speeches · May 29, 1936
Speech
Adolph C. Miller · Governor
THE BANKING ACT OF 1955: ITS
SIGNIFICANCE IN AMERICAN MONETARY HISTORY
Address by
ADOLPH C. MILLER,
MEMBER, FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD, 1914 TO 1936,
before the
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BANKERS ASSOCIATION CONVENTION,
May 30, 1936,
10:15 a. m.
Green Brier Hotel,
•White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia.
Released for Publication in the
Morning Papers of Sunday, May 31.
THE BANKING ACT OF 1956; ITS SIGNIFICANCE
IK AMERICAN MONETARY HISTORY
The spirited, not to say acrimonious, controversy which raged a
year ago in connection with certain provisions of Title II of the
Banking Act of 1935 is, I think, mainly responsible for preventing a
fuller understanding and appreciation of the larger significance of
this recent banking legislation in the histor:/ of American financial
policy.
It is to a consideration of the economic and monetary issues under-
lying this legislation that I am therefore venturing to invite your at-
tention today. In connection with such an inquiry the Federal Reserve
System in the past, in the present, and in the future will necessarily
come under review; so also will the remarkable train of circumstances
which have brought about the change or shift in the position of the Fed-
eral Reserve System from what v/as expected and intended by its founders.
Whence have we come, where are we, and whither may we be tending —
these are questions which naturally will arise in the course of such a
review, and in seeking to answer them light will also be thrown upon
the present monetary situation and problem confronting our own and other
countries today. That that situation presents a bewildering confusion
and an unsettling uncertainty needs no emphasis in a gathering of this
character. Nor is it necessary to stress the fact that there is little
reason for believing that the world will again achieve an assured posi-
tion of economic and financial stability and prosperity until the mone-
tary problem is eliminated from the apprehensions and anxieties which
are still delaying recovery not only in our own comtry but throughout
the length and breadth of the world.
In a broad sense it may be stated at once that the Banking Act of
1935 and other recent legislation affecting the Federal Reserve System
undertook to reorganize the control mechanism of the System in order
to insure that the System might be put in a better position to shape
its course effectively in the greatly altered conditions now surround-
ing it, and more particularly to endow the System with new powers made
necessary by the anomalous monetary situation which recent years have
brought to pass. That economic, financial and monetary conditions have
changed profoundly not only in the United States but everywhere since
the Federal Reserve System was set up in 1915 is, of course, appreciated |
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by all who are in any way concerned with banking and financial matters,
but there has been insufficient appreciation, I think, of how deeply
these changes have affected the position and destiny of the Federal Re-
serve System.
Let us then begin by taking a brief look at conditions as they
were at the .inception of the Federal Reserve System.
On the economic side it is to be particularly noted that the pre-
war world exhibited a high degree of economic integration and balance.
This situation was given a rude shock by the World War. The old eco-
nomic balance was badly deranged, and the economic history of the post-
war period is mainly the story of the extreme difficulties which have
been experienced by the world and by the separate countries in attempting
to recover anything approximating the degree of economic stability
which had been enjoyed by them in pre-war days. These changes may not
be overlooked by anyone who would see in adequate perspective the mone-
tary problems confronting every country of the world today.
On the strictly monetary side it is to be noted that the gold
standard system was in full force and effect at the time when the Fed-
eral Reserve System was established. By that standard most of the
countries of the world were tied together into a monetary and economic
system which made for a very high degree of continuity and stability
in financial and economic conditions and relationships, but it was a
standard which for its own efficient operation also required a high
degree of economic balance in the world. It may therefore be said,
first, that the economic balance which existed in the pre-war world
was favorable to the operation of the international gold standard
mechanism, and second, that the gold standard in turn was favorable
to the maintenance of that balance.
In all of the leading commercial countries of the pre-war world
except our own the gold standard as an economic regulator was imple-
mented by central banks. They had been established to assist the func-
tioning of the gold standard as economic and monetary conditions grew
more complicated and delicate, and they had come to be regarded as
integral factors of the gold standard monetary system.
When, therefore, the Federal Reserve legislation was enacted in
1913 it definitely contemplated a banking system built on the foundation
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of the gold standard and set up within the framework of the gold stand-
ard system. It was, in brief, established as a gold standard banking
system. It was intended to provide a more orderly and smoother opera-
tion of the gold standard and thus to secure its full benefits by exer-
cising functions much after the manner of the great European central
banks. It was in no sense set up to supplant the authority of the gold
standard, but rather to supplement it in certain important details of
its operation.
The immediate impuJ.se to the establishment of the Federal Reserve
System, it need hardly be recalled, came from the searching and costly
experiences of the country in the crisis of 1907. That crisis was oc-
casioned by an acute monetary famine and much hoarding of currency. The
System was established for the purpose primarily of preventing a recur-
rence of currency famine in the future, with all of its destructive ef-
fects, by providing a source to which the banks of the country could
turn for additional supplies of money to meet the strain of seasonal or
other more definitely emergency situations. And, in order that this
might be accomplished without in any way impairing the authority or
safety of the gold standard, the Federal Reserve Act of 19.13 scrupulously
and meticulously specified certain safeguards to be observed in the op-
eration of the Federal reserve banks. Among these may particularly be
mentioned the provisions affecting the status of the Federal reserve
note. Immediate convertibility of bank notes into gold was regarded
as an essential in the operation of the classic gold standard. In
order to injure convertibility in all probable circumstances the Re-
serve Act provided, first, that such notes might be issued only
against the deposit of liquid commercial paper, so-called "eligible"
paper in the vocabulary of Federal reserve banking; second, that they
should be protected by a gold reserve of not less than forty per cent;
and third, that no Federal reserve bank should pay out notes issued
by another Federal reserve bank, but should return them promptly to
the issuing bank for redemption. By restricting the operation of the
Federal reserve banks to dealings in liquid paper, and by providing a
system of gold redemption, it was felt that there would be little or
no danger of either excessive issues of currency or unwarranted exten-
sions of credit. The prevention of such excesses was one of the car-
dinal objectives of the gold standard.
Such was, briefly, the nature of the Federal Reserve System as
conceived in 1913. What then happened? By a curious trick of fate
the System never has had an opportunity to function as it was intended
and designed to, for hardly had the Federal reserve legislation been
enacted — the Federal reserve banks had indeed not yet been organized
and opened for business — when the World War broke out. The whole
economic and monetary scene was suddenly changed. With the war came
shattering effects on monetary systems and practices everywhere, and
thus was the course of the Federal Reserve System profoundly changed
at the very moment of its birth as an operating system. Under the
terrific pressures of the war the gold standard gave way. Unprecedented
dislocations in the distribution of the world's total monetary gold
stock occurred early in the war and have never since ceased. The gold
standard emerged from the war badly crippled. The political as well
as economic unsettlement resulting not only from the war but from a
peace which ignored the economic consequences of the extensive terri-
torial changes made by it, and the whole problem of economic readjust-
ment thus presented, intensified as it was by the deeply disturbing
post-war crisis of 1921, still further aggravated the situation so far
as concerned the prospects of an early or successful restoration of
the former international gold standard mechanism. It is not, there-
fore, surprising that the gold standard, on its restoration in Europe
in the middle twenties, encountered great difficulties and finally
broke down under the strain of the post-war depression. Its restora-
tion during the years 1925 to 1928 is probably to be regarded, from a
strictly monetary point of view, as having been premature though pos-
sibly necessary or expedient from the wider point of view of political
and social policy in the chaos overhanging central and western Europe
in the first critical years which followed the close of the war. At
any rate, and whatever may be the ultimate judgment of history, the
results of the restored gold standard were not satisfactory. A few
years sufficed to show that the gold standard mechanism could not
function efficiently as of old in an economic world so far out of bal-
ance and joint as that which then existed. Substantial as was the
progress toward economic reintegration made in the five years preceding
the crisis of 1929, it had nevertheless not reached a point where it
provided a secure foundation on which to rebuild the gold standard
system. The world had not yet again become a gold standard world. It
was still far from it, as shown by the great difficulties which were
almost immediately encountered in the functioning of the newly restored
gold standard and the shifts and devices which had to be resorted to
in order to save the standard from collapse. The gold standard, such
as it was in these years, was predestined to break down. The break
came with the suspension of gold payments by Great Britain in September,
1931. That breakdown has had momentous consequences elsewhere and
strikingly, of course, on the position and future of the Federal Re-
serve System.
It is one of the peculiarities — perhaps they should be called
shortcomings — of the gold standard system that when any of the finan-
cially more important countries is obliged in a period of depression
to abandon the gold standard, its action exerts deflationary pressures
of a serious character elsewhere, partly by reason of the immediate
monetary and economic derangements occasioned, but partly and largely
because of the mental anxieties occasioned in other countries with re-
gard to the safety of their own monetary position. The abandonment
of the gold standard, by Great Britain and the large section of the
commercial world financially tied to London in 1931 therefore had
definite and serious repercussions in the United States and elsewhere.
Early in 1933 gold redemption was suspended here and the gold standard
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abandoned for a period of several months. The following year the gold
standard was restored in a greatly modified form. The gold dollar was
revalued by the establishment of a new mint price of $35.00 per fine
ounce for gold, as compared with the former price of $20.67. A little
later a policy of extensive silver purchases was adopted.
The general effect of this monetary legislation was a still fur-
ther complication of an already confused monetary situation in the
world at large. It had particularly disorganizing effects upon the
distribution of the world's gold and silver supplies. A movement of
gold to the United States of spectacular- dimensions and ominous por-
tent began early in 1934 and has continued without noteworthy inter-
ruption ever since, affected in its rate or intensity first by one
factor, then by another. The United States has during this period
added to its gold monetary stock the entire output of the mines of
the world and, in addition, some considerable amounts of gold previ-
• fe
ously held in private hoards or by central banks.
Such shifts and dislocations in the world'3 gold supply as have
occurred during the past few years are without precedent in monetary
history. Not only have they rendered the position of the gold stand-
ard in the fragment of the world still tenaciously clinging to the j
j
outward form of the gold standard difficult, precarious and probably
untenable, but in addition they present a grave monetary situation
and problem for the United States, and one that preeminently affects
the future position and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve Qystem.
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They have furthermore greatly complicated the problem of a return to
the international gold standard system in the future. It is one of
the strangest ironies of economic history that the United States in
reestablishing the gold standard as a matter of law in .1934 should
have done it on a basis which made necessary the practice of managed
currency as a matter of fact. The huge accessions to our gold supply
which have occurred in the past two and a half years as a result of
the revaluation of gold have carried the surplus reserves of the banks
of the country to a height of three billion dollars, a level never
hitherto even remotely approached or contemplated, and one which
called for a degree of management far beyond the powers of the Fed-
eral Reserve System to deal with before the recent banking legislation.
In review, it may be said that the world has been without the
international gold standard in an effective monetary sense since the
World War began in 1914. The conditions which the successful func-
tioning of the gold standard system presupposes have simply not ex-
isted. In consequence, the Federal Reserve System has never had an
opportunity to function or develop as a gold standard system. Almost
'from the beginning of its organization one anomalous situation after
another has arisen to change its course. The large influx of gold
into the United States v/hich arose not long after the outbreak of the
war, our own entry into the war in 1917 and the necessity under which
it placed the Federal Reserve System of assisting Government financ-
ing, the peculiar character of the 1920-1921 crisis, confronted the
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System quite ea-ly in its life with a series of situations for dealing
with which there were no established gold standard principles. The
guiding principle of central banking administration in the old gold
standard world was the state of the reserves and of the foreign ex-
changes, more specifically the reserve ratio: unfavorable exchanges
and a declining reserve ratio were usually taken as indicating the
necessity of preventive or protective action, just as favorable ex-
changes and a rising reserve ratio usually were taken as the occasion
for discount rate action downwards; but in the conditions which have
surrounded the Federal Reserve System throughout almost its entire
life, reserve ratios have hud little or no significance as guides to
policy or action. The System was therefore obliged to develop substi-
tutes for the reserve ratio. It was in something of the position of a
mariner sailing an uncharted sea with broken compass and therefore
forced to set his course by the stars. With the reserve ratio no
longer a trustworthy reliance, and thrown back upon its own devices,
the Federal Reserve System gradually developed a procedure in which
it came to look to the state of trade, industry and employment, the
movement of prices and much other such data, monetary as well as eco-
nomic, as more appropriate aids. This was true even during the brief
period of time when it was mistakenly thought that the gold standard
had been restored in Europe after 1925. Central banks and governments
there, like the Federal Reserve System here, found themselves obliged
to resort to practices under the pressure of economic or financial
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necessity which were not consonant with the traditional nor, as events
soon proved, with the useful operation of the gold standard. Currency
and the exchanges were managed: they had to be managed. Speaking un-
sentimentally and in a matter-of-fact way, the world in which the Fed-
eral Reserve System began its career became and is today a managed
currency world with, it may be added, considerable variety both in the
types and in the objectives of management, but all of them having this
feature .in common, namely, that they are surcharged with highly nation-
alistic impulses, and thus completely out of step with the requirements
of the gold standard, which envisions the currencies of the different
countries as also a common or world currency.
When the existing confusion will end. no one can say, nor is there
as yet any clear indication as to what the future international mone-
tary order will be when one is again restored. With all the undoubted
progress that has been made in recent years in the field of monetary
analysis and theory, the problem of the place of gold in the monetary
systems of the future has not yet been fully clarified. The problem
is still approached by too many in a prejudiced if not a partisan at-
titude of mind. There is altogether too little appreciation on the
one hand of what gave to the gold standard system its ascendancy in
the pre-war period; on the other hand there is and has been too little
appreciation of what has made currency management a necessity in the
post-war period and given it its vogue during the depression. There
is also too little appreciation by some and too much exaggeration by
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others of why,.in the present state of economic disorganization, mone-
tary restoration and economic restoration may not usefully be regarded
as separate problems. They are rather to be regarded as parts of a
common problem calling for coordinated plans and joint efforts if a
safe and tenable terrain on which to build a stable monetary and eco-
nomic order in the future is to be attained.
Looking over the economic history of the past fifteen years, it
has not yet been demonstrated that an effective substitute has yet
been found for the type of monetary discipline imposed upon the beha-
vior of the modern credit and business system in a time of business
expansion by the gold standard in the days of its effective function-
ing. It has also yet to be demonstrated on the other hand that the
delicate credit and investment mechanism can endure and survive the
unmitigated rigors of the gold standard regimen in a time of impending
or threatened business depression. So much, I think, seems clear in a
situation that for the most part has been and still is obscure, con-
fused and baffling, and such was the situation which confronted Con-
gress when it undertook to provide for a freer orientation of the Fed-
eral Reserve System and a readaptation of the structure of the System
in order to make the American monetary and credit mechanism more com-
petent to deal with conditions which had never been contemplated at
t
the time the Federal Reserve Act was enacted, but which nevertheless
had to be recognized. Another fact which had to be recognized was
that the Federal reserve banks as originally conceived were not in all
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respects well adapted or designed to deal effectively with the larger
and more definitely national issues of monetary and credit policy in
the United States requiring System action. The shortcomings of the
System in this respect became clear when the several Federal Reserve
banks early in the twenties be&an to engage, each for itself, in open
market operations. Such separate and independent action in the na-
tional money market made each Reserve bank not merely potentially but
actually a monetary authority in the United States whenever it might
engage in open market operations on any considerable scale. Money and
credit in the United States are highly fluid. The dollar of currency
issued or the dollar of credit created by any one of the twelve Fed-
eral reserve banks is regional only in origin. Such currency and
credit are national in their character, circulation and economic ef-
fects. The boundaries of the twelve Federal reserve districts are at
most economic frontiers, not in any sense monetary frontiers. Our
monetary frontiers are national, not regional. When, therefore, the
Federal reserve banks in their separate capacities undertake to deal
with questions of credit policy (discount rates, open market opera-
tions, etc.) they are in effect, though not perhaps consciously, deal-
ing with interests which are of national concern and as such should
be made the responsibility of some agency of monetary control repre-
senting the Federal Reserve System as a whole and functioning as a
control national in its consciousness and sense of responsibility.
What has preceded supplies the background of the legislative
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problem which was presented to Congress in undertaking to reshape the
Federal reserve organization. The Banking Act of 1935 was its solu-
tion. The attitude of mind in which the solution was sought seems
clearly to have been to do what was necessary, to do only what was
necessary, and to do it in a way which would involve a minimum of dis-
location of the existing Federal reserve organization and a minimum of
disturbance of the deeply rooted habits of regional life and conscious-
ness which had determined the original structure of the Federal reserve.
Unimportant though the regional frontiers might be as monetary fron-
tiers, they were and are far from unimportant as social, economic and
cultural frontiers. As such they were respected in the Act of 1955.
And thus a problem which was perhaps simple as a mere proposition of
theory or monetary logic, in fact called for the exercise of a high
degree of legislative judgment. The problem was further complicated
by reason of the fact that there were other factors — Political,
financial, etc. which had to be considered in the effort to reach a
balanced and satisfactory solution of the form of centralized author-
ity most appropriate in the Federal Reserve System, more particularly
as regarded the bitterly controverted question of the make-up of the
Open Market Committee.
The solution which emerged in the Banking Act of 1935 followed
our traditional principle of check and balance in the form given to
the set-up of the governing authority in the Federal Reserve System.
Two authorities in fact are recognized and are assigned separate
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responsibilities in the determination of the chief questions of Federal
reserve policy even though these responsibilities relate to problems
which have so much in common that it was contended that the responsi-
bility should be concentrated in a single body.
The former Federal Reserve Board is succeeded by the new Board of
Governors of the Federal Reserve System. It is noteworthy that in the
title of the new Board the twelve Federal reserve banks are now con-
ceived of as constituting a System and for the first time recognized
as an entity requiring its own separate governing authority. The
Board of Governors is given either exclusive authority, ultimate re-
sponsibility or a preponderant voice in the exercise of the three most
important instruments of system or national credit policy. It has ex-
clusive power to change reserve requirements of member banks — a new
and powerful expedient of both banking and credit control. It has ul-
timate responsibility in the determination of discount rates, and
through its majority membershin .in the all-important Federal Open Mar-
ket Committee it has potentially at least a controlling position in
the Committee.
The Federal Open Market Committee, though it had been established
as early as 1923 by the Federal Reserve Board for reasons of admin-
istrative expediency, was first given a statutory status in the Banking
Act of 1933. Its authority was limited and its membership was limited
to the twelve Federal reserve banks, the former Federal Reserve Board
occupying a position of secondary influence in the formulation of open
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market policies. The adoption or implementation of the policies rec-
ommended by this Committee, even when approved by the Federal Reserve
Board, was, however, optional with each of the twelve Federal reserve
banks, this being in accordance with the original regional design.
