FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK
SCOPE AND CONTENT
George L. Harrison Memoranda
Selected xerox copies from the holdings of the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York of detailed memoranda of meetings and other interactions with national
and international figures in the financial world, 1926-1934, considered to be
pertinent to the'reference needs of the Library. As successor to Benjamin
Strong, Governor of the FRBNY, Harrison wrote detailed accounts of his
iterations with public officials and activities and events of importance to
the Bank. These materials were acquired in June 1977.
Benjamin Strong Papers
Xerox copies of correspondence (1916-1929) and cables (1922-1928) between
Benjamin Strong, Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1920-1928,
and Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, 1920-1944, acquired from
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The Strong-Norman correspondence was
received in January 1973 and the Strong-Norman cables in July 1976. These
letters and cables include both personal and official exchanges that offer
insights into the relationship between two men whose decisions had substantial
impact on international finance and economics during the inter-war period.
Additional material including Strong’s diaries of foreign travels and
selections of his correspondence with FRBNY officers have also been received.
These accretions include material on the operation of the Dawes Plan; the
activities of James A. Logan; the Bank of England; and other items relevant
to the study of financial history of the 1920's and early 1930's and with the
Strong Papers are available for research at the FRBNY.
Detailed guides to the George L. Harrison Memoranda and the Benjamin Strong
Papers, compiled by the Bank's archivist, are available upon request in our
reading room.
The literary rights in the unpublished writings of the George L. Harrison
Memoranda is administered by the Butler Library, Columbia University and the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The literary rights in the unpublished
writings of Benjamin Strong are administered by the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Linear feet of shelf space occupied 3
Approximate number of items 3,600
A GUIDE TO HARRISON'S MEMORANDA 1926-1940
1. Introduction
This guide to George L. Harrison's memoranda spans the last fifteen of his
twenty years as Deputy Governor, Governor, and President of the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York. It is a continuation of the guide that started with Governor
Benjamin Strong's papers and is part of an effort to correlate all the Bank's historical
materials , that is, those more than thirty years old, in order to aid researchers in the
location of files.
The Harrison collection differs from the Strong collection in at least -two
respects: in the way it was acquired and the nature of the material. Instead of leaving
his personal files at the Bank at the termination of his services, Harrison took them all
away, including the former Strong cable books and other materials of which the Bank
did not have copies. This material Harrison gave to Columbia University in 1957, a
few months before his death. When a few years later the nature of this Harrison
material became known, it was decided that the Bank should have copies of missing
documents. From 1963 to 1968 the archivist went through Harrison's papers at
Columbia University and had copies made of all items not located at the Bank.
She made one exception in this procedure, having copies made of all the memoranda
in the five volumes labeled "Conversations" and six volumes of "Office Memoranda"
except in the instances when these volumes contained memoranda in duplicate. The
reason for this exception was the time and the difficulty which would be involved
in trying to locate duplicate memoranda in the Bank's files. This exception resulted
in a decision that the Harrison collection should comprise only these memoranda of
telephone conversations and of meetings with men at home and abroad, plus memoranda
addressed to officers of the Bank. The Harrison collection of memoranda thus differ
from the Strong which contained correspondence and trip reports.
The researcher may want to know more about the nature of the Harrison
collection. What was Harrison's Plan for retaining memoranda in his office? Did he
dispose of any between 1940 and 1957? Have any other changes taken place in the
collection ? It is not possible to answer the first two questions definitely. From the
irregularity in the retention of memoranda and finding others in the Bank's
correspondence files, it would appear that Harrison did not hold to any consistent
plan for retaining memoranda in his office. However, is possible that he destroyed
many memoranda before or at the time of his resignation or thereafter during the
seventeen years preceding his giving them to Columbia University, and that this is the
cause of the apparent lack of consistency.
As to the third question about other changes to the collection, the archivist
made special note of the addition in 1970 of copies of a few items from other Harrison
files at Columbia University which seemed to belong with the memoranda, such as a
report to Secretary Mellon on Strong's illness in October 1926, three conversations with
Strong in London when he was attending meetings concerning Italian stabization in
December 1929 and a diary of Harrison’s and Crane’s trip to the London Economic
Conference in June 1933. She has also added copies of nine of Harrison's conversations
from the Bank's collection of officers' telephone conversations that were not in the
Harrison collection, including five which pertained to the London Economic Conference.
