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central banks are very important institutions in any given country here in the United States it is the job of the Federal Reserve to set interest rates to oversee the health of the financial system for this country and to make sure that our payment system is operating in a safe and efficient manner it protects our monetary system and tries to make sure that we don't have these high spikes and unemployment and interest rates so the business can compete and the fact that the Fed is located in Kansas City I think really helps them understand our issues and our problems on the Kansas prairie if our provider of services were in New York City I think they might have a bit more difficulty understanding what's going on in in Kansas the personality of this district bank in Kansas City and it's its branch banks reflect through the economic profile of the region which is different than the Northeast or the west coast so it's extremely important to the region to have a Federal Reserve Bank where that input can be forwarded it's important to the bank to have the input from the various people in the region that structure helps us connect to the communities and to the public interest that we serve the founding people who thought up how the system would work were brilliant the Federal Reserve Bank is perhaps the world's most unique central bank unique in that it's not just one bank but twelve established throughout the country the twelve banks work together to support and stabilize our country's overall financial structure while each individual bank serves and represents its own district for instance the 10th district designated ten J within the Federal Reserve System is served by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and its branches in Denver Oklahoma City and Omaha this district spans a seven state region from as far east as western Missouri through the Rocky Mountains as you can imagine this not only covers a lot of space but it includes a wide and diverse range of Commerce and Industry this extraordinary banking structure hasn't been around as long as you might think in fact before the Federal Reserve was formed in 1913 the u.s. twice attempted a central bank but each time those banks didn't last so how did this central banking system come to be in the United States and then continue to work for over 90 years and for that matter how did one of the 12 regional banks end up here in Kansas City it's an interesting story central banking began with the start of the country it was Alexander Hamilton's dream that we have a central bank in the United States and he proposed one when he became secretary of the Treasury but from the founding of her country there has always been controversy over a central bank and the integrity of the currency and who controls the currency and so forth and so Thomas Jefferson took a posing view of that Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed a single Bank for the nation because he believed that the financial power should remain within the States he feared that the power of a central bank would only concentrate in the north and aid Hamilton's New England commercial interests Jefferson stood for southerners and Midwesterners whose means came from farming the land these people were fierce individualist they opposed any form of governmental control that might appear similar to that of their former homeland England even while the debate raged in Congress the decision was ultimately up to President George Washington who signed the Bank into law in 1791 the first bank of the United States was headquartered in Philadelphia and had branches nationwide its purpose was to stabilize the nation's economy by providing a standard currency establishing a credit system and regulating state banks and it had a limited charter a twenty-year charter and it was a very successful Bank actually but for many Americans the bank held too much sway over the economy with excessive influence from northern financial powers so when the 20 year charter expired the bank's renewal failed in Congress it was about that time that the u.s. once again faced England during the war of 1812 the economy struggled as the nation tried to financially support the military but by 1816 President James Madison who once opposed central banking called for a second central bank to ease the country's fiscal woes and so there was one chartered second bank of the United States with the 20-year Charter and it too was successful now the one thing about each of these first two banks was that each was a monolithic organization a central bank a single bank that had branches and so when the second bank actually came up for renewal again the Congress this time was prepared to renew the Charter but by the 1830s President Andrew Jackson was in charge he believed that the National Bank was still too much of a monopoly with the financial power in the hands of only a few men his attack was publicly supported and when the bank's charter expired in 1836 Jackson vetoed its renewal after that we didn't have a central bank we did without one but it created problems I mean the interest rates used to go up a lot in the fall at the time of the moving of the crops because it was a big demand to borrow at that time and one of the things that that farmers wanted to smooth that out the farmers relied on credit from their local banks during the harvesting season without a central bank the local banks often didn't have the funds readily available nor could the funds be transferred from a larger bank during those times of urgency then there was the confusion of the various currencies from the state chartered and unchartered free banks at one time there were over 30,000 different varieties of currency some of which were