To improve this situation the Open Market Committee was given by the
Act of 1935 an authoritative status and supreme pov/er by being in-
vested with the exclusive authority to make and enforce the open mar-
ket policy of the System, the separate Reserve banks being obliged to
engage in such operations in the purchase or sale of securities as
the Committee might decide should be undertaken. Having plenary power
in all matters of open market operations, this Committee is to be re-
garded as the most important single organ of monetary control existing
in the Federal Reserve System.
In concentrating in the thus reconstituted authorities of the Fed-
eral Reserve System the power to act for the System, it was recognized
that there were hazards and that safeguards should, therefore, be es-
tablished in order to reduce the risk of an injudicious exercise of
the great powers given to them. The hazard against which safeguards
appear particularly to have been sought was the danger of interference
with the free exercise of its best .judgment by either the Federal Open
Market Committee or the Board of Governors in the matters which con-
stituted their particular responsibilities. The interferences which
were feared were attempted banker or financial control 011 the one hand
and so-called political control on the other hand.
The set-up of the Federal Open Market Committee perhaps best ex-
hibits the existence of these fears. It was sought to reduce the
hazard of financial control in the decisions of the Committee by
giving seven of its twelve seats to the Board of Governors. On the
other hand, it was sougnt to avoid the element of political influ-
ence in open market policy by refusing to commit the open market au-
thority to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board of Governors, as
some had proposed, and by giving to the Reserve banks representation,
even though a minority representation in the Committee, their five
representatives being chosen by the Reserve banks organized into re-
gional groups for this purpose.
To remove the Board of Governors from susceptibility to political
control, the Banking Act of 1935 terminated the membership of the
Secretary of the Treasury and of the Comptroller of the Currency on
the Board after February 1, 1936. The Board then became a Board of
seven members, the full term of membership was made fourteen years and
no member who had served a full term might be reappointed. The head
of the Board (now designated as Chairman), instead of holding office
at the pleasure of the President, under the new Act is designated for
a period of four years. The purpose of these changes appears to have
been to give the Board of Governors a more independent status at the
very moment when it was also being given a more authoritative status
and responsibility in the larger affairs of the Federal Reserve System
with respect to the determination of the fundamental matter of credit
policy under the conditions of today.
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A further and most important safeguard to insure careful exercise
of their respective authorities by both the Federal Open Market Com-
mittee and the Board of Governors is to be found in the requirement
imposed by the new banking act that each of these bodies shall make a
complete record of all action taken by it, of the reasons for the ac-
tion, and of the votes of the members participating. This record is
to be published annually in the report of the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System.
This requirement marks a long step toward the development of a
reasoned and orderly procedure in the conduct of the Federal Reserve
System without, however, it should be particularly noted, any attempt
on the part of Congress to prescribe what the procedure should be.
As such it constitutes not only an innovation in the Federal Reserve
System but in central banking generally. Great importance, I think,
is to be attached to this feature of the new banking legislation. It
may v/ell be expected that in time the new requirement may turn out to
be one of the most far-reaching and constructive changes made by the
Act, not only as a safeguard but also as an incentive. It does not
seem to be extravagant to hope that under the compulsion and impulsion
of this provision of the Act there will in time be forged out of the
mind and the experience of the Federal Reserve System a deeper and
fuller understanding of the relationships existing between the mone-
tary processes and the economic processes, a more competent interpreta-
tion of the factors involved in the interplay of the monetary mechanism
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and the economic mechanism, a larger conception of the national eco-
nomic interest, and a truer orientation of Federal reserve attitude and
policy to that interest, and eventually result in making the Federal
Reserve System one of the most vital organs of our national economic
life, such as I believe it is destined to become.
This completes my comments on a few of the principal provisions
of the Act and the circumstances which called them forth. An important
and controverted piece of legislation like the Banking Act of 1955 may,
however, sometimes got a significance urom what it omits as well as
from what it contains, and to one of the notable omissions of the Bank-
ing Act of 1935 I desire to advert in conclusion.