The archivist took various other steps to help the researcher. She filed the
1100 memoranda according to the person or group of persons with whom Harrison
exchanged views and arranged these files according to the same type of classification
system as used for the Strong Papers important topics in each file (see the end of this
guide) The archivist then prepared a brief summary.of the important topics in each file
(see the end of this guide) and made an index of the individuals, institutions, and topics
mentioned in the summary (pages 66 - 120).
The summary and index may prove helpful for these particular memoranda, but
as yet there is no easy way of locating Harrison's other papers. Many are located in the
Bank's correspondence files, arranged according to another classification system and
commingled with various,other materials which often make finding key documents difficult.
Although Harrison's papers - particularly those at Columbia University - have
been utilized for various specialized studies, they have not yet been used as a basis for
a biography which would throw additional light on his leadership of the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York from 1928 to 1940. The reduced or changed role of Harrison
and other central bank officers in the 1930s is indicated in a conversation with Governor
Montagu Norman of the Bank of England in 1934 in which the latter stated that central
bankers could do nothing to stabilize erchange rates since the "governments held all the
cards" Comments on Harrison's leadership are given in Milton Friedman's and Anna
Jacobson Schwartz's recent monetary history of the United States. In this book they
state that Harrison "operated in the aura of Strong's legacy and sought to exrercise
comparable leadership" during his first years as governor but thereafter
valued "conciliating opposing points of view" and was"persuasive yet too reasonable
to be truly single minded and dominant". There is less emphasis on Harrison's
personality and more on external events in the Resolution of the Bank's Directors at
the time of his retirement. It included the statement:
The period of his leadership has been one ertraordinary difficulties.
It has encompassed the collapse of the speculative boom in the United States
in 1929, the credit and financial debacle in Europe in 1931, the banking crisis
in this country in 1933, the long period of recovery from the deep depression
of those years, and the outbreak of the present European war. Through these
critical times Mr. Harrison has brought this institution to higher standards of
performance in its banking operations and has developed within it a growing
capacity to meet and cope with the difficult problems of central banking policy.
His own contribution, however, has gone beyond what he has built into the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York and is recorded high in the annals of the
banking and credit crises of the period, within the nation and among the nations.
These three comments indicate that the period of Harrison's leadership at the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York was an interesting and a compler one, with
central bank independence being superseded by government domination and
experimentation, concerning which his memoranda and other papers might provide
new insights.
2. Classification of the Harrison Memoranda
2000 The-United States
2010 President of the United States
2011 Department of State
2012-2013 Treasury Department
2019 Other Departments and Corporations
2021 Senators
2050 New Jersey and New York
2100-2300 The Federal Reserve System
2130 Governors' and Presidents' Conferences
2140 Open Market Policy Conference and Federal Open Market
Committee
2200 Federal Reserve Board and Board of Governors
2210 Governors and Chairmen,
2211 Vice-Governors and Vice-Chairmen
2212 Other Members
2213 Staff
2300 Federal Reserve Banks
2320 Federal Reserve Bank of New York
2320.100 Board of Directors
2320.110 Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen
2320.210 Governors and Presidents
2320.220 Deputy Governors and Vice-Presidents
2320.250 Junior Officers
2500 National Banks
2550 Other Banks
2600 Other Companies and Individuals
2610 Banking and Brokerage Houses
2680 Stock Exchanges
2690 Miscellaneous
3000 Foreign Countries
3010 League of Nations
3013 Bank for International Settlements
3100 Europe
3110 Great Britain
3115-3117 Bank of England
3120 France
3125 Bank of France
3130 Germany
3135 Reichsbank
3160 Belgium
3180 Poland
3191 Hungary
3200 Canada and Latin America
3300 Asia
3330 Japan
3340 Australia
A GUIDE TO THE STRONG PAPERS, 1911-1929
1. Introduction
This guide to the Strong Papers - now located in the Archivist's Office
is the first part of a much larger effort that was proposed in 1965 to cover
all the Bank's historical. papers, that is, those more than thirty years old.
It was proposed then that guides should be prepared not only for the Strong
papers but also for the Harrison and other papers in the Archivist's Office,
the Correspondence Files, records of the Open Market Investment Committee, and
minutes of directors' and executives' meetings that are kept in the Secretary's
office. It was believed that these guides would assist a researcher in the
location of files containing material bearing upon his particular subject of study.
A researcher who uses this guide to the Strong Papers may raise three
questions: What are they? What were Strong's intentions concerning these
various papers? Have they been kept intact since his death in October 1928?
