The Secrets of the Federal Reserve

by Eustace Clarence Mullins

Mullins presents some bare facts about the Federal Reserve System with subjects it IS NOT a U.S. government bank; it IS NOT controlled by Congress; it IS a privately owned Central Bank controlled by the elite financiers in their own interest. The Federal Reserve elite controls excessive interest rates, inflation, the printing of paper money, and have taken control of the depression of prosperity in the United States.

Genres: Economics, Politics, History, Conspiracy Theories, Nonfiction, Finance, Historical

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Eustace Mullins was an American political writer, author, biographer. As of 2005, He was a member of the Southeast Bureau editorial staff of far-right, even some would say Fascist, Willis Carto's American Free Press. He was also a contributing editor to the Barnes Review.

Eustace Mullins was educated at Washington and Lee University, New York University, the University of North Dakota and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (Washington, D.C.)

Mullins was a student of the poet and political activist Ezra Pound. He found common ground with Pound in their extreme anti-Semitism. He states that he frequently visited Pound during his period of incarceration in St. Elizabeth's Hospital for the Mentally Ill in Washington, D.C. between 1946 and 1959. Mullins claimed that Pound was, in fact, being held as a political prisoner on the behest of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mullins' most notable work, Secrets of the Federal Reserve, was commissioned by Pound during this period, and written in consultation with George Stimpson, founder of the National Press Club.

Reviews

[David Lentz · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have heard a great deal from "free market" economists about the "invisible hand of the market" and this book offers a vividly clearer account of whose hand is actually moving the market. How is that a private institution with Federal Reserve in its brand can hold so much power and yet remain so unaccountable to any other Federal branch? This book certainly explains the positions taken by the Fed during the massive bailout to New York banks. How is it that the Fed remains unaudited given the fiduciary trust that Americans have placed in it? The Federal Reserve is not a Federal government entity and yet issues fiat currency for our great nation and dictates the interest rates that we pay. Have you found curious all the numbers bandied about by diverse members of Congress on the extent of our national debt? But if the Fed is unaudited, how can we be sure of the accuracy of any quoted number? The history of the secret meeting of bankers at Jekyll Island, the prolific connection to the Rothschild family, JP Morgan and Paul Warburg's roles in creating the Fed, their endless tradition of war funding, their root causes of panics and depressions, and links to other shadow government groups easily render this book deeply disturbing. Now I understand Alan Greenspan's idealogical adoration of Ayn Rand's "selfish," heroic capitalism. It explains the chauvinistic acceptance of the Chicago School's doctrine in Milton Friedman's widely revered, free market, economic theory. It explains how secretive, conservative, elite shadow groups manipulate puppet politicians who in effect are on their payrolls. It explains why the top 1% of Americans in income somehow deserve a tax break while maneuvering so disingenuously to balance the budget on the backs of the radically, economically disadvantaged. It explains why GE, Verizon, Citigroup and many other Fortune 500 Companies pay zero corporate taxes and why oil companies have so many tax breaks despite their epic profitability. This book explains the invisible hand of the market that is strategically and brutally bent upon strangling the great American Middle Class. The invisible hand of the market can't abide the thought that keeps the elite awake at night: somewhere someone unworthy and poverty-stricken owns a pittance to which the elite is somehow entitled. Please be advised that the invisible hand of the market plans to enslave the Middle Class. Consider the fate of the truly heroic American poet, Ezra Pound, sentenced without a trial to an insane asylum for treason for 13 years as he sponsored at great personal expense the truth evident in the early publication of this book. One legal approach to remedy the inhumane, corporate self-interest creating chaos by this unConstitutional, private, central bank is to audit and then to nationalize the Fed under the full control and accountability of the US Treasury Department. Restore the Chinese Wall of Glass-Steagall between banking and investment banking, which helped us fend off depression until the Bush era of deregulation, and perhaps we shall regain real, long-term, economic stability. Read this book and then preview on Google "U.S. Supreme Court - Schechter Poultry v. U.S., 29 U.S. 495, 55 U.S. 837.842. (1935)". The ultra-conservative agenda now to radically eliminate debt is highly likely to become the root cause of the next severe, short-term, economic contraction. It seems that nothing is more profitable for the private shareholders of the Fed than global chaos.

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great reference book but I honestly had to force myself to finish reading it. Mr. Mullins is understandably upset that his original research for this book has been plagiarized without credit from various other authors on the subject. He was the man commissioned by Ezra Pound to investigate the money system of the US. Mr. Pound was unable to do this himself as he was being held as a political prisoner, presumably on the grounds of mental infirmity.

