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said, ‘Democracy is a failure’." George Baker, Jr.’s daughter, Edith 

Brevoort Baker, married Jacob Schiff’s grandson, John M. Schiff, in 

1934. John M. Schiff is now honorary chairman of Lehman Brothers 

Kuhn Loeb Company.

The third large purchase of Federal Reserve Bank of New York stock in 

1914 was the National Bank of Commerce which issued 250,000 shares. 

J.P. Morgan, through his controlling interest in Equitable Life, which held 

24,700 shares and Mutual Life, which held 17,294 shares of National 

Bank of Commerce, also held another 10,000 shares of National Bank 

of Commerce through J.P. Morgan and Company (7800 shares), J.P. 

Morgan, Jr. (1100 shares), and Morgan partner H.P. Davison (1100 

shares). Paul Warburg, a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board of 

Governors, also held 3000 shares of National Bank of Commerce. His 

partner, Jacob Schiff had 1,000 shares of National Bank of Commerce. 

This bank was clearly controlled by Morgan, who was really a 

subsidiary of Junius S. Morgan Company in London and the N.M. 

Rothschild Company of London, and Kuhn, Loeb Company, which was 

also known as a principal agent of the Rothschilds.

The financier Thomas Fortune Ryan also held 5100 shares of National 

Bank of Commerce stock in 1914. His son, John Barry Ryan, married 

Otto Kahn’s daughter, Kahn was a partner of Warburg and Schiff in 

Kuhn, Loeb Company, Ryan’s granddaughter, Virginia Fortune Ryan,

__________________________

59 E.M. Josephson, The Strange Death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 

Chedney Press, N.Y. 1948

66