While this guide answers the first in considerable length, the second and third
questions cannot be answered definitively from available material. It does not
appear that Strong had any consistent purpose in keeping some letters and memoranda
in his own office and in sending others to the Bank's correspondence files.
He seems, for example, to have retained many memoranda and much correspondence
during the months after the outbreak of World War I as well as during the frequent
periods when he was absent from the Bank due to illness or trips abroad - in his own
office. Nearly all his correspondence with Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank
of England, was kept in his office, as were most cables, both routine and confidential,
exchanged with the Bank of England. He appears to have retained relatively little
other correspondence in his office during the fourteen years, 1914-1928, in which he
was Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
As to the completeness of the Strong Papers, there is considerable uncertainty
because the changes that have occurred in this collection during the past forty years have
not been adequately documented. The first change occurred in accordance with Strong's
wish that many of his papers be preserved in a special Bank collection. In memoranda of
1925 to George L. Harrison (who succeeded him in November 1928 as Governor) and of
August 1928 to his sons, Strong delegated the disposal of his papers to Harrison,
Benjamin Strong, Jr, and his secretary. In the latter memorandum, Strong directed:
In general, the correspondence material [relating] to the bank's
affairs should be left with the bank, and all other correspondence
can be sorted and what is worth keeping can be kept in such
custody as you agree, if it is of any interest to the family.
Accordingly the Bank was allotted a substantial portion of the material
bearing on the Federal Reserve System. A part of this was placed in a special
confidential collection - "Strong Papers" - which included most of the correspondence and
and memoranda that Strong had retained in his office during his years
as Governor, and some material on currency reform and the Federal Reserve Act
between 1911 and October 1914. Another part was kept for some years by
Governor Harrison but was deposited,before his death, in the Columbia University
Libraries. This included the voluminous cable books - messages exchanged in
the 1920s with central banks and others - and a few other papers of a highly
confidential nature. The remainder of Strong's papers pertaining to the
Federal Reserve System, as well as material of a personal nature and various
papers covering activities before October 1914, was turned over to Benjamin
Strong, Jr.
There have been other changes in the composition of the Strong Papers
as well. Actually, because of the paucity of information, it has not been
ascertained whether there was a substantial change in the Bank's holdings of
Strong's papers around the time of the munitions industry investigation of the
1930's. It is possible that some papers were removed inasmuch as eight letters,
cited as coming from Strong's personal files, are no longer there and have been
found only in the copies which the Bank made for this investigation. A change in
the Strong papers did occur in 1944, when letters written by Secretary of the Treasury
Andrew W. Mellon (and probably by other Government officials) were removed in
accordance with an interpretation of Government regulations restricting the
dissemination of such letters without the permission of the officials involved.
All instances of adding to the Strong Papers seem, on the other hand, to
have been recorded. These include the addition of a box of correspondence and
memoranda prepared for Governor Strong (1920-1928) by Carl Snyder, General
Statistician, and several items discovered within the Research Function, such
as memoranda from Snyder and W. Randolph Burgess and copies of the directors'
resolution in 1928 about Strong's leadership, and of a memorial issue of The
Federalist.
Recently the return of some papers and the making of copies of others have
resulted in a considerable restoration as well as enrichment of Strong's 1928
files. In the summer of 1969, Benjamin Strong, Jr, gave the Archivist two folders
of papers and lent her four others from which she could select material to be
copied. These folders held a number of Strong's memoranda and correspondence
with about a hundred people which were once in his files at the Bank, as well
as some material which had been acquired subsequently. Of greatest interest
among the latter were several letters, written by Governor Strong to Walter W. Stewart
in the summer of 1928 concerning Governor Norman and the management of the Bank
of England. Consequently, more than 500 items were added to the Strong Papers.
Other additions were made in 1970: copies of the eight letters, already mentioned
as missing from the Bank's files, and two others, also missing, which were
reproduced from the munitions industry investigations. Also added were copies
of about 80 items in the Harrison Collection at Columbia University, about
equally divided between Strong's correspondence with Harrison from 1923 to 1928
and Strong's correspondencewith others. The resulting collection, which fills
four file drawers, does not have the bulky cable books but probably contains
about the same volume of correspondence and memoranda on banking as in 1928.
Further changes have taken place in the Strong Papers in order to facilitate
their use. Originally they were filed according to either persons or topics, a
combination which Robert B. Warren remarked made "the location of papers quite a
task." When uniformity was desired, "persons" was chosen because of the importance
of keeping together all the Norman correspondence, because many topics were often
mentioned within a single letter or memorandum, and in view of Strong's own
preference (in 1928) that the Bank's master file should be:
arranged by the name of the correspondent, and that file should contain
the original of every letter received from every source and the first copy
of every letter sent to that correspondent. The subject file should be
subordinate and dealt with largely by cross references.
The Strong Papers have, therefore, been assembled in files or portions of files
according to the person with whom Strong (and in a few cases other Bank officers)
corresponded, or according to his manner of reporting his foreign trips. In each of these
files (for about 580 individuals and 9 foreign trips), letters or memoranda have been
arranged chronologically. Where the number of letters was large, they have been
separated into those originated by Strong and those received by
him. In a few cases of voluminous correspondence, there has been a further separation
into files for various time periods.
These files have been arranged according to a classification-system, specially
prepared so that each set of correspondence would have a separate number. The
classification is according to the type of organization or profession in which the
individual was active (see page 8-10)
After this physical arrangement of the papers according to classification,
other steps have been taken to aid the researcher. These include the preparation
of a brief summary of the important topics in the files. (See page 11-95.)
Where only a few letters to an individual exist, the summary covers their
important content, but where there are many letters, the summary assumes knowledge
of problems prevailing at the time. Each of the topics mentioned in the summary,
the name of the correspondent and of his institution have been included in the
index. (See page (6-172.)
This guide may prove adequate for these particular papers. But what about
Strong's other papers? Many are located in the Bank's Correspondence Files, arranged
according to another classification system and containing a diversity of types
of material which makes laborious the search for important letters or cables. Some
letters may be in the files of various correspondents or in special collections
or destroyed. However, despite the failure to have all of Governor Strong's
key correspondence in one place, the researcher may find, as many already have,
that the Strong Papers are a rich source of information on the development of
the Federal Reserve System and of central bank cooperation between 1914 and 1928.
The many tributes at the time of Strong's death indicate his devotion to both:
Edmund Platt, Vice-Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, stated that Strong "was
the outstanding personality of the Federal Reserve System, a man of great force
of character, of highest ideals, unsparing of himself in his devotion to duty,"
and went on to indicate his large role in the development of the Federal Reserve
System and in the postwar "reconstruction of monetary systems" in Europe.
2. Classification of the Strong Papers
000 The United States
010 President of the United States
011 Department of State
012 Treasury Department
013 Commerce Department
014 War Department
015 Navy Department
016 Post Office Department
020 Congress
021 Senate
022 House of Representatives
040 Possessions
050 States
051 New York
100-400Federal Reserve System
120 Federal Advisory Council
200 Federal Reserve Board
210 Governor
211 Vice Governor
212 Other Members
213 Staff
300-400Federal Reserve Banks
310 Boston
320 New York
320.11 Chairman and Federal Reserve Agent
320.12 Other Directors
320.15 Secretary
320.21 Governor
320.22-320.23 Deputy Governor
320.24 Assistant Federal Reserve Agent
320.32 Auditing Department
320.33 Accounting Department
320.34 Transit and Collections Department
320.35 Foreign Department
320.38 Securities Department
320.42 Law Department
320.45 Reports Department
320.50 Buffalo Branch
330 Philadelphia
340 Cleveland
350 Richmond
360 Atlanta
370 Chicago
389 St. Louis
390 Minneapolis
400 Kansas City
410 Dallas
420 San Francisco
500 National Banks
550 Other Banks
600 Other Companies, Associations, and Individuals
610 Banking, Brokerage, Commercial Paper, Cotton Factor,
and Insurance Companies.
620 Associations
630 Other Business Companies
640 Lawyers
650 Professors and Other Academic Officials
660 Publishers
670 Research Organizations
680 Other Organizations
690 Miscellaneous
1000 Foreign Countries
1010 League of Nations
1011 Reparation Commision
1012 Agent General for German Reparation Payments and
Others under the Dawes Plan
1015 International Labor Organization
1100 Europe
1110 Great Britain
1111 Government Officials
1112 Bankers and Others
1115-1117Bank of England
1120 France
1121 Government Officials
1122 Bankers and Others
1125 Bank of France
1130 Germany, Govenmient Officials and Others
1135 Reichsbank
CONTAINER LIST
FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK PAPERS
Container Folder Title
1 C 261.1 Bank of England, Revolving Credit File
1925-1927
1931-1932, 1952
797.2 Dawes Plan - Operation of
1924
1925
1926
1927
January - September 21, 1928
September 22 - December 1928
1929
2 Logan-Strong Correspondence
1921
1922
January-June
July-October
November-December
1923
GEORGE L. HARRISON MEMORANDA
Note: In accordance with the rules of the Butler Library at Columbia University,
the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library agrees to restrict the use of the George
L.Harrison Memoranda to a reference function only. Xerox copies will not be
made without the express written permission of a duly constituted authority
of the Butler Library at Columbia. All requests for publication from the
Harrison Memorandum will be referred to the Butler Library at Columbia and
the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
2010.1 Hoover, Herbert
November December 1931
2010.2 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1)
November December 1933
2010.2 Roosevelt, Franklin D. (2)
February - November 1933
2011.1 State Department 1926-32
a. Stimson, Henry
b. Cotton, Joseph P.
c. Davis, Norman H.
d. Young, Arthur N.
2012.1 Mellon, Andrew W.
1926-1930
2012.2 Mills, Ogden
1932-1933
2012.3 Woodin, William
1932-1933
2013.1 Mills, Odgen
1929-1931
3 2013.2 Ballantine, Arthur A.
1933
2021.0 United States Senators
Glass, Carter
Taft, Robert A.
1932-1940
2130.0 Federal Reserve System
Governors' Conferences of
1929-1932
2140.1 Open Market Policy Conference
1930-1933
2210.1 Young, Roy A.
1929
2210.2 Meyer, Eugene
1931-1933
2210.3 Black, Eugene R.
1933-1934
2212.0 Other Members of the Federal Reserve Board
Hamlin, Charles S.
Miller, Adolph C.
1929-1930
2320.211 Strong, Benjamin 1927
2320.222 Crane, Jay E. 1932-1933
3010.2 League of Nations, World Monetary & Economic Conference
June 2-16, 1933
3115.1 Norman, Montagu 1927-1929
3115.2 Norman, Montagu 1931
3115.3 Norman, Montagu 1932
3115.4 Norman, Montagu 1933
3117.1 Harvey, Sir Ernest 1931
3117.2 Harvey, Sir Ernest 1932
3117.3 Harvey, Sir Ernest 1933
3121.0 French Government Officials and Bankers
Avenol, Joseph April 26, 1929
3125.1 Officers of the Bank of France
Moreau, Emile
Moret, Clement
Rist, Charles
Cariguel, Charles
3125.2 Lacour-Gayet, Robert 1931
3125.3 Lacour-Gayet, Robert 1932-1933
3130.0 Kiep, 0. C, German Consul General, New York 1931
3135.0 Officers of the Reichsbank
Schacht, H.
Luther, H.
Dreyse, F. W.
1927-1931
3160.0 Belgian Government Officials and Bankers
Franck, Louis 1934
3180.0 Polish Government Officials and Bankers
Ciechanowski, Jan
Mlynarski, F.
1927
3330.O Japanese Government and Banking Officials
Tsushima, J. 1929
3340.0 Australian Government Officials, Bankers & Others
Mason, A. W. 1929
Box 4 BENJAMIN STRONG PAPERS
012.4 Leffingwell, Rusell C.
October 13, 1919 and April 16, 1920
012.5 Gilbert, S. Parker
May 16, 1921 - April 24, 1923
012.6 Winston, Garrard
March 22, 1924 - February 14, 1927
013.1 Hoover, Herbert
October 22, 1917 - December 27, 1923
013.2 Hunt, E. E.
September 17, 1921 - February 28, 1922
210.4 Crissinger, Daniel R.
October 17, 1924 - August 5, 1926
210.5 Young, Roy A.
May 25, 1928 - June 1, 1928
212.1 Miller, Adolph C.
October 26, 1916 - November 1, 1924
320.229 Harrison, George L.
April 30, 1926 - July 20, 1928
1000.3 (1) Benjamin Strong Journal
July 21 - September 20, 1919
1000.3 (2) Strong's Trip to Europe
July-September 1919
1000.5 Strong's Secret Trip to London and Paris
April 4 - April 24, 1924
1000.6 Strong's Trip to Europe
July 7 - September 21, 1925
1000.7 Strong's Trip to Europe
May 5 - July 30, 1926
1000.9 Strong's Trip to Europe
May 24 - July 8, 1928
5 Strong-Norman Letters and Cables
1916 - 1920
January - June, 1921
July - December, 1921
January - February, 1922
March - June, 1922
July - December, 1922
1923
1924
January - June, 1925
July - December, 1925
January - June, 1926
July - December, 1926
January - June, 1927
July - September, 1927
October - December, 1927
1928