A Banker Aspires to "Bust the System": P. B. Moss Campaigns to Nationalize Banking in the Great Depression

Two men sit aboard a horse-drawn wagon in front of First National Bank on 27th Street in Billings. Preston Boyd ("P. B.") Moss was president of First National between 1896 and 1910 and an influential citizen and businessman of Billings. In the 1930s, Moss questioned banking orthodoxy by advocating for the nationalization of the banking system and the organization of government banks to shift the balance of power from creditors to ordinary citizens.

2013.01.911, Billings Public Library

The new home of Preston Boyd ("P. B.") Moss, president of the First National Bank of Billings, expressed his boundless hopes for eastern Montana's future. The 1903 completion of his three-story sandstone mansion, located just beyond the existing limits of Billings, posed a challenge to any doubting Thomas who thought the city would never expand so far into the surrounding sagebrush. Billings had entered a period of rapid growth when Moss arrived in 1892. Through his position with the First National Bank, Moss financed many of the projects and businesses that fueled this development, including such ventures as the Billings Land and Irrigation Company, the Northern Hotel, and the city's sugar refinery. The hard times that arrived in the region during World War I challenged his booster ethos. While Moss never lost his optimism, by the 1930s his views on banking had taken an unexpected path. Having once been a prominent banker whose financial and business leadership contributed greatly to the initial growth of Billings—and still a notable businessman—Moss would seem an unlikely person to demand that banking be nationalized. Yet that is exactly what he did during the Great Depression. Recognizing that such a policy proposal was "very startling" coming from him, Moss playfully denied any radical tendencies: "I do not belong to the 'Third Internationale of Moscow.'"¹

Moss's advocacy of financial reform reflected the politics and economics of Montana. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, demands for significant banking and monetary reform were a prominent feature of national political culture. Public interest in financial questions was especially strong from the upper Midwest westward to the Pacific Northwest. This political geography shaped the surprising position that Moss espoused. After decades of residence in a part of the country where far-reaching banking reform had substantial support, Moss affirmed the stance of many Montanans by becoming a critic of the existing system. Due to the banking system's breakdown during the Great Depression, public interest in government banks was particularly intense. A resident of Winifred observed that "Uncle Sam has been compelled to go to the rescue of the banks to the tune of billions," and demanded: "Why not make a good job of it by taking over the whole business?" Such opinions became widespread among Montana's

P. B. Moss built his sandstone mansion in 1903, an expression of his boundless optimism for Billings and eastern Montana's future, which, in his role as a banker and businessman, he hoped to finance and develop. The construction of the Moss Mansion came during a booming time in eastern Montana as irrigated agriculture, railroads, wool production, and population all expanded. PC 001 Bill-re.02, MTHS Photograph Archives

working people as they struggled through the Depression.²

Firsthand experiences with a series of financial crises and severe economic declines animated Moss's criticisms of the existing order. In 1893 and 1907, he had contended with major nationwide banking panics from the inside, taking actions that kept his bank's doors open during both crises. Yet in 1910, federal bank examiners closed the First National—Moss believed unjustly—during a period of financial calm. In the aftermath of World War I, much of the public blamed the Federal Reserve System for a sharp economic downturn that struck agriculture particularly hard. Drought compounded the plight of the state's farmers. Hard times preceded the Great Depression in Montana and included the failure...