backed by gold or silver some backed by local government bonds and some were of little value at all Abraham Lincoln attempted to unify the nation's banking structure and its currency during the Civil War in 1862 the US Treasury put the first real paper money called greenbacks into circulation then through the national banking act Lincoln created the designation of a National Bank to provide some semblance of stability this was merely a temporary solution because the national banks were in the larger cities and housed the greatest amount of currency these funds still could not be distributed quickly enough to help the farmer when his crops came in of course a number of the bankers during the time period were concerned because they wanted more centralized control those who were in New York City of course preferred a centralized control that would put them in charge those in other parts of the country the Midwest the country bankers the small bankers scattered around feared that that New York control and didn't want any part of that what changed their mind was we had three panics in about ten or 15 years and so everybody agreed we had to do something about that bank runs were events that were triggered by a lack of confidence and if people had money deposited in a bank if they began to feel that that particular bank was not likely to survive everybody would rush in to try to get their money at that time if the bank closed and you hadn't gotten your money out it was gone there's no more money it took the panic of 1907 for lawmakers to finally sit up and take notice it was so severe that the major banking centers and for that matter the Treasury of the United States was actually imperiled briefly in that panic of 1907 banks across the country were forced to suspend payment or close the story that's normally told is that JP Morgan through his financial assets ultimately bailed out the Treasury of the United States and kept the country solvent and it was at that point that the members of Congress and others decided we had to look seriously at having a central bank for the United States because we now were in industrial power and a financial power from a congressional standpoint the concern was we can't have that happen again we can't have a private banker that is in a position to have that much influence in terms of the national economy they agreed that they needed something but they couldn't agree on what so the argument was not over whether we should have something that did a central banking function it was who was going to run it and the beggar said us and the politicians especially from the south and and the West said no way and so a process began in 1908 to once again think about a central bank for the United States but the challenge was that many Americans saw a central bank as either complete governmental control which meant politics in banking or controlled by Wall Street which meant banking in politics senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island proposed a bill in response to the 1907 panic but his plan still gave too much power to the eastern banks and was defeated several other plans were brought forward in the following years but in each case an acceptable compromise could not be reached then in 1911 the progressive Democrats took control of the legislature and both houses of Congress slated financial reform as a major priority Carter glass of Virginia House of Representatives when the Democrats took control of the legislature he became chair of the House Banking & Finance Committee and then in 1912 the Senate organized for the first time a new housing and banking Finance Committee and Robert L Owen became the chair of that committee and so those two became the major legislative players in the process Robert Owen was key in the foundation of the Federal Reserve System he was one of the first two senators from the state of Oklahoma right here in our region and was of Native American descent his background as an attorney as a businessman and then as a banker positioned him uniquely to think about how a central bank should be structured in the United States born in 1856 Robert Owens spent most of his early years in Virginia and attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington but misfortune caused he and his mother to uproot and move to Indian Territory whereas Cherokees they were entitled to tribal property Owen was a man of ambition and talent he became a lawyer and worked for the rights of Native Americans then in 1890 he established the First National Bank of Muskogee and quickly experienced the financial panic of 1893 when Oklahoma was granted statehood in 1907 Olin was the top vote getter to represent the new state in the US Senate there without delay he began advocating for many progressive reforms including changes in the banking system by 1912 he was leading the Senate charge he immediately started competing with Carter glasses fellow chair of the House committee and they both drew a bills that were similar the glass bill call for the creation of 20 or more regional banks that would perform central banking functions yet be privately controlled each bank would then provide a member to a central board for overall management then on was support from Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan insisted that the president should appoint the central board they wanted more governmental control the bankers didn't want that because they were afraid that politicians on homes would change policy and not be scientific in their banking as they would put it for over a year Congress debated this issue but the newly elected president was determined to put a system in place to reform the nation's financial situation so Woodrow Wilson managed to put together a compromise in which he had semi-autonomous