Courtesy of Pam Martens
The New York Times Fawns Over Charles E. Mitchell, Head of National City Bank, for His Gobbling Up of Other Banks (September 29, 1929)
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
For more than a century, the New York Times has championed some of the most despised men on Wall Street in their power grabs of other banks. The resulting mega bank concentration has crippled competition, crippled democracy in the U.S. and led to unprecedented wealth and income inequality in our nation. And yet, to many Americans, the New York Times is considered a progressive newspaper.
It is notable that the New York Times was founded with big bank money. Adolph S. Ochs purchased the New York Times in 1896 for $75,000. John Pierpont Morgan Sr. of the powerful Wall Street bank, JPMorgan, provided $25,000 of that money. When the Times celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1996, it noted that the Pierpont Morgan Library was exhibiting “the original letter Ochs wrote to his wife, Effie, describing a meeting he had with J. Pierpont Morgan asking for help in financing the purchase of the paper.” In the letter Ochs said: “It took me just 15 minutes to secure Mr. Morgan’s signature for $25,000, and I walked out on air with his signature in my inside pocket.”
That friendship worked out well for John Pierpont Morgan Sr. During and after the Wall Street panic of 1907, the New York Times lionized Morgan as the man who saved the day. Morgan was also defended by the Times in 1912 during the Pujo Congressional hearings into the money trusts that ruled Wall Street and the nation’s finances.
Another despised character, Charles E. Mitchell, who headed National City Bank (the precursor to today’s Citigroup) in the leadup to the 1929 Wall Street crash also found great affection at the New York Times for his gobbling up of competitors. In a nauseatingly adoring “news article” that ran on Sunday, September 29, 1929 under the headline “The Ruler of the World’s Largest Bank,” the Times portrayed Mitchell as something akin to a super action hero:
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