Louis Thomas Mc Fadden - Political Career

Political Career

In 1914, McFadden was elected as a Republican Representative to the Sixty-fourth Congress and to the nine succeeding Congresses. He served as Chairman of the United States House Committee on Banking and Currency during the Sixty-sixth through Seventy-first Congresses, or 1920-31. Though re-elected without opposition in 1932, he lost to the Democratic nominee in 1934. He was an unsuccessful candidate for nomination in 1936.

McFadden's main official legacy was the working on and the passing of the McFadden Act of 1927, limiting federal branch banks to the city in which the main branch operates. The Act sought to give national banks competitive equality with state-chartered banks by letting national banks operate branch banks to the extent permitted by state law. The McFadden Act specifically prohibited interstate branching by allowing national banks to branch only within the state in which they were situated. Although the Riegel-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994 repealed this provision of the McFadden Act, it specified that state law continues to control intrastate branching, or branching within a state's borders, for both state and national banks.

McFadden is also remembered as a "vociferous foe of the Federal Reserve," which he claimed was created and operated by Jewish banking interests who conspired to economically control the United States. On June 10, 1932, McFadden made a 25-minute speech before the House of Representatives, in which he accused the Federal Reserve of deliberately causing the Great Depression. McFadden also claimed that Wall Street bankers funded the Bolshevik Revolution through the Federal Reserve banks and the European central banks with which it cooperated.

McFadden moved to impeach President Herbert Hoover in 1932, and he also introduced a resolution bringing conspiracy charges against the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. The impeachment resolution was defeated by a vote of 361 to 8; it was seen as a big vote of confidence to President Hoover from the House. According to Time magazine McFadden was “denounced and condemned by all Republicans for his ‘contemptible gesture’. The Central Press Association reported that he was “virtually read out of his party… his committee posts…taken away from him…was ostracized by Republicans called crazy…”. Sen. David A. Reed (R-PA) said “We intend to act to all practical purposes as though McFadden had died”.

In 1933, he introduced House Resolution No. 158, which included articles of impeachment for the Secretary of the Treasury, two assistant Secretaries of the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and the officers and directors of its twelve regional banks.

In 1934, he made several anti-semitic comments from the floor of the house and in newsletters to his constituents wherein he cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, claimed the Roosevelt administration was controlled by Jews, and objected to Henry Morgenthau Jr., a Jew, becoming Secretary of the Treasury. Drew Pearson claimed in his "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column that, in a publication by the American fascist Silver Shirts, McFadden had been "extensively" quoted "in support of Adolf Hitler". In September the Nazi tabloid Der Stuermer praised McFadden. He was also lauded by the publications of William Dudley Pelley, leader of the Silver Shirts, on several occasions. On election day that year he lost to Charles E. Dietrich by "about 2,000 votes". This was the only election between 1912 and 1950 when the district elected a Democrat.

According to McFadden's Jewish Telegraphic Agency obituary: ‘In January 1935, he announced his candidacy for president with the backing of an organization called "the Independent Republican National Christian-Gentile Committee" on a platform to"keep the Jew out of control of the Republican Party!"’ Not garnering much support for his presidential bid, he tried to win back his congressional seat. He lost the nomination by a wide-margin to Col. Albert G. Rutherford who went on to win the general election.