banks spread out to the country each operating by itself and aboard in Washington that supervises them Wilson included the central board with 7 members appointed by the president so there's a compromise where there wouldn't be just a Regional Board or central board you'd have both that was the compromise then that was agreed to by everybody no one was really keen about it but like most compromises they thought it was doable and that's why glass would later say Wilson deserves credit because in fact his leadership and his ability to administrate and to make deals was what pulled us off on December 23rd 1913 President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law a new central bank for the United States had been born Woodrow Wilson is credited for the achievement yet many of the original players fought amongst themselves to be called the founder of the Federal Reserve especially Robert Owen and Carter glass in the years that followed they would argue about who is the real originator of the Federal Reserve Act Carter glass would say well I did all the work but would or Wilson actually should deserve the credit one wrote a little book in 1919 going through the legislative history and which he showed that how his bill became law Robert Owens legacy is a very important one unfortunately history often highlights Carter glass when we think about the founding of the Federal Reserve but it was Robert Owen who brought to the table some very practical experiences with banking panics with a developing country moving westward that shaped the Federal Reserve System and it's decentralized structure you know if you were to actually try to evaluate who's most responsible it's almost impossible because in legislation like that it's such an amalgamation and it would have been so much build-up to it with the national banking commission Aldrich Commission and so forth that so many people really should share and glass is probably more responsible for it to no one but not a whole lot more that it ought to be that big of a deal the concept of the Federal Reserve was to create a set of banks maximum of 12 that would be scattered over the country they picked the number 8 to 12 is saying that's gonna satisfy the idea that we have them scattered around the country we're gonna get local information involved in this and the idea for the farmers and merchants in the various areas that there's going to be somebody there it's going to be taking care of our interests not New York cigarettes or washing livers but our eNOS each regional bank is managed by a local Board of Directors including six were elected by the bankers in that district the regional banks are then monitored by the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington DC who are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate and it is this decentralized structure it's the ability to connect to communities across this country that I believe builds the public trust in the institution and that's essential to maintaining that balance so now that Congress had finally passed this unique central banking legislation the next challenge was to determine just how many regional banks were needed and where they were to be located Congress didn't want to get into the question of how many banks should there be in this regional system there was a lot of debate on that some said literally just a handful maybe two or three across the country some literally wanted a bank in each state so the Federal Reserve Act created a group called the Reserve Bank organizing committee and they were charged with determining the boundaries of these districts and the locations for the reserve bank cities the organizing committee was composed of the Secretary of Treasury William McAdoo Secretary of Agriculture David Houston and the controller of currency that position was slated for john skelton williams but his appointment was tied up in the senate so the immediate tasks fell to McAdoo and Houston they drew some preliminary maps did some research they also sent out a ballot to the now banks across the country and asked them basically where do you want your Reserve Bank to be and almost every big city at the time wanted to have a Federal Reserve Bank because it was a sign of maturity and they needed that would attract Commerce in banking and if you're thinking about your future as a community and they're going to be twelve Federal Reserve banks that are important to the financial well-being of the country you would I think immediately want to be a part of that twelve bank system to determine these twelve districts the men decided to tour the country to learn about the existing business relationships in each area in five weeks they visited eighteen cities and heard from 37 communities they bega
their tour in the Northeast with visits to New York and Boston from the start it was clear some of these cities along with Chicago and st. Louis were likely choices for regional banks because of their role in the banking and commerce system the initial list did not include Kansas City great human cry went up here among bankers and business leaders in Kansas City and they organized both locally and with their national representatives we had at that time of course a congressman from the fifth District we in Borland we also had one of the to Missouri Senators James a reed - former mayor of Kansas City efforts were going forth on all of those levels to push for at least getting in the organizing committee to make a stop so what was it about Kansas City that warranted a Federal Reserve Bank in the heart of our nation a natural network of River Road and rail extends from one point Kansas City this promising town was an enviable crossroads for industry business and banking especially for the southwest corner of the United