The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1925-01-08
The Financial Revolution.

revolution of about $50 years dura.
ton, had made England the dominant
power. But the financial revolution
of much shorter duration, has made
America the dominant power.
The speaker cited the currents Of
thought in the financial world which
led up to the war, showing an almost
uncanny foresight or deliberate pre-.
paration for the conflict and its ma
terial consequences. From the maya
zine, Commerce and Finance" Of
April Is, 1915, he read quotations say.
ing that the week previous had wit
messed THE financial discovery Of
the United States and opened
a new world reservoir Of credit" The
same paper had prophetically deolar-
ed that America faced ian over.stock
of gold and in payment for war sup
plies to the allies would rather have
American securities held abroad" but
required that "the minimum prices on
shares be removed"
The New Reservoir of Credit.
Mr.. Odds told of the pre-war de.
pendence Of America on the British
banks. the pound sterling being the
standard. But the passage of the fed
eral reserve act in 1913 had released
reserves to the use Of the bankers
and multiplied their credit possibili.
ties by FIVE, which had again been
doubled by the amendment to the act
passed In 1917. This allowed Ameri-
can bankers within nine months after
the war began, to begin reaching out
for world empire. The federal re.
serve act had created "a fourth di.
mensional space in finance and cred
it," that new world reservoir OF cred
it, which the London Financier" i'm.
mediately declared, indicated that
America seeks power"
Fundamentally, the basis of this
power to go out and conquer the
world resided in the American prole-
tariat using American resources. The
capitalists of America by their con-
troll, their dictatorship over the work.
ers who, as class, accepted their ex-
ploitation with docility, profited from
this power by mobilizing it and trans.
forming it into finRnce.imperialis
thru the federal reserve act.
That Deceptive "over.Expansion"
We must not be deceived, the
speaker said, by the domestic view Of
the "over-expansion" Of industry,
which creates a chronic crisis and a
constant margin of unemployment;
for from the joint OF view of finance
imperialism on world scale, this
"over-expansion" is first require
ment Of success in attaining interna-
tional shegemony.
The abolition of minimum prices on
stocks, in view OF Europe's necessity
to buy war supplies at any cost, plac.
ed American stocks previously held
in Europe on the American market
at cut rates. The American interests,
which sold munitions at big profit had
ample surplus to buy these stocks and
had actually took back $4,000, OOO, 900
Of stocks from Europe in the frst two
years or war.
Lowest Proportional Wages.
While the workers, from 1914 to
1917 had suffered a loss OF wages in
proportion to their productivity to the
lowest point in history, American cap
italists were making such undreamed
of profits that they not only bought
back the American securities held in
Europe, but they began, as the British
then said, to look over desirable
properties in Canada and the other
colonies" In fact they had acquired
a grip on every part of the world.
Bear In mind, said the speaker,
that the federal reserve board ls not
a government institution, but Is alb
solutely controlled by the banks.