NATIONAL BANKING UNDER THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
Under regulations to be prescribed by the organization committee, every national
banking association in the United States is hereby required, and every eligible bank in
the United States and every trust company within the District of Columbia, is hereby
authorized to signify in writing, within sixty days after the passage of this Act, its
acceptance of the terms and provisions hereof. When the organization committee shall
have designated the cities in which Federal reserve banks are to be organized, and
fixed the geographical limits of the Federal reserve districts, every national banking
association within that district shall be required within thirty days after notice from
the organization committee, to subscribe to the capital stock of such Federal reserve
bank in a sum equal to six per centum of the paid-up capital stock and surplus of such
bank, one-sixth of the subscription to be payable on call of the organization committee
or of the Federal Reserve Board, one-sixth within three months and one-sixth within
six months thereafter, and the remainder of the subscription, or any part thereof, shall
be subject to call when deemed necessary by the Federal Reserve Board. said payments
to be in gold or gold certificates.
The shareholders of every Federal reserve bank shall be held individually responsi-
ble, equally and ratably, and not one for another, for all contracts, debts, and engage-
ments of such bank to the extent of the amount of their subscriptions to such stock at
the par value thereof in addition to the amount subscribed, whether such subscriptions
have been paid up in whole or in part, under the provisions of this Act.
Any national bank failing to signify its acceptance of the terms of this Act within the
sixty days aforesaid, shall cease to act as a reserve agent, upon thirty days’ notice, to
be given within the discretion of the said organization committee or of the Federal
Reserve Board.
Should any national banking association in the United States now organized fail
within one year after the passage of this Act to become a member bank or fail to com-
ply with any of the provisions of this Act applicable thereto, all of the rights, privileges,
and franchises of such association granted to it under the national-bank Act, or under
the provisions of this Act, shall be thereby forfeited. Any noncompliance with or
violation of this Act shall, however, be determined and adjudged by any court of the
United States of competent jurisdiction in a suit brought for that purpose in the dis-
trict or territory in which such bank is located, under direction of the Federal Reserve
Board, by the Comptroller of the Currency in his own name before the association shall
be declared dissolved. In cases of such noncompliance or violation, other than the
failure to become a member bank under the provisions of this Act, every director who
participated in or assented to the same shall be held liable in his personal or individual
capacity for all damages which said bank, its shareholders, or any other person shall
have sustained in consequence of such violation.
Such dissolution shall not take away or impair any remedy against such corporation,
its stockholders or officers. for any liability or penalty which shall have been previously
incurred.
Should the subscriptions by banks to the stock of said Federal reserve banks or any
one or more of them be, in the judgment of the organization committee, insufficient to
provide the amount of capital required therefor, then and in that event the said organi-
zation committee may, under conditions and regulations to be prescribed by it, offer
to public subscription at par such an amount of stock in said Federal reserve banks, or
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