States by 1913 the two largest mail order companies Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward had huge distribution centers here 1,200 manufacturing companies were also headquartered in Kansas City employing over 40,000 residents as a center for agriculture Kansas City companies lead the nation in sales of farm implements and in lumber sales of yellow pine the famed Kansas City stockyards with a busiest in the nation second only to Chicago those 60 acres were trampled by the millions of hooves from cattle sheep horses and pigs adjacent to the stockyards were the rail yards where 2,000 freight cars rolled in and out of the city every day to better handle the rail traffic and replace the much flooded Union Depot the Union Station was nearing completion when it opened in 1914 Union Station promised to be the nation's third largest train station whisking nearly 260 passenger trains to and from the city Kansas City's optimism reflected the grandiosity of the new train station for it was built for metropolis of a million or more residents nearly four times the current city's population Kansas City definitely a town on the move so on the heels of their meetings in st. Louis William McAdoo and David Houston arrived in Kansas City on January 23rd 1914 they were to meet with representatives at the federal building on Grand newspaper accounts for that day say there was a crowd of about 2,000 there that actually spilled out of the building into the street to welcome the committee so it was it was a huge deal what the Kansas City Committee did was to bring in people representing all kinds of economic activity that flowed through Kansas City so you had for example the treasurer of the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railway who was not headquartered in Kansas City but rather in Topeka representing the Oklahoma interests there were two gentlemen from Bartlesville one of whom was by the name of Frank Phillips nearly 50 million barrels of oil at a market value of 50 million dollars also comes through Kansas City all of these people were testifying on behalf of their particular segments of industry that this was a key place to be we believe Kansas City with her splendid railroad facilities and excellent the local leaders also presented their plan for the Kansas City banking district to extend into western Missouri and southwest Iowa all of Nebraska Kansas Oklahoma New Mexico and Colorado the northern half of Texas and Western Arkansas one of the most interesting things about the Kansas City hearing was the level of regional cooperation that existed this was truly very much a bi-state effort in fact the sitting Kansas governor and his immediate predecessor both addressed the committee in favor of reserve bank in Kansas City Missouri the great state of Kansas brings to the table 213 national banks now this type of regional cooperation did not happen in other places if you go to sort of comparable situations of neighboring cities Minneapolis and st. Paul both fought very bitterly for a reserve bank Fort Worth and Dallas both fought very bitterly for a reserve bank really nowhere else in the country did you see this kind of regional cooperation that went on in Kansas City that day that evening McAdoo and Houston returned to their trained answer their quest to select the Reserve Bank cities but something interesting happened as they travel to Omaha and Denver they continue to learn more about Kansas City they learned that it was a good second choice to their own cities of course and that business interaction especially between Denver and Kansas City was easily accessible by train by Road and by telegraph something that sort of happens nationally as you watched the committee go across the country although in those early stories you didn't see Kansas City mentioned as a front-runner or really having a possibility of having a bank later on the stories mentioned Kansas City is an almost virtual shoo-in to receive a bank to solidify this notion a group of businessmen and bankers from Kansas City travel to Washington DC to secure the support of the committee's third member newly appointed controller of currency john skelton williams so they went to Washington to make an appeal directly to him give him the same leather binder with his name on the front that they've given to the other secretaries I talked about why Kansas City was a good choice for a bank and eventually obviously he agreed with their presentation on April 2nd 1914 four months after beginning their 10,000 mile journey across the country with 5,000 pages of testimony in hand the organizing committee announced the 12 Reserve cities Boston New York Philadelphia Cleveland Richmond Atlanta Chicago st. Louis Minneapolis Dallas San Francisco and in the heart of the country Kansas City which celebrated its selection as the 10th district they had what they called a jollification meeting which is essentially a big party this was attended by the city's bankers and business leaders they brought in some vaudeville like entertainers there were three hours worth of speeches by local bankers and business leaders William Kemper from commerce got up in front of the group was asked to speak and he said I don't want to talk I want to sing that tells you a little bit about how everyone felt about the city winning the Reserve Bank of Kansas City felt like it was really on the map now with this Bank in fact the map of Kansas City's district was also a surprise to the city's leaders instead of Texas Arkansas in Iowa the Kansas City District now encompassed the northern half of New Mexico and all of Wyoming however in Washington DC the celebration was short-lived as the three man organizing committee found themselves defending their decisions protests arose immediately from Baltimore