#The Federal Reserve Board#.

At the head of the banking system stands the Federal Reserve Board of seven members, five of them appointed by the President and Senate of the United States for this purpose, and two serving _ex-officio_--the Secretary of the Treasury and the Comptroller of the Currency.

One of the five shall be designated by the President as Governor and one as Vice-Governor of the Board, but the Secretary of the Treasury is _ex-officio_ chairman.
The term of the appointive members is ten years and the salary is $12,000 a year.
The powers of the board are numerous and important.

The board is made the head of a real _system_ of banking, the twelve parts of which can, in times of emergency, and at the board's discretion, be compelled to combine their reserves by means of lending to each other (rediscounting), to the very limit of their resources, at rates fixed by the board.

By this means the reserves of the several district banks may be "piped together" and thus be practically made into one central bank under governmental control, altho centralization was in outward form avoided by the bill.