Special interest, I think, attaches to the elimination from the
bill as finally enacted of the provision contained in the bill as first
passed by the House formulating an objective toward the attainment of
which the Federal Reserve System was directed to exert its influence.
The Act as finally approved, in preserving for the governing authori-
ties of the System a free hand to develop in their own way and without
legislative interference the procedure best suited to the rapid shifts
of circumstance and conditions in the present extraordinary period of
flux instead of yielding to the oft-repeated proposal earnestly made
by the advocates of a managed currency regime that the Act should carry
a formula for the guidance of the Federal Reserve System, is to be com-
mended .
A further and perhaps an oven larger significance attaches to the
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omission just referred to. The inclusion of a formula, when taken
along with other fundamental changes made by the Act, would almost
certainly have been regarded as the setting up of a permanent mone-
tary authority in the United States as a matter of settled national
policy, and thus have carried most serious implications as regards
the future of the gold standard.
The future of gold and of the gold standard have not yet been
determined, nor will it bo determined by the action of any one country.
It follows that until the role v/hich gold is to play in monetary sys-
tems of the future is settled the role to be played by managed cur-
rency cannot be settled on a permanent basis. The management of
money within the framework of the gold standard is a very different
business from what it is without it. That money management will have
a larger part in central banking in the future than it had in the old
gold standard world does not admit of doubt, but how much larger that
part will be will depend upon the form in which the international gold
standard mechanism is eventually restored, and also on how nearly and
how soon an economic world suited to that standard is restored. Con-
gress therefore, I think, acted wisely in avoiding including anything
in the Act of 1935 which might have foreclosed or embarrassed the un-
prejudiced and unobstructed reconsideration and determination of the
eventual monetary system of the United States when conditions are ripe
for the determination. The Act as passed contains 110 suggestion of
an expectation 011 the part of Congress that the gold standard system
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is to be superseded in law or in effect by any new form of permanent
monetary control.
The Act of 1935 made only such dispositions as were clearly
thought necessary to deal with conditions as they were. Few pieces
of important legislation have ever been approached by the American
Congress in a more realistic spirit than the banking legislation of
1935. This legislation is not understood unless it is appreciated
that it concerned itself with conditions — not with theories. It
kept within the frontiers of the necessary and avoided all unneces-
sary penetration into the dark. It did not, therefore, undertake to
predetermine, even by implication, the future monetary course of the
United States farther than circumstances purely indicated to be im-
mediately necessary in order that the Federal Reserve System might
be made reasonably competent to function effectively in the rapidly
moving world of today. The monetary future of the country in a more
permanent sense it left for determination in the future.
What that future will bo and what the future of the Federal Re-
serve System will therefore be are still uncertain and must remain so
until the statesmen and the peoples of the world discover that the
way back to stable and prosperous conditions for the nations must be
by reestablishment of an economically integrated world and the re-
establishment of a common or international currency which will command
the respect and confidence of mankind. That the international currency
of the future, as was that of the past, will be based on gold may not
be doubted. This is becoming clearer and clearer every day. The
welter of confusion into which the world has in recent years been
projected by the widespread resort to national currencies with their
constricting effects upon trade among the nations and therefore upon
their industry and prosperity has made it clear beyond peradventure
that gold offers the only solid foundation upon which to reconstruct
the monetary systems of the future, to release the spirit of enter-
prise from the captivity of fear, and to restore to western civiliza-
tion its self respect.
Cite this document
APA
Adolph C. Miller (1936, May 29). Speech. Speeches, Federal Reserve. https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19360530_miller
BibTeX
@misc{wtfs_speech_19360530_miller,
author = {Adolph C. Miller},
title = {Speech},
year = {1936},
month = {May},
howpublished = {Speeches, Federal Reserve},
url = {https://whenthefedspeaks.com/doc/speech_19360530_miller},
note = {Retrieved via When the Fed Speaks corpus}
}