and New Orleans which each expected to receive a bank political favoritism was the accusation for many sites chosen including Richmond which could claim Carter glass Robert Owen and John Skelton Williams's hometown heroes and of course Missouri was under fire with two reserved cities because Speaker of the House champ Clark the very powerful Senator James Reid and coincidentally the organizing committee member David Houston all hailed from the show-me-state and it should not be forgotten that Senator Reid had been very helpful to the Wilson administration when they were trying to appoint the Comptroller of the currency and they were having a little difficulty in Congress Senator Reid had been one of the key individuals to smooth the way for that appointment to go in well this happened to be the same comfortable of the currency that had to agree to the idea of Kansas City as an additional City and the group so yes there's some politics that took place but the committee's main defense for Kansas City was the data from the National Bank's at the beginning of their research Kansas City was the number one choice of the National Bank's far more than any other city in the district including Denver Omaha and Lincoln if you look at proximity you would realize that it was their Bank of Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank of New Yorker about 90 miles apart that's far smaller distance between two points than st. Louis and Kansas City is so really we were chosen because of the economics the the commercial trade route around Kansas City at that time and you can see from the structure I mean you have Boston New York Philadelphia Richmond Atlanta all those Cleveland all those banks on the East Coast and you we have Kansas City Dallas and San Francisco well because this part of the country was very under populated at that point much less so than it is today but we'll deal to those who would try to change that system and the location of those banks at this point while controversies about the selected cities would persist for several years with only a few minor changes made between district lines the original city designations held firm now the all important task began of staffing the Federal Reserve Board and the boards of the regional banks Wilson's genius for compromise proved useful once again so you had a central board that would be appointed by the government and regional boards in wit and the in those regional boards would be elected by the member banks themselves and as it turned out when Wilson appointed the members of the seven member board two of them were already prescribed by law the controller of the currency and the Secretary of the Treasury but the others Wilson appointed people who were friendly to the bankers they began realizing well you can still have the government appointment that can still be friendly to bankers and so he made a couple of appointments like that that caused people to breathe easy in Kansas City the bank's board of directors met for the first time on October 16th 1914 under the leadership of Joseph Miller jr. the native Texan was a natural selection to take this challenge and build the new bank from the ground up Miller starred in banking began when he and his uncle Joseph Zachary Miller for whom he was named ran a mercantile business called the Miller brothers in Belton Texas they ran a general store and they sold food blankets Winchester's pistols and munitions and people would come to the bank with their savings and leave it with him because there was no other place to leave it so he would set up sort of an account for them eventually was a Savings Bank and so he took deposits that were so that was the way he came into banking at age 21 Miller established the Belton National Bank over the next three decades jozek rose to become a giant and texas banking and it was inevitable that this one giant in texas would share livestock and banking interests with another giant in kansas city banker william T Kemper he was a friend of my grandfather my grandfather Courage him to come with the Commerce Trust Company and he came and allied himself with my grandfather was one of the senior officer he's a very frugal man and in their family they usually took the street cart at work and they rented houses rather than buying them and they're very careful with everything they spent it came down through the family well he was pretty down-to-earth fellow he was a great saver he believed that you should save and he was a great investor a very smart person that way and he became both an early advocate of the Kansas City bank and then once it was fully organized was elected as the first chairman of the board so the story I've been told to be inaugurated and and his suits for all pretty well won because of his frugality so my grandfather called herb wolf chairman of the wolf brothers clothing company here and a friend of his and he said I want you to do me a favor her but I want you to sell those active beautiful blue Serge suit and only charge him $10 so I'll send you a check for the rest so he told those active you knew there are some really good deals that wolf brothers and to go down there and get a new suit and even though those act protested he did go down and he came back thrill he said you know I found this wonderful blue Serge suit for only $10 my grandpa said oh you did that's wonderful bargains so he was well suited to go back and be inaugurated and I'm as and he kept very good care of that suit was probably buried in it Joe Zack Miller was also known for his strong work ethic that helped to build the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank into what it is today there were things said about him that his favorite days to work for holidays that he was the first to work in the morning in