What Mr. Mullins fails to appreciate is that while he is a thorough and dedicated researcher he hasn't a clue how to present his material in a compelling manner. This subject is of paramount importance to the concerned citizenry of this planet. Anyone that truly cares about it should hope that it is broadcast by the most effective producers.

That said, I would recommend my favorite books on the subject first:
"The Creature From Jekyll Island"
"Web of Debt"

"The Secrets of the Federal Reserve" is a great reference work if you want names, dates, associations, and quotes. Or, just buy it to pay credit to the book that lays the cornerstone of all financial truth.

[Jade Anders · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is groundbreaking and the subject has probably never been written about in so much depth. I'm having trouble finishing it just for the fact that every two sentences I throw the book down in disbelief and sit there pondering all the other facts it brings up. This book is shocking. And you could probably sit there and research every single accusation it makes and fall down the rabbit hole forever. One of the most shocking facts I've had to come to terms with, is the fact that we are still being controlled by Britain, and we don't have the freedom America was supposedly built on. Mass media has been manipulated a lot longer than we thought, in order to sway and distract us. There are currently two copies of this book in my house now, because everyone wants to read it.

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Documentation of the corruption and agenda of the occupying minority of our country.

[Randall Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is exceptionally well cited and documented. It covers the tale of our current global financial situation from its inception at "Mayer Amschel Bauer's Goldsmith Shop in Frankfurt in 1773. Bauer, who adopted the name "Rothschild" or Red Shield from the red shield which he hung over his door to advertise his business."

If even a small but significant fraction of society were to read this book it would only take an election cycle or two for real changes to take place. I read this book with a highlighter in hand. I could have highlighted something of importance on every page.

The directors of the Federal Reserve System have all along been able to get away with every scenario they chose to enact because the people were not able to understand what was happening. They were led to believe that mysterious forces caused great and bad things to happen. That's totally hogwash. The only reason they were able to get away with this for so long, there was no internet. We now have the power to learn together and share our findings so that once esoteric facts become common knowledge. There is a whole lot of truth in the expression knowledge is power.

Reading this is a relatively small time to invest in something so important at this moment in our history. We can stop this cycle of feast and famine, we just need to create a political will in the people to get it done.

From Chapter 13 --

Before the House Banking and Currency Committee on June 24, 1941, Governor Eccles said:
"Money is created out of the right to issue credit-money."

Turning over the Government’s credit to private bankers in 1913 gave them unlimited opportunities to create money. The Federal Reserve System could also destroy money in large quantities through open market operations. Eccles said, at the Silver Hearings of 1939: "When you sell bonds on the open market, you extinguish reserves."

Extinguishing reserves means wiping out a basis for money and credit issue, or, tightening up on money and credit, a condition which is usually even more favorable to bankers than the creation of money. Calling in or destroying money gives the banker immediate and unlimited control of the financial situation, since he is the only one with money and the only one with the power to issue money in a time of money shortage. The money panics of 1873, 1893, 1920-21, and 1929-31, were characterized by a drawing in of the circulating medium. In economical terms, this does not sound like such a terrible thing, but when it means that people do not have money to pay their rent or buy food, and when it means that an employer has to lay off three-fourths of his help because he cannot borrow the money to pay them, the enormous guilt of the bankers and the long record of suffering and misery for which they are responsible would suggest that no punishment might be too severe for their crimes against their fellowmen.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

As it stands, the most important book I've ever read.

Do you think Donald Trump is the most evil person you've ever heard of, and do you blame him for all of our country's problems? Are you a partisan who pledges allegiance to one party (Democrats or Republicans) and constantly blames the opposition for specific problems in this country? Well, this book is for you.

This book will outline the deep-seeded underbelly of corruption within this country. And it starts with: "The London Connection". You see, British (and German) bankers have funded every major war that you've ever heard of, and later went on to infiltrate the depths of the American financial system by taking our gold and creating a fiat currency system based on burdening the working-class American people with debt, while creating money out of thin-air and enriching themselves. This has caused a boom-bust cycle that causes depressions burdened upon the American people, and booms for the stock traders, who can resell weak stock during recession later, at jacked-up prices.

