Tenth Anniversary

The tenth anniversary of the Federal Reserve system finds it in a thoroughly paradoxical situation. So exceptional have the past ten years proved, that no one yet knows quite how the system will act in normal times. It has proved its ability to weather terrific financial storms, but not to sail on smooth water. Furthermore, although Reserve Bank vaults bulge with billions of gold, the institutions are finding it somewhat difficult to pay overhead expenses, owing to the relatively small discounts by member banks.

Several facts, however, are plain. The Reserve system is today the richest and most powerful central banking institution in the world; it has replaced even the historic Bank of England as the centre of the world's money market. It has furthermore apparently survived an agrarian political attack which a century ago wrecked both the First and Second U.S. Banks.