the last to leave at night and he always liked to have an office in the lobby where the general public could come up and talk to him I think it's a great thing for a banker to do once the bank boards were established nationwide there was a rush to open the banks to prevent a possible financial panic due to the unfolding war in Europe Miller and his board had a lot to do they were on an incredibly tight timeline they held their first meeting on October 16th of 1914 and the Federal Reserve Bank's would open on November 16th of 1914 so within a month they had to get their staff hired they had to sort of figure out how they were gonna operate they had to find office space you had to think about vault space basically everything that it takes to run a bank you had to get done in about four weeks time from the signing of the Federal Reserve Act in December of 1913 to the selection of Bank City locations the election of board members to the grand opening on November 16th 1914 it took less than a year for the US central bank to be in business that was an impressive accomplishment Kansas City Bank officials expected a relatively quiet grand opening but it turned out otherwise the bank received more than 500 letters and telegrams along with flowers and plants from throughout the region bank officials spent the entire day welcoming well-wishers the United States Federal Reserve Bank was now up and running and ready to take on the nation's newest crisis they had quite a challenge of course during the time of World War one because that meant that a great deal more money was flowing through the bank and its role increased dramatically the bank also had a prominent role in helping finance the First World War with the Liberty Bond campaign these were a series of campaigns used to encourage folks to buy bonds to help fund the battle the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City was the leader in the 10th district actually sort of organized the effort to get folks to buy these bonds and the 10th district was very successful exceeding its expectations and exceeding what the government had sort of hope for them to generate and I think four out of the five campaigns for its efforts the bank was rewarded with a German ten point five centimeter light field howitzer captured by the US 35th division on October 1918 in the meuse-argonne the last major battle of the war the gun is now on display at the National World War One Museum in Kansas City Missouri the business of running a central bank was moving forward and the economy was stabilizing with boosted growth derived from World War one so once the dust had settled a little the public began clamoring for the regional banks to open up their branch banks however the banks weren't really interested in taking on the additional costs and they still were unclear as to how the branches would fit into their daily operations the Federal Reserve was not nearly as eager to get into this business with one exception and that was the New Orleans branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta many people were stunned that New Orleans didn't receive a bank and so the New Orleans branch opened very quickly but it didn't encourage the creation of other branches the cities that were originally denied a Reserve Bank now began campaigning to have a branch bank under public pressure Congress made the appropriate amendments to the reserve Act and four more branches opened in 1917 one of which was the Omaha branch of the Kansas City bank one of the real revoked or potential revolts that Kansas City had to deal with after receiving designation was really from Omaha there were two things going on there one is Omaha had been a competitor for the western city and they were disappointed but
econdly Omaha said well then if we can't have our own bank we ought to be a part of the Chicago system and actually from an economic history standpoint that makes sense but Omaha's bid to be in the Chicago district was denied since both Lincoln and Omaha had sought a Reserve Bank and because of their strength and rail and agriculture Nebraska was considered a key location for a branch bank so when Omaha applied for a branch in the Kansas City District the Board of Directors moved quickly Jo Zach Miller and some other Bank officials traveled Omaha had a meeting with bankers came back and within a matter of days had approved the request and the request went to Washington where it was also approved so the Omaha branch opens very quickly Kansas City's second branch opened in Denver the following year leasing office space in the interstate trust building amazingly during the era of prohibition and gangsters when bank robberies and holdups were almost commonplace the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank managed to avoid any unexpected withdrawals with one sad exception in Denver as the Denver branch Bank business expanded in the 1920s the vault could no longer house all of the currency the money was stored instead at the nearby Denver Mint on December 18 1922 four men robbed a Federal Reserve truck parked outside the mint the bandits got away with $200,000 in five-dollar bills during the attack Denver branch security officer Charles Linton was killed Linton was memorialized as a hero opening the first two branches of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank was a breeze compared to the opening of its third branch while Denver and Omaha were kind of predetermined as branch locations it was more complicated choosing the city to represent the southern part of the 10th District three cities lobbied for that distinction Wichita Kansas and Tulsa in Oklahoma City in Oklahoma many believe that the sooner state was the stronger contender it was rivaling Kansas in population by the time of World War one