which was led by
Aldrich and Vreeland, appointed chair and vice-chair, respectively. The commission’s work was pivotal to the founding of
the Federal Reserve system. In fact, the report produced by
the commission, widely known as the Aldrich Plan, endorsed
the series of reforms that would result in the creation of the
Fed. Extensively explained in a 24-volume publication, the
Aldrich Plan required that the National Reserve Association
be established—a body that included a Washington-based
central administrative bureau and 15 regional districts that,
in turn, were linked to local commercial banks through their
local associations. Led by 46 directors recruited from among
both the 15 districts and the reserve associations as well as the
government, the National Reserve Association would be responsible for determining the discount rate, issuing currency,
and holding part of the member banks’ reserves. According to
Aldrich and Vreeland, this body, charged with controlling the
banking and financial system, had to be free from political influence and was not to be considered as a central bank. On
the contrary, it was conceived as a bank of banks—an entity
owned by the commercial banks. Members of Congress debated extensively on the nature and meaning of this institution. In particular, there was a controversy on whether it had
to function like a central bank. The National Monetary Commission had clearly stated that the institution should not be
structured like European central banks. Nonetheless, someone in the House voiced the opinion that the National Reserve Association would, in fact, resemble the European central banks structurally.
The monetary institution outlined in the Aldrich Plan,
which would be free from political influences and work unlike a moneymaking institution, was met with interest and received approval from the most prominent banking and business players. The National Board of Trade, the American
Bankers Association, and the most outstanding bankers endorsed the plan early on. The scheme was clearly opposed
only by the Democrats, who depicted it as the product of
conservative-minded Republicans.
In the end, the National Reserve Association envisioned by
the Aldrich Plan was never established. In fact, as a result of
the 1912 general elections, which brought in a Democratic
administration, Democrats started shaping debates and legislation on the reform of the banking system. In his last message to Congress, the Republican president William Howard
Taft had recommended the National Reserve Association, but
the new president, the Democratic Woodrow Wilson, and a
Democrat-dominated Congress stopped the establishment
and implementation of this economic institution. The new
Congress worked over the bill establishing the Federal Reserve system, and the House Committee on Banking and
Currency was appointed to draft this measure. According to
the committee president, Carter Glass, the National Reserve
Association would have been insufficiently controlled by government. He argued that instead of a bank of banks headed
by bankers, what was needed was a central banking agency
that could coordinate the currency issue with the volume of
business; it should be a public utility led by the nonprofit
Federal Reserve Board.
As long as the bill was being worked over by the Senate
and the House, controversy persisted among Congress members on whether the new institution and its governing board
would be tied to American politics. Although legislators
stressed that the Federal Reserve Board should work as a sort
of public coordinator of all private banks, free from political
control, many politicians argued that the Glass bill and the
forthcoming institution would shape a monetary policy influenced by the presidency. Glass replied that the Fed was
aimed at extending democratic control over the banking system. In other words, the Federal Reserve Board should be a
board of control, working on behalf of the interests of citizens. Indeed, the basic principle underpinning most debates
on bank reform in the past—that is, the establishment of an
institution that could grant monetary and financial stability
through a stable currency issue—was still at stake. In fact, according to Glass and his legislators, the Federal Reserve was
consistent with the gold system precisely because the gold
system and the real bills (backed by specie such as gold) could
be coupled with and contribute to the regulation of the
money supply: Glass’s scheme granted every district reserve
in the Federal Reserve system the right to discount only
short-term loans to businesses that created products for sale.
Such a discounting rule adjusted the money supply to the
volume of business by providing as much money as was necessary for commerce. By this monetary policy, the Fed would
be able to promote elasticity in the economy’s money supply.
The birth of the U.S. central monetary institution stimulated discussions not only within the Congress but also, of
course, among bankers and the business community at large.
When the Glass bill was presented, not all the banks were
keen to accept it. The eastern banks were ready to work in cooperation with a central bank dominated by bankers, whereas
the midwestern banks believed that only district reserve associations were necessary. Almost all bankers were skeptical
about the banking system proposed by Glass because they regarded it as too dependent on the government. In any case, by
the end of 1913 when the bill was finally passed in the Congress, the bankers and banking associations had somewhat
changed their opinion on the law. They increasingly viewed it
as a reasonable compromise.
What the Federal Reserve Act lacked was a clear distribution of power and monetary authority between the Federal
Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. This unresolved problem caused conflicts and controversies between
these two bodies up to the 1930s. In fact, after the establishment of the Federal Reserve system, each Federal Reserve
bank started setting its own discount rate; there was no national authority to coordinate the banks as the later Federal
Open Market Committee on Monetary Policy (FOMC)
would do. In the beginning, the district banks prevailed on an
individual basis. Among them, the most relevant was the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Because the most important commercial banks were concentrated in New York City, the New York district bank was
able to challenge the Federal Reserve Board of Washington. In
particular, the district banks challenged the Washington
board by setting up their own organization, the Governors’
Conference, whose members were the heads of their own institutions. Led by the New York Fed and its president, Benjamin Strong, the district banks tried to make open market
purchases and sales of Treasury assets, which eventually
caused a chaotic and uncoordinated situation. In 1922, urged
by the Washington board to coordinate market sales and purchases, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and four other
eastern district reserve banks established a committee in New
York City to make joint purchases and sales. By the early
1920s and up to the New Deal reforms of the 1930s, the balance of power between the Federal Reserve banks and the
Washington Federal Reserve Board started shifting toward
the latter. The progressive waning of influence on the part of
the district banks, caused at least in part by the death of Benjamin Strong, was marked by the Federal Reserve Board’s decision to regulate and limit the right of the Federal Reserve
banks’ committee to make open market purchases and sales.
As a matter of fact, in 1923 the Federal Reserve Board transformed that body committee into a system committee,
known as the Open Market Investment Committee. Everything that the committee chose in terms of open market purchases and sales had to be approved by the Washington board
to become effective. Nonetheless, the growing control over
the open market operations did not end the long-term dispute between the board and the regional banks. At any rate,
in 1930, just before the bank reforms of the 1930s, the Washington board once again changed the structure and functions
of the Open Market Investment Committee—at this time, it
was transformed into the Open Market Policy Conference,
made up by all the Federal Reserve banks’ governors. According to the new legislation, each district bank could leave the
Open Market Policy Conference or choose not to work according to its policy, but the Federal Reserve Board was supposed to be updated on every choice in this regard.
When the United States faced the 1929 economic slump,
the ongoing struggle between the Federal Reserve banks and
the Federal Reserve Board and, above all, the incoherent and
uncoordinated U.S. monetary policy that resulted were
blamed for the economic crisis. This link between the fragmentation of the Federal Reserve system and the Wall Street
crash that occurred in 1929 was probably deepened and intensified by what happened to the Fed in the late 1920s, for
the death of Benjamin Strong in 1928 had sharpened the system’s incoherence by opening an internal struggle for power
within the system.
During the 1930s, the Federal Reserve system was widely
reformed by the New Deal administration of President
Franklin Roosevelt. Indeed, the Roosevelt administration and
the New Deal era are renowned for the overall reforms that
were achieved, so it is worth stressing how the Fed’s reform
was crucial and paramount to the New Deal reform process.
A wide range of sectors in American society, from the federal
government to labor, were affected by New Deal reforms, and
the banking system and the Federal Reserve were on the top
of the New Dealers’ agenda. Such a discredited and criticized
institution as the Fed could not avoid the Roosevelt administration’s reform process. Broadly speaking, during the 1930s
the Federal Reserve system was made more independent of
the banking system and more unified within itself. What is
still discussed among scholars, however, is whether these reforms also made the Fed more independent of the government and the White House. The main cluster of reforms took
place between 1933 and 1935. The Banking Act of 1933 transformed the Federal Open Market Committee into a statutory
body; up to that time, its composition had not changed, for it
was still made up by the 12 heads of the banks. Furthermore,
the Banking Act lengthened the term of appointment to the
board of governors to 12 months. It also started augmenting
the power of the Federal Reserve Board, another main feature
of the Fed reforms taking place throughout the first half of
the 1930s. The board’s power was enlarged by the Thomas
Amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, whereby it
was granted the power to alter the reserve requirements (although this was an emergency power to be exercised only
under the approval of the president).
In 1934 the Glass-Steagall Act required banks to choose
between undertaking investment banking and specializing in
commercial banking—that is, the taking of deposits and
granting of loans. In turn, the 1934 act widened the lending
power of the banks. Thereafter, any Federal Reserve bank was
allowed to make advances to all of its member banks on any
good security whenever it wanted to do so.
All of the acts described thus far were important to the reform of the Federal Reserve system, but the single most significant measure was the Banking Act of 1935, which encompassed all the main features of the reform process taking
place during the 1930s. First, it changed the composition of
both the Federal Reserve Board and the FOMC. The Washington board, renamed the Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System, was still made up of seven appointed members, but their tenure was lengthened to 14 years; even more
crucial, both the secretary of the Treasury and the comptroller of the currency were no longer ex-officio members of the
board. Of course, the change made the Washington board
and the Fed at large more independent of the administration.
This reform had been promoted by the Fed bureaucracy and
in particular by the candidate for the board chair, Marriner
Eccles, but the Roosevelt administration would have preferred that the secretary of the Treasury and the comptroller
of the currency continue to be ex-officio board members. Although the president was still in charge of appointing the
Federal Reserve governors and designating the chair and
vice-chair, the reformulation achieved by the Banking Act of
1935 established a Federal Reserve Board and a system at
large that was independent of the government budget. As a
matter of fact, one of the first results of these reforms was that
the Fed became completely self-financing and did not work
in accordance with either the president’s or the Congress’s
budgetary policies. Further, the 1935 Banking Act strengthened the power and authority of the Federal Reserve Board
not only in respect to the government but also with regard to
the Federal Reserve banks. The restructuring of the Open
Market Committee’s composition in 1935 was aimed at unifying the system and reducing fragmentation by strengthening the role of the board in Washington. The heads of the district banks were renamed presidents of the Federal Reserve
banks, and the FOMC, which once included only the 12 men
who headed the district banks, would now include the seven
members of the Washington board and five of the 12 presidents of the Federal Reserve banks. As such, this reform of the
FOMC widened the influence and power of the Federal Reserve Board by granting it a voting majority on the FOMC.
The Banking Act of 1935 consolidated the wider role of the
Federal Reserve Board. First and foremost, the Board of Governors retained the right to determine the discount rate; consequently, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York could not determine the discount rate on his own anymore. In addition, reserve banks could no longer carry out
transactions on their own—each was now allowed to buy and
sell government securities only on approval by or in accordance with the Federal Open Market Committee. Furthermore, the Board of Governors was charged with setting a ceiling to the interest rates paid by member banks. This
provision, previously granted by the 1933 Banking Act and
now confirmed, constrained the growth of saving accounts
within the commercial banks. One more provision granted
by the Banking Act of 1935 made it clear just how far these
reforms went in consolidating the role of the Board of Governors as the most powerful and important body within the
Federal Reserve system. The board’s power to change the reserve requirements, initially established as an emergency
power in 1933, was transformed into a permanent right; the
board could change reserve requirements within a range
spanning from the minimum percentages specified in 1917
to twice those percentages. Furthermore, as a result of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the board took over the regulation of credit advanced by banks to their customers for buying and carrying registered securities.
Even if the New Deal reforms are regarded as significant
steps forward in terms of augmenting the Fed’s independence
and power, it is clear that in the following years and decades,
the Federal Reserve system was weak both economically and
politically. Its economic weakness resulted from the banking
reforms of the 1930s, whereas its political weakness stemmed
from long-term features of the system itself, deeply rooted in
its origins and policy environment. In the following passages,
the two areas are dealt with separately.
As mentioned, because its unity and cohesion had been
strengthened, the Federal Reserve system was not only more
independent of the government and the district reserve
banks but also more powerful in regard to the commercial
banks and the banking system at large. However, although
the 1930s’ banking reforms granted it more power before the
private banking system and more control over monetary
policy, the Fed actually controlled a smaller monetary system
after 1940. This weakness was the result of one of the banking reforms promulgated in the 1930s. Concerned with the
failure of the banking system, the politicians adopted, as already shown, a number of provisions; the Fed’s reform was
just one of them. Another response was the promotion of
and support given to the thrift (savings) industry. The Roosevelt administration provided the thrift industry with a
number of direct and indirect subsidies, ranging from deposit insurance to public housing programs and from urban
renewal plans to deductible and guaranteed mortgages. This
set of provisions made the thrift industry grow very quickly
shortly after the New Deal era. Still a marginal player in the
1940s, the industry became a giant by the 1960s. Throughout this period, the number of mutual savings banks and
savings and loan associations rose, whereas the thrift industry took over more and more of the mortgage sector. In the
long run, the miracle of the thrift industry widened a financial sector untouched by and far from the Federal Reserve
system. In fact, the thrift industry could rely upon its own
agencies: Registered with state authorities, they could fix
their own reserve requirements, for they were not required
to abide by the Fed’s reserve requirements. In essence, these
financial institutions were quite apart from the Federal Reserve system, and their growth and expansion reduced the
size of the monetary system presided over by the Federal Reserve Bank. By the 1950s and 1960s, only one-third of the
American financial institutions participated in the Federal
Reserve monetary system.
The Fed’s independence of the political system was not
achieved until two decades after the New Deal reforms.
Throughout World War II, the Fed worked according to the
financial needs of the Treasury and Congress. But during the
postwar reconstruction period, its relationships with its political partners started changing. As a result of the inflation
experienced in 1946 and 1947, the Council of Economic Advisers was established to assist the White House, and the federal government’s control over economic issues was strengthened. Given this legislative context and economic situation,
the Treasury thought that the Federal Reserve Bank should
raise interest rates, especially on Treasury debt. But the Fed
insisted on keeping interest rates low.
This controversy, which lasted at least until the onset of
the Korean War in the 1950s, unfolded the dispute about who
should take charge of monetary policy, and in late 1950 and
during 1951, the controversy became a top priority for the
administration of President Harry S Truman. In 1951 the
Fed’s chair, Thomas McCabe, resigned and President Truman
himself had to intervene. A number of meetings among the
Federal Reserve Board, the FOMC, the Treasury, and the Truman administration were held during 1951. Hearings and
meetings led to the Treasury–Federal Reserve accord of 1951
and 1952, an agreement whereby the Fed was no longer required to support the Treasury interest rates. Instead, interest
rates were to become a matter of consultation and agreement
between the two players.
The accord can be regarded as a further step toward independence from politics for the Fed. But real independence
was not reached clearly until as late as 1953, when a new administration came to power. This move toward greater independence, begun under Truman’s watch and carried on by
Eisenhower, was consistent with the history of the Federal Reserve system to that point. Ever since Congress had established the Fed to respond to a pressing economic setback in
America after World War I, successive administrations had
granted the Fed more independence. Thus, the Federal Reserve’s role and independence was consistently decided and
guaranteed by a wide consensus within the political environment of which it was a part.
An overview of the Federal Reserve system’s history
throughout the twentieth century shows that the institution
followed a long route to clearer independence and a more stable organization and structure, mainly based on the crucial
role played by the Federal Reserve Board. This tendency to
become a more reliable economic institution charged with
setting monetary policy continued, as described earlier, even
after World War II. At that time, the Fed could leave behind
the war experience that had tied it once again to political
choices and budgetary issues. Throughout the post–World
War II years, the economic institution continued to grow in
terms of budgets, monetary policymaking, and reliability.
Nonetheless, under the Nixon administration in the
1970s, some disappointments arose in regard to inflation,
and certain economists and presidential advisers were sympathetic to Milton Friedman’s monetarist standpoint. (A
monetarist is an economist who believes the money supply is
the most important economic measure.) As happened in
1970, the Fed chair (in this case William Martin, whose
tenure focused on low inflation and economic stability and a
wide array of other economic indicators) was replaced by a
monetarist policymaker (Arthur Burns). The Fed appeared
poised on the brink of monetarism. Meanwhile, the inflation
rate was climbing, and an even more significant wage-andprice control was put in place. Monetarists used this inflationary tendency throughout the decade to criticize the Federal Reserve system’s structure and independence, and they
blamed the Fed for the inflationary tendency—its immobility and sovereignty were seen as causes for inflation. As such,
the economic trends of the 1970s can be regarded as a pretext
to take on monetarism, a policy Paul Volcker pursued after
being named Fed chair in 1979. Actually, the policy started to
influence American policymaking only when Ronald Reagan
became president in 1981. Under his administration, a tight
monetarism was pursued to tame inflation, at the expense of
the New Deal’s legacies. Throughout the 1980s, monetary
policy making led to a sharp deregulation of the banking system. The Federal Reserve Bank dealt with a mild recession
from 1990 to 1992 in which interest rates were reduced to
help stimulate the economy. From 1992 until the recession of
March 2001, the Federal Reserve worked on other issues, such
as reducing the amount of “float” (financial transactions that
take several days to process, most commonly involving
checks). With the widespread use of direct deposits by employers and debit cards by consumers, the amount of float
declined throughout the 1990s. In 1993 more than $19 billion
of transactions were floating for one to three days. By 1995
that number had dropped to $15.5 billion, and in 2000 the
float amount plummeted to $774 million. The ability to
credit funds instantly allows money to circulate more freely.
Since the recession of March 2001, which some economists believe ended by the summer of 2003, the Federal Reserve reduced interest rates to a 40-year low in an effort to
stimulate the economy. With the prime interest rate at 1.25
percent, the economy has shown some signs of recovery, but
businesses, fearful of future terrorist attacks after September 11, 2001, have remained cautious about reemploying
laid-off workers or investing in more capital equipment.
When the economy no longer is in danger of economic
weakness, the Federal Reserve will once again raise interest
rates to counter inflationary tendencies.
—Simone Selva
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