Chapter 15: The Federal Reserve Act & the Great Gold Heist
The 16th Amendment was ratified Feb 3, 1913
The Federal Reserve act passed Dec. 13, 1913.
In the previous chapter concerning banking as well as the chapter addressing Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War and the greenback, we explored to some degree, what the bankers were trying to accomplish in America through the institution of a central bank. They had not yet achieved everything they had hoped for, and were working towards. This was to be accomplished with the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. This is the chapter where I will explain the concept of “money” a little better for those that don’t see yet, why the issue is so important and central to the legal conditions that exist today. Probably the single most important tool for taking away freedom from people is to defraud them through the use of their “money.” While this may seem to be one of the most far removed ways to control people, it is actually the frog who is sitting in water which is constantly getting warmer until it’s so hot that the frog is boiled alive. The only reason the frog never jumped out of the pot is because the increase of heat was so slow it went unnoticed until it was too late.
Everyone relies on “money” because we need to exchange goods in our society, and this is common knowledge. But where the money comes from, is not common knowledge. Also, the methods in which it is created and is carried into circulation are not widely known. The reasons for its scarcity are even less known. So, in this chapter, I will do my best to explain these things, and this will be the last lesson to lay the fundamental groundwork for understanding this book in its totality.
Many people believe that everyone must work for a living in order to make money and pay for things in society otherwise you are a deadbeat, and worthless, and everyone has to support you, and you become a burden to society and that society cannot operate if nobody worked for a living and on and on. And what example can be given to base that on?
Bill Still has put out an excellent set of videos on the Federal Reserve System and the history of central banking in England. It’s called Capital Crimes and another one called The Money Masters. In the video, Still traces the history of the empire of the Goldsmiths on down through the King of England and then to the creation of the Bank of England and then the Federal Reserve System. Here are some points brought to light in the video:
“The Goldsmiths were the first bankers in early England. Primarily because people left their gold with the goldsmiths for safekeeping. The first paper money was ‘Receipts’ for the gold deposits. These represented the gold in storage. These were easier to carry around, and safer, thus making paper money more popular. The goldsmiths realized, after a while, that few people ever came back to trade in their ‘receipts’ for the gold at any one time. It was at this time that goldsmiths realized they could issue more paper than they had gold to back it up, thus leading the way to a cheated system. Then they could loan out more money than they had, and collect interest on it, as well. This was the beginning of ‘Fractional Reserve Banking,’ or loaning out more money than there is in assets on deposit. This way nobody ever noticed their wealth accumulation. Currently, in the United States, banks can loan out 10 times the amount they have on deposit. The Goldsmiths also learned what could happen when they ‘row’ the economy by issuing more money, then withdrawing that surplus from the economy. When there is more money, people spend more, and borrow more. Then when that money is taken out of the economy, there is no money to pay back the debts with, and it costs more to borrow more money. So, there are more bankruptcies, and re-possessions and the bankers can buy up everything for pennies on the dollar. This is exactly what is happening today. But today, economists who seek to hide these truths from you, call it the ‘Business Cycle’.”
“Early philosophers like Aristotle, believed that usury was bad for society because the purpose of money was to move goods in society from person to person. The interest on money slowed all of that down, and hence, slowed down the progression of society. It put an unnecessary burden on money.”
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Con’t: “King Henry I of England decided to try to wrestle the power away from the Goldsmiths around 1100 A.D. He invented the ‘Tally Stick’ system. This system lasted 726 years until 1826. Notches were carved alongside a wooden stick, indicating various denominations, or amounts. Then the stick was split down the middle, with each half holding a record. Then the King would hold one-half in safekeeping to avoid counterfeiting and he would ‘spend’ the other half into the kingdom or economy, and they would circulate as money. As a matter of fact, shares in the Bank of England were purchased with a tally stick, by at least one of its shareholders. Yak Dung was used in Tibet as money.”
Anything can be used as money, and money is only a representation of the energy that passes between two people to get goods from the “producer” to the “consumer,” as Aristotle was quoted as saying, including the fact that “usury” was bad because it slowed down that process. Well, what is the point of paying interest on money? If you don’t have any, and have to borrow it, then someone is going to charge you interest, right? Well, maybe if they have gold, and all anyone will accept for payment is gold, then you might have to borrow it? But then what about paper? Is “paