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3) Interstate advertisements must contain approximately the same set of facts required for registration and be approved by the Trade Commission. Any material misrepresentation makes the promoters liable to civil damage suits by stock buyers as well as criminal prosecution by the U. S. It is made a crime to convey the idea to any prospective purchaser that Federal registration is tantamount to Federal approval of the worth of the issue.
Security publicity legislation was only the first step in the President's program to bring such dealings under stricter Government supervision. His second step called for a Federal licensing system for all exchanges—a proposal which brought back to Washington Samuel Untermyer, 75, famed New York attorney and longtime advocate of Federal license for stock exchanges.
Pujo Echo. On May 18, 1912, the Democratic House of Representatives authorized its Banking & Currency Committee of which Louisiana's Arsène Paulin Pujo (pronounced pew-joe) was chairman "to investigate banking and currency in the U. S. as a basis for remedial legislation." Two subcommittees were formed—one headed by Virginia's Carter Glass which resulted two years later in the Federal Reserve Act and the other headed by Chairman Pujo which set out after the "Money Trust." Mr. Untermyer was named chief counsel of the Pujo inquiry and proceeded to make sensational headlines for many a month. His two prime witnesses were the late George Fisher Baker and the late John Pierpont Morgan. A cancer of the throat kept the late William Rockefeller, brother of John D. Sr., from testifying. It was Mr. Morgan's one and only appearance before a Congressional committee as a private banker and Counsel Untermyer made the most of it. On the stand Banker Morgan admitted the State had no supervision over him or his institution, that he, Banker Baker and James Stillman (National City Bank) generally worked together in their big deals. Morganisms:
"There is no way in which one man could obtain a money monopoly. . . . Commercial credit is based primarily on character. Money cannot buy it. . . . A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom. . . . I have known men to come into my office and I have given them a check for $1,000,000 when I knew they had not a cent in the world."
Chairman Pujo's investigation proved nothing definite about the "Money Trust" largely because a Republican Comptroller of the Currency, on President Taft's orders, blocked the committee's attempt to get at national bank records. The Press consensus was that a dozen bankers, including Messrs. Morgan, Baker and Stillman, controlled most of the country's commercial credit—a situation impossible today with the country's credit scale expanded from hundreds of millions to tens of billions.
In 1913 Mr. Pujo voluntarily retired from Congress. Today, aged 71, tall, erect and keen-eyed, he is senior partner of Pujo, Bell & Hardin (law) of Lake Charles, La. He watches Congress from afar, keeps his mouth shut on public questions, points to the four-volume record of his investigation in the Library of Congress as his life work.