J. P. Morgan and Company

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 6, 8 January 1936, Page 7

J. P. Morgan and Company

Wartime Activities To be Inquired Into

REASONS FOR AMERICA’S ENTRY INTO THE WAR

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright. Received Tuesday, 3.15 p.m. WASHINGTON, Jau. C.

The Senate Munitions Investigating Committee, which has extended the scope of its inquiry to the causes of America’s participation iu the World War, will to-morrow start exhaustive hearings into the wartime activities of J. P. Morgan and Company. Mr Morgan, Mr Lamont and tho other partners and their advisers are in Washington for direct questioning, which will probably require several weeks. In anticipating the course the inquiry will probably take, the firm issued a public statement to-day defending its financial relations with the British, French and other Allied Governments prior to America’s intervention in 1917. It explained its position as fiscal and later purchasing agents for these Powers of some seven billion dollars financing undertaken. Less than one billion dollars consisted of unsecured loans.

The statement added: “Tho Morgan Company will contest any statement front the Committee that the American entry into the war was duo to the financial obligations of tho Allies to this country. The nation went to war to protect her human -rights, rather than property rights.’’