ABSTRACT
In 1912, the Pujo Committee was created by the US Congress to investigate the activities of bankers and financiers of Wall Street, the so-called Money Trust. Based partly on the affiliations of 18 selected financial institutions, the Committee came to the following conclusion about the power of this community:
[…] the management of the finances of many of the great industrial and railroad corporations of the country engaged in interstate commerce is rapidly concentrating in the hands of a few groups of financiers in the city of New York […], and that these groups, by reason of their control over the funds of such corporations and the power to dictate the depositories of such funds, and by reason of their relations with the great life insurance companies […], have secured domination over many of the leading national banks and other moneyed institutions and life insurance companies in the city of New York […]. [And] that these institutions and their funds are being used to further the enterprises and increase the profits of these groups of individuals […].
(Pujo 1913, 4)