The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve

Although some prominent libertarians and conservatives, notably former US Representative Ron Paul, have promoted Griffin’s book as a scathing revelation of international corruption, economists and historians have debunked Griffin’s claims as being misleading or outright false. In addition, many of the book’s main claims rely on antisemitic or racist conspiracy theories.

The Creature from Jekyll Island’s central argument and metaphor—that the Federal Reserve system is a malicious “creature” organized by a cabal of shadowy figures to rob and exploit Americans—is based on a misrepresentation of the events that led up to the passing of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. The meeting of bankers and politicians on Jekyll Island did take place, and it was organized with strict secrecy. However, economist and historian Edward Flaherty points out that many plans for a centralized federal banking system were circulating in Washington in the early 1910s, and that the so-called “Aldrich Plan” laid out at Jekyll Island was rejected by Congress for placing too much power in the hands of private bankers. Instead, a different set of policymakers crafted a mixed structure in which the Fed would be “privately owned” by its member banks, but “publicly controlled” by a Board of Governors appointed by the government (Flaherty, Edward.