ities 25 per cent and in other cities 15 per
cent. The details of the regulations in the old law (given in part
below, sec. 7) were ll altered by the legislation of 1913.]

[Footnote 4: The expressions within quotation marks in the following
sections are taken from this report.]

[Footnote 5: See further on this in sec. 7 on periodical congestion of
funds.]

[Footnote 6: See above, sec. 3.]

Chapter 9

THE FEDERAL RESERVE ACT

Sec. 1. General banking organization. Sec. 2. The Federal Reserve Board.
Sec. 3. Federal reserve banks. Sec. 4. Federal reserve notes. Sec. 5. Reserves
against Federal reserve notes. Sec. 6. Reserves against Federal reserve
bank deposits. Sec. 7. Reserves in member banks. Sec. 8. Rediscount by
Federal reserve banks. Sec. 9. Changes in national banks.
Sec. 10. Operation of the Act.

Sec. 1. #General banking organization#. President Wilson and the newly
elected Congress with its Democratic majority made banking reform one
of the main objects on the program for the special session beginning
March 5, 1913. The result was the Glass-Owen bill, which became law
as the Federal Reserve Act December 23 of that year. The bill was
actively discussed within and without the halls of Congress, and
many of its features were attacked by bankers individually and acting
through the bankers' associations, at various stages of its progress.
As a result it underwent numerous amendments in details, and tho it
remained in most essentials as it was first proposed, it was at last
accepted even by its critics as on the whole a beneficent act of
legislation. Indeed, its strongest critics had been the friends of
the Aldrich plan, and the Federal Reserve Act embodies, in a greater
degree than its authors were ready to admit, the main features of the
Aldrich plan. In one important respect, however, it is different; it
provides for more decentralization of control and of reserves than did
the Aldrich plan. It created not one central banking reserve, but, in
the end, twelve regional, or district, banks each to keep the reserves
of its district. The Jacksonian tradition of opposition to a central
bank[1] in part helps to explain this; in part the contemporary
congressional investigation and discussion of the so-called
"money-trust" and the consequent desire to decrease the importance of
"Wall Street" and of New York city banking power.

On the accompanying map are given the outlines of the districts a