Abstract

Finance

Several weeks before the machinery of the system was introduced, however, bankers, business men, ship owners, foreign exchange experts, and representatives of great trade centres in the U.S. and Europe flocked to Washington to talk over with the members of the Federal Reserve Board the best means of solving the intricate problems incident to the war crisis. Practically every leading country in Europe had declared a moratorium of longer or shorter duration, and the resulting disturbance of international finance had created a situation which was unparalleled in the history of the great markets. It was with such conditions that the members of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board were called upon to cope before the mechanism of the twelve Federal Reserve banks had been set in motion.