This book is heavily-sourced from various magazines and newspapers across the country, as well as documents and transcripts from Senate committee hearings, and the memoirs and autobiographies of politicians who had a front-row seat to the whole thing. If you hadn't done any research on anything political, or know nothing of corruption going on in this country, this book will blow your mind. And even if you haven't and have witnessed many an atrocity (like the 2016 primary rigging within the Democratic Party) and operate with the mindset of "the government is evil", this book will STILL blow your mind.

In the middle ( I think it's the Chapter on WW1, the section with all the charts), it gets a little unwieldy. There's a lot of name-dropping.., and charts, but if you're a politics/research fanatic like myself, you won't mind it so much. :)

[Cosmic Arcata · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in the 90's and it changed my view of how money worked....for the 1%.

[Richard Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book

This is a very detailed account of the Federal Reserve’s birth and how our money really works here in the United States. I am glad to see that there finally some calls for the Fed to be audited because it seems to me that the Fed is a criminal enterprise.

[Robert Morris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is antisemitic trash. If you google Eustace Mullins, it's pretty clear that you shouldn't take him seriously. His other works have titles like "Adolf Hitler, an appreciation" and "The Biological Jew". Secrets of the Federal Reserve is carefully designed to reach a broader audience, however, and horrifyingly, it still does. You need to read between the lines to see the bigotry animating this book, but if you do a little research, it becomes quite obvious.

If you're a student of 20th century history, and/or have a search engine, Mullins gives the game away on the first page. He lionizes the poet Ezra Pound, and talks about his being held in a mental asylum as a political prisoner. That's more or less true, Pound was a sort of political prisoner, but that's only because the US government was too chicken to execute a well-regarded poet for treason. During World War II, Pound lived in Italy and used his fame to do active propaganda work for the fascists. An unrepentant fascist is the motivating spirit of this work, and the author proudly admits it.

Unfortunately, many who read this book don't have the relevant context. This book was eagerly handed to me by a well-meaning, civic-minded person, who has correctly identified that there are a number of things in the United States that have gone wrong. This book provides a number of answers that seem straightforward, but really aren't. The enduring attraction of this book among well-meaning people convinces me that a more lengthy review is worthwhile. I've recently been reading more deeply on the federal reserve and the economic history of the early 20th century more broadly, so I thought it was an opportune time to dive in.

I'm a bit puzzled by the publication history of this book. My copy opens with a foreword written in 1991. I assume that Pound wasn't thanked as openly in the 1950s version. Mullins starts the book with a photocopy of a warm letter from Wright Patman, a populist US congressperson who has been experiencing a bit of a revival lately. The letter is dated 1953, and Patman died 16 years before the publication of the edition I read. I doubt he'd be happy to have had his letter included in a book like this. There are elements of this book that are attractive to non-bigoted populists, and a some of the connections the author makes would be interesting if they could be trusted.

So let's talk conspiracy. There absolutely was a conspiracy of wealthy bankers to establish a central bank in the United States, formulated on Jekyll island back in 1910. But conspiracy is just another way to say plan. Did these bankers expect to profit from the founding of the Federal Reserve? Absolutely. But they were mostly signing power over to the government that they could no longer handle. For most of American history, the US banking system had been managed by a few secretive New York bankers, who were often at the service of larger and more sophisticated banking concerns based in London. In 1907, the intervention of JP Morgan and a secretive group of rich people barely averted the collapse of the US financial system. The secret cabal of bankers agreed that the US was getting too rich and complex for them to manage, so they decided to hand things off to the US government.

The Federal Reserve is a deeply flawed instrument, that needs to be more transparent. But it is a near infinite improvement over the days when the US economy was run from J.P. Morgan's living room. If the "end the fed" campaigners get their way, they wouldn't be increasing the American people's say in how the US economy is run, they'd be eliminating what little power we have over the bankers.

Now the way that Mullins tells it, The Jekyll island meeting was a hijacking of federal power. Because he tells no other story of the Federal reserve's founding than this meeting, he lets the reader believe that was the only thing going on. Which couldn't be further from the truth. The idea of a central bank was as old as the United States, there had already been a couple. A renewed central bank was part of the political program of Progressive politicians all over the country.

Amusingly, Mullins kind of gives away the game later on in the book. He includes a lengthy passage from H. Parker Willis, one of the drafters of the Federal Reserve legislation, who was later disillusioned with what he had created. Willis, and Senator Carter Glass, the economist and the Senator who actually designed the Reserve system are never mentioned until Willis has something bad to say. Instead of the actual designers of the bank, we get pages and pages of delirious description of the career and associations of Paul Warburg, a banker and German-Jewish immigrant who played a significant, but smaller role in the bank's formation.

