Chairman of the RFC Jesse Jones pounding his fist to make a point to Chairman Henry B. Steagall and the House Banking and Currency Committee. (Courtesy, Library of Congress)

Charles Dawes gave his autographed photograph to his “friend” Wilson McCarthy, who acted like a hero worshiper of Dawes when he approved the unprecedented bailout package for the Dawes bank.…

Bernard Baruch, a Democratic power broker who was a major stockholder of the new Dawes bank, at Franklin Roosevelt’s White House (Courtesy, Library of Congress)

Depositors in Chicago demanding the return of their money in June 1932. (Courtesy, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library)

President Herbert Hoover after a good day of trout fishing. Hoover personally directed the bailout of the Dawes bank by telephone from his fishing camp on the Rapidan River. (Courtesy,…

Jesse Jones, chairman of the RFC, and his nephew, George A. Butler, who was the lawyer and head of Jones’s reorganized properties, working in the RFC’s Washington office. (Courtesy, Library…

Jesse Jones, as chairman of the RFC, approved loans to the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad and then directed the railroad company to hire Wilson McCarthy as its president.…

The Dawes brothers controlled the hopelessly insolvent Dawes bank, which was bailed out by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. (Courtesy, Library of Congress)

Owen Young (right), chairman of General Electric and partner of Charles Dawes, used his considerable influence to ensure the bailout of the Dawes bank. Young and Dawes (left), chairman of…

Depositors’ run on John Walsh’s Chicago National Bank in 1905. Walsh, who was the partner of Charles Dawes and Samuel Insull in several gas deals, served three years at the…