and the oil business was booming so the monetary and economic factors had increased to such a degree that having a branch and of course as you might guess in Oklahoma there really was a competition for that branch between Oklahoma City and Tulsa Tulsa being the center of the economic activity for the oil business the Kansas City Board heard presentations made by each town both of the Tulsa and Oklahoma City presentations talked a lot about why their city should be selected instead of the others Wichita meanwhile got up it basically said that although Tulsa might have its territory Oklahoma City might have its territory all of it was to some degree Wichitas territory the Kansas City directors took all this information and decided not to open a branch in the southern part of the district this outraged the Oklahomans because they had been assured a branch in 1914 during the Kansas City bid for the Reserve Bank and now they weren't receiving quid-pro-quo at that time you had a gentleman on the Kansas City Board of Directors named Willis Bailey Willis Bailey had had a very successful career in Kansas a former governor of the state and a former congressman it seems looking back today that mr. Bailey was attempting to convince the rest of the directors to open a branch in Wichita and so he was able to get them to vote against opening a branch specifically in Oklahoma but he wasn't able to generate support to go any further than that regardless of the reason the angry Oklahomans appealed to the Federal Reserve Board in Washington DC who agreed with them Oklahoma bankers were then given a chance to vote on which city they wanted for their branch bank the Oklahoma City branch opened in August of 1920 once the branches were open Joe Zack Miller jr. turns his attention to finding a permanent home for the Kansas City bank the bank is very successful and it grows very rapidly from just a handful of employees they begin to expand they need more space they start moving into two other floors of the long building they start moving employees into other buildings in the downtown area but it soon became apparent that what they really needed was a new building for the bank's specific needs after scouring the city the board chose to buy the land across the street from the long building on the northeast corner of 10th and grand and they began planning their new headquarters they started talking about a six story building which basically would have equated to about the same square footage that they had at that time and then they started talking about eight stories and eleven stories and gradually they ended up deciding they wanted to build a 21 story building at that time that was gonna be the tallest building in Kansas City construction began in 1920 the architectural firm was Graham Anderson Probst and white which could traces history to the legendary Chicago firm of Burnham and roots the creator of the modern skyscraper the building was erected by the fuller company which also built Union Station and Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City in addition to the Lincoln Memorial and the Supreme Court building in Washington in less than a year and after spending only 4.5 million dollars the building was complete and by November 1921 employees moved into their offices which offered every modern feature of the time a new sound absorbing process was installed in the walls and ceilings to cut down on equipment noise all offices were wired for an interconnecting telephone system employees also had access to a gymnasium an assembly hall cafe kitchen a hospital and special elevators at the Grand Opening Ceremony Joe Zack Miller jr. was praised not only as a genius for his tireless efforts in launching the bank and its branches but for providing a magnificent tower of strength for the 10th district it was so well known what a hard worker he was and how dedicated he was and how much of what we call today a workaholic then when he began talking with folks about taking a vacation to Europe it immediately became a newspaper story that he was going to retire he was a very hard worker morning till evening and had a vision I think more importantly he had a vision for the bank that was reflected in the fact that he was eager to get the bank up and running he did all the key things to get the bank open to get the branches open and to get the bank housed in a suitable headquarters and when that was done and when the vision started to be finished then he was ready to step down and step away from the bank in our memory certainly in this Bank he will always be the founder of the foa's or Bank of Kansas City the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City moved in 2008 to an even more secure more modern facility at one Memorial Drive where it can better deal with today's financial issues yet the old building had 9 25 grand holds plenty of memories for past employees they saw a lot of history happened to them and around them two events however while not affecting the bank in a financial manner do stand out in the building's history so when the bank moved into its new building it had a essentially a 21 story building the bank actually only used about half of those floors it was it was sort of built with an eye to the future that the bank would grow into this new building so the building had a lot of extra space in the bank leased this based outside tenant one tenant of the building was the FBI then known as the Bureau of Investigation their offices were on the west side of the banks ninth floor in June of 1933 the agents experienced the Union Station Massacre the second largest murder of law enforcement officers in American history at that time that event altered the face of the FBI forever before then FBI agents did not have the authority to regularly