The Temporary National Economic Committee was established by a joint resolution of the United States Congress on June 16, 1938 and operated until its defunding on April 3, 1941. The TNEC's function was to study the monopoly powers and to report to Congress with its findings.

One of the many firms brought in for questioning was Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.

Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. is an American investment bank and securities firm, founded in 1818, it is the oldest and largest private bank in the United States. Brown Brothers Harriman serves clients globally in three main businesses: Investment Banking & Advisory, Wealth Management, Commercial...

 who later employed Prescott Bush

Prescott Bush

Prescott Sheldon Bush was a Wall Street executive banker and a United States Senator, representing Connecticut from 1952 until January 1963. He was the father of George H. W. Bush and the grandfather of George W...

, grandfather of U.S. President G.W. Bush.

Many records of the TNEC are still under seal according to the US National Archives:

As specified by the SEC, no one, except government officials for official purposes, may have access to records created and filed by the SEC on behalf of the TNEC, except for the following: certain records relating to the insurance study, consisting of replies to formal questionnaires (but not including replies to questionnaires sent to state supervisory officials and replies to the questionnaire of February 9, 1940, to life insurance agents); exhibits, including rate books and form insurance policies; and all conventional-form annual statements.

According to Irving Katz's 1969 article in the Business History Review the TNEC's official report was "valuable, if one-sided".

Further reading

• Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Recommendations to the Congress to Curb Monopolies and the Concentration of Economic Power," April 29, 1938, in The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, ed. Samuel I. Rosenman, vol. 7, (New York, MacMillan: 1941), pp. 305-315.
• "Anti-Monopoly". May 9, 1938. Time
  Time (magazine)
  Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
  
  magazine.
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, "Appendix A: Message from the President of the United States Transmitting Recommendations Relative to the Strengthening and Enforcement of Anti-trust Laws", The American Economic Review, Vol. 32, No. 2, Part 2, Supplement, Papers Relating to the Temporary National Economic Committee (Jun., 1942), pp. 119-128.

External links

• TNEC collection of documents scanned by Boston Public Library and Internet Archive.