TAKE IT BACK, WHAT SAY YOU PATRIOTS?In 1910, a group of private bankers met at a private island named Jekyll Island to plan the imposition of yet another private central bank on the people of the United States. As part of the ruse, they abandoned the unpopular name "Bank of the United States" and chose the name Federal Reserve to grant themselves the illusion that this was a government agency, when in point of fact it is just another privately owned central bank. Pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding, the Federal Reserve is no more "Federal" than Federal Express. It is a privately owned bank. Three years later, in 1913, Congress voted the Federal Reserve act and President Wilson signed it, redeeming a campaign promise to his financial backers. Six years later, as his Presidency came to a close, Woodrow Wilson wrote.
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit.We are no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” -- Woodrow Wilson 1919
Because of the earlier disasters with 20 year charters, the Federal Reserve was granted a 100 year charter due to expire in 2013. A later Congress amended the Federal Reserve act to make the charter permanent.
