6 Noted by Federal Reserve Chairman W.P.G. Harding in Robert Kramer and W. Putnam Livingston, “Cashing in on the Checkless Society,” Harvard Business Review, September/October 1967, p. 143; Bill Medley, Highways of Commerce: Central Banking and the U.S. Payments System (Kansas City: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, July 2014), p. 23, https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/highwasyofcommer/highwaysofcommerce.pdf?la=en. -4traveled about 1,000 miles.
Instead, it traveled 3,000 miles up and down the east coast, likely for days, before it finally reached its destination. The distance from Atlanta to Los Angeles is shorter than the route that check took. These kinds of inefficiencies were so significant that one of Congress’s motivations in creating the Federal Reserve was ensuring a safe and efficient nationwide payment infrastructure.