There's a lot of this sort of self-contradiction in the book. Mullins seems to hold a predictable set of right-wing views, among them an obsession with gold, and a suspicion of fiat money. But when the Federal Reserve takes actions to shore up the gold standard, as they did during the early years of the Great Depression, it's bad! (most economists agree this was a mistake, BTW) When the Fed changes course, and works with a president to take us off the gold standard, it's also bad! The Fed is just bad, basically.

Much is made of the fact that the regional federal reserve banks are privately owned. This seems a bit weird until you realize how little that means. It was a way to save money at the outset of the system, and avoid having the taxpayers fund the system. The "stock" held by private banking institutions isn't transferrable, and only pays a low, standard rate of interest. It's really more of a tax than some sinister power. It's also the way that central banks were organized back then. The Bank Of England, the obvious central bank model, was privately held until a socialist government nationalized it in the 1940s. Is that what right wing critics of this set-up would prefer? The solution preferred by the the UK Labour party at its most socialistic?

Further, when you consider what the Fed actually does, the regional reserve banks are a kind of vestigial organ, with little real power. Most of the actual work is done by the Fed Board of Governors who are appointed by the US president. The heads of the regional banks do have rotating seats on the Federal Open Markets Committee, which strikes me as not amounting to much. "The FED is privately owned!!!" is one of the most commonly harped on points among Fed critics. It's also a big deal for this book, but I don't think it actually means anything like what Mullins and others imply it does.

Now are the Fed Board of Governors the right group of people to wield the massive unaccountable power that they have? Almost certainly not. I've been reading a good deal of history of the Fed recently, and there are periods, specifically during FDR's New Deal and WWII, and up until 1951, when the Fed was much less independent, which may have been better. The Fed is now a 100 year old institution, that has evolved with economics, society, and technology. In different eras, different philosophies and institutional arrangements have prevailed.

None of that rich history is included in this book. Mullins doesn't even mention the 1951 accord between the Fed and the US treasury, that seems to have amounted to a kind of second founding for the central bank and its role. For Mullins, the Fed will always be the creation of greedy Jewish bankers, and it will never be anything other than that.

The most interesting part of this book is the sets of relationships he documents. It was true in 1913, and it's true today, that power is all about who you know. The dense networks of family and business relationships that run every political system in history absolutely are a scandal. They should absolutely have as much light as possible shined upon them! I enjoyed, and might have even learned a thing or two from some of the networks of connections Mullins laid out in this book. But those few gems of information are hidden below such a sea of drivel that it's not worth seeking them out. One or two facts checked out with further googling. Many did not.

Whether he's deluded or just lying, Mullins is not a trustworthy source. One egregious example would be his coverage of US secretary of state Elihu Root's mission to Revolutionary Russia, and the money that the Woodrow Wilson sent to that Russian government. Good lord, money for Communists, Mullins asserts! This contradicted what I knew about the Wilson administration, and their failed military intervention to crush the Bolsheviks, so I did a little googling. The Root mission took place in June of 1917, when Russia was led by a faltering group of liberal democratic politicians. The Communists didn't take over until October of 1917, in part because Root didn't give the Russian government enough money. I tracked down many such examples of misinformation, and outright fantasy while reading this book.

Page by page, sentence by sentence, Mullins will alternate between a legitimately troubling relationship, or an actual historical failure of Fed policy, and absurd assertions backed up by absolutely nothing. He flatly asserts that the Fed designed and planned out the world wars, (impressive run up by the Fed there, getting signed into law in December 1913, and starting World War I by July 1914) the Great depression and every other economic reverse of the 20th century. Usually these assertions are backed up by nothing. Sometimes he will point to a legitimate, generally acknowledged failure of fed policy, and claim that it was intentionally designed to bring about the worst possible result.

After the 2008 financial crisis, and nearly two decades since of Nobel prize winning economist error, it's pretty damn clear that nobody has any idea what has happened or will happen in international finance. But Eustace Mullins wants you to believe that every event has been rigorously planned out by a few secretive bankers, decades in advance. The Federal Reserve, especially after 2008 and 2020, is an extraordinarily powerful organization, flying by the seat of its pants, making up a truly horrifying number of things as it goes along. A strong case can be made that we need more democratic or more diverse control, or an audit, or that the Fed should be reformed in any number of ways. Those are conversations worth having. Indulging in the barely veiled antisemitic fantasies presented by this book adds nothing to those conversations.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veeeery Interesting

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ominously enlightening. Are our nation's finances truly at the command of a few wicked, foreign bankers and trust interests? The evidence stating so is compelling. A must read.

