Arsène Paulin Pujo (December 16, 1861 – December 31, 1939) was a member of the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

best known for chairing the "

Pujo Committee The Pujo Committee was a United States congressional subcommittee in 1912–1913 that was formed to investigate the so-called "money trust", a community of Wall Street bankers and financiers that exerted powerful control over the nation's finances ...

", which sought to expose an anticompetitive conspiracy among some of the nation's most powerful financial interests (trusts).

Biography

Pujo was born near Lake Charles in

Calcasieu Parish Calcasieu Parish (; french: Paroisse de Calcasieu) is a parish located on the southwestern border of the U.S. state of Louisiana. As of the 2020 census, the population was 216,785. The parish seat is Lake Charles. Calcasieu Parish is part ...

to a

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

-born father. He practiced law in Lake Charles and was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1898 before he was elected as a Democrat in 1902. In 1908, he became a member of the

National Monetary Commission The National Monetary Commission was a U.S. congressional commission created by the Aldrich–Vreeland Act of 1908. After the Panic of 1907, the Commission studied the Banking in the United States, banking laws of the United States, and the leadi ...

, a body which sought to study foreign banking systems in search of ways to better the domestic banking system. In 1911, he was appointed to chair the House Committee on Banking and Currency. In 1912, he left the National Monetary Commission and obtained congressional authorization to form a separate committee, which came to be called the

, to investigate the " money trust". The Pujo Committee found that a cabal of financial leaders were abusing their public trust to consolidate control over many industries. Although Pujo left Congress in 1913, the findings of the committee inspired public support for ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, passage of the

Federal Reserve Act The Federal Reserve Act was passed by the 63rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913. The law created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. The Pani ...

that same year, and passage of the

Clayton Antitrust Act The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 (, codified at , ), is a part of United States antitrust law with the goal of adding further substance to the U.S. antitrust law regime; the Clayton Act seeks to prevent anticompetitive practices in their incipie ...

in 1914. They were also widely publicized in the

Louis Brandeis Louis Dembitz Brandeis (; November 13, 1856 – October 5, 1941) was an American lawyer and associate justice on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1916 to 1939. Starting in 1890, he helped develop the " right to privacy" concep ...

book, ''

Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It ''Other People's Money And How the Bankers Use It'' (1914) is a collection of essays written by Louis Brandeis first published as a book in 1914, and reissued in 1933. This book is critical of banks and insurance companies. Contents All the chap ...

''. While still a Congressman Pujo worked as a lumber company lawyer and helped suppress an

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...

(IWW) timber workers strike in 1912, which culminated in the Grabow riot. Although the coroner charged the Galloway Lumber Company of Grabow, Louisiana with murder for shooting and killing three union strikers on July 7, 1912, the grand jury refused to indict and instead charged 58 union members with first-degree murder. Pujo helped prosecute 9 but the jury returned a dismissal after 1 hour of deliberation and the remaining defendants were released. (Perlman and Taft, p. 246)

References

Sources

*Perlman, Selig and Philip Taft. History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932. Volume IV Labor Movements. MacMillan: NY, 1935. 683 pp. *The American Pageant 11th Edition by Thomas A. Bailey, David M. Kennedy, and Lizabeth Cohen; copyright 1998 {{DEFAULTSORT:Pujo, Arsene 1861 births 1939 deaths American people of French descent National Monetary Commission Louisiana lawyers Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Louisiana Politicians from Lake Charles, Louisiana