Pujo Committee reports that they are “qualified allies of the inner group”; and through their “close relations with the National City Bank and the National Bank of Commerce and other financial institutions” have “many interests in common with the Morgan associates, conducting large joint-account operations with them.”
THE EVILS RESULTANT
First: These banker-barons levy, through their excessive exactions, a heavy toll upon the whole community; upon owners of money for leave to invest it; upon railroads, public service and industrial companies, for leave to use this money of other people; and, through these corporations, upon consumers.
“The charge of capital,” says the Pujo Committee, “which of course enters universally into the price of commodities and of service, is thus in effect determined by agreement amongst those supplying it and not under the check of competition. If there be any virtue in the principle of competition, certainly any plan or arrangement which prevents its operation in the performance of so fundamental a commercial function as the supplying of capital is peculiarly injurious.”