[Walter Bradley Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Must Read

[Maurice Gatien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Normally, I would not give 5 stars to a book that is not particularly well-written. However, the importance of the topic outweighs such considerations. Every single person should know how the Federal Reserve operates. Every single student should learn in school what the history of the Federal Reserve has been. Every single business school should be doing, from the first day of classes, a case study on the Federal Reserve. The basic question that should be asked: How can an organization of such incompetence and such elite self-interest escape public scrutiny? Each and every day, money is at center-ice in terms of decision-making - and yet we know so little about its creation and its management at the center.

[Berelain3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The contents of this book is very informative and a great starting point for further reading. If this is the first book on the subject anyway.
The text build-up is a bit confusing sometimes. But, if you make notes you can easily re-read it at later times. The author tends to skip back and forth in time which can be a bit confusing as well. Also, the is a lot of repetition.
But, all in all, a little book with everything but little information. It makes me wonder, not for the first time, why we put up with this system that rules us. Makes us its slaves while we are the ones who actually let them...

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was drawn to this by the Ezra Pound connection. While it contains some fascinating tidbits, it is a tedious read.

Barring a few unsourced and/or outlandish claims, Mullins’ research is quite good. His knowledge of economics and ability to break down monetary policy into a comprehensible and compelling narrative falls short of that research.

In short, I learned a great deal about the early history of the federal reserve and the seeming disconnect between its founding and the interests of the American people. I remain unconvinced of Mullins’ grand unified “London connection” thesis.

[Mike Lisanke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Again there's far too much information presented in this author's book to confirm everything But all of it sounds completely plausible. Mullins has become a go-to historian for the seedy underbelly of American evil corporate types. This is another tell-all book which this time focuses on the Federal Reserve and the international Banksters who believe they're our owners.
I recommend reading this book and his Medical Corruption book as well.

[Sebastian Salamanca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is tedious, I know but what you get out of it is highly valuable.

It helped me to bold my current view and probe that I am not wrong about many things....

I suggest you to read this book to better understand why poor becomes poorer, why the FED is the enemy.

Biggest ponzi scheme i've seen along with pension funds

[Peter J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will eventually need to reread this to grasp more details about the machinery of the banking industry. I agree with the author that both the method and the makers of this machine, fueled by usury, seem to hint at an aristocracy ensuring their continued and increasing power via insider deals which would put the common man behind bars.

[Maikel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although I like the subject. The book is written very boring. Hard to understand and link all the people without a proper story to outline it. Despite the charts i’ve already started to get dizzy.

Not an easy read at all. Won’t recommend reading this.

[Riley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super interesting. Lots of citations. Doesn't argue with the "official story", but merely adds context to, and fills in chapters which seem conveniently omitted from the official story of the history of the us federal reserve.

[Roberta Wall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating stuff. Scary

[Ivaylo Petkov · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a book! You really see how deep the rabbit hole is and how long ago the whole scheme started. Slavery is just more subtle these days, but it is still slavery.

[Elkaza · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book on my to read list. Yet, this book was a bit heavy for me, as didn't really like the main subject matter - money and finance. That's all I've got to say!

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a shame those hippy liberals that were at occupy wall street never read books of substance, otherwise it would be occupy the Federal reserve.

[Cudetona · Rating 4 out of 5]

difícil de ler pela quantidade de detalhes. conspiração da boa

[Peter Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating story but I don’t know if it’s more of a conspiracy rather than true but it was entertaining nonetheless.

[G · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MUST read HISTORY book, as good or better than The Creature from Jekyll Island!!

[Frank A3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the books that cuts through all the deceptive talk of the financial industry and shows the criminality behind the system itself.

[Joel Everett · Rating 3 out of 5]

What can be factually proven, and can be cross-referenced with other more academic sources, is quite interesting; what is impugned without solid sources is less so and more suspect especially as to assigned motives; self interest is often motive enough without delving into delusions of a grand conspiracy. As far as the actual mechanics and operation of central banking; especially as is demonstrated in the 3rd Central Bank we have had in the United States - that is the Federal Reserve System - that is a worthwhile read as is some of the Congressional Testimony that is never to be found in any textbook or history book dealing the period of the Woodrow Wilson administration through the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great Ref, Not an easy read however