carry firearms or make arrests that changed after the attack in fact the agents requested the use of the firing range in the Reserve Bank building which was used exclusively by the bank's own security staff years after the FBI moved to another facility another noteworthy tenant moved into the bank appropriately the man well known for his motto the buck stops here president harry s truman after he left the white house his first office before his office and independence was actually at the Federal Reserve Bank on the 11th floor of that building those who worked here at the time of Truman just have very fond memories of the former president they talk about seeing him perhaps in the employee cafeteria coming in out of the building holding doors for people talking to him about things going on with his family different things like that so those are always really neat stories and probably the most important thing that happened in that office space in that particular period was that he wrote his memoirs one of the more frequently consulted sources at least to understand how Harry understood his life and presidency to have involved Truman's connection to the Kansas City Federal Reserve continues to this day the Truman coin collection featuring nearly 500 coins minted under each president since George Washington is on loan to the bank from the Truman library and is on display in the bank's Lobby the Federal Reserve Bank has experienced changes over time perhaps the most notable came during the Great Depression of the 1930s which led to the creation of the closely-watched Federal Open Market Committee to set the nation's monetary policy although the bank has continued to adapt to an evolving banking and economic landscape the central bank focus remains on providing the financial stability sought by its founders they really thought through the role of a central bank and they really thought through how the central bank supports the economic vitality of the country the bank structure also remains unchanged the 12 regional banks are as important to the system today as they were in 1914 I think that they bring regional perspective even now even in this much nationalized country and much larger political body I think they bring a regional perspective that's important at times instead of having just the west coast of the East Coast make decisions for the rest of this country I think that would be unhealthy because they only have part of the story we have the rest of the story having the branch in Denver it's really critical not only to Denver but I think it's critical to Kansas City you know I think it's critical for them to have the the branch here to know what's going on and to have their information sort of unfettered the bank is in constant contact with people within the district whether it's supervising and regulating banks and places like Cheyenne Wyoming or Versailles Missouri or making sure currency is available when you want to make a withdrawal from a bank in Santa Fe New Mexico or Ellsworth Kansas and the bank keeps tabs on the regional economy that includes everything from cutting-edge technology to methods as old as the land itself an important part of this connection is the individuals on the banks board of directors which includes business leaders and bankers from throughout the district those people bring together the information from all of their area that commercial the banking the industrial aspects the labor aspects and with that information we come to an agreement as to what we think the interest rates are any other information useful to send on to Washington for the FOMC although its monetary policy mission is perhaps the most closely watched aspect of the Fed the work of the regional banks extends beyond its economic research the Federal Reserve has three main jobs that it carries out the first is its responsibility to make sure we have a safe efficient and an accessible payment system that involves making sure there is cash in the economy that we clear cheques and increasingly more electronic forms of payments that consumers use the second job of the Federal Reserve is to make sure that our financial system operates in a safe and sound manner and so the Federal Reserve is responsible for the supervision and regulation of bank and thrift holding companies as well as commercial banks that choose to be members of the Federal Reserve and the third job of the Federal Reserve is a very important one and that is setting monetary policy for the country which basically involves setting interest rates that allows the economy to in a sustainable manner while we keep inflation low and make sure that employment is maximized so you see the Federal Reserve is a unique central bank it's design reflects the value Americans place on spreading responsibility broadly across the country it's a system that has served the nation for a century and is prepared to continue serving us for generations to come the whole concept of the Federal Reserve System is an extremely wise approach to protecting monetary policy from political influence I think the reason that the Federal Reserve has worked so well is because it's been a political and I think it's very important that that be maintained and preserved and protected and defended the United States continues to be the most important economy in the world doesn't mean there aren't other important economies but we are certainly an industrial power and we'll be I think so through this century even though our mission and responsibilities have remained unchanged the way we carry those out have had to change and so as we look to the future I expect that those trends will continue we will continue to be challenged to adapt and change the way we do business and in fact we are changing even as we speak to them
