The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-16

come which his permanent investments yield. Upon this income he must chiefly rely, since the salary paid to each mem- Der or the federal reserve board is only S12, GOO.
 How far Mir. Warburgs investments might be affected by strict interpretation or the law he, of course, must be the judge. When Seth Low became mayor Of New York city he parted with every Kind of security which represented In vestments in properties which might di- rectiy or indirectly be accepted by ad- ministrative action on the part of the city of New York. Mayor Lows friends presumed that he made reinvestments in government bonds.
 MT. Warburg is presumably the owner of stock in banks, and he must have been in possession of considerable blocks of stock of railroad or other corporations Would a strict interpretation of the fed eral law compel him to part with secur- ities of this kind? Should he do so. would he be justified in investing funds in government bonds? Bonds of this kind may be affected by the new national banking system and some of the national bond issues are certain to be affected.
 Presumably, with possibly a single ex- ception. President Wilson's other selec- tions for membership upon the federal reserve board are men of considerable property and two at least of them must be in possession of bank stocks, possibly railroad securities. They, of course, must give up salaried offices and no longer serve in drectorates after they have qualified as members of the federal re- serve board. Presumably they will be compelled to rely in part upon other in- ca a riaS a fnaD1harS nf the federal reserve board unless they should take heed of the simple manner in wlJch the supreme court justices at Washington live
 Paid in Honor
 It has been the assumption of those who drafted the national banking law that a place upon the federal reserve board would speedily be esteemed almost as great an honor as a place upon the supreme court bench. It has sometimes been said that the honor would, in fact, be quite as great as is that which is as- socated with a place upon the supreme court bench if the appointments for mem- bership were for life and if after a speci- fled term of service and the reaching of the seventieth birthday life pensions were paid.
 convinced that 1t is not so much the honor which may hereafter be associated with membership upon the federal reserve board as it is the opportunity for what he hopes will be valuable service which has persuaded him to relinquish large in- come by accepting the nomination which President Wilson has made.
 The Greater Service
 Yet possibly MT Warburg gave greater service when he was advocating in various ways in favor of a change in our national banking law so that a new law could be placed upon the statute books refiecting modern conditions and eliminating the rigid and archaic characteristics of the banking law enacted in President Lin- coln's administration.
 After the national monetary commission was well along in the work which it was authorized by Congress to perform, 1t was apparent that the country would not be disposed to accept in full, at least. rec concentrations made by this body. There still fingered feeling of opposition, or at least of suspicion, due to the associa- tion of some men of long continued pub lie service with the national monetary commission. Moreover, the feeling was common throughout many parts of the United States that the work performed by this commission and the recommendation which it was likely to make would reflect exclusively the opinions and interests of bankers.
 For that reason it was deemed expedient that business men who were not identified with banks should begin an agitation both by the printed and by the spoken word whereby the people could be well instruct- ed respecting the imperative necessity, es- pecially in their own interest, of creating new national banking and currency sys- tenn. In this work, MT. Warburg was identified from the beginning of the ag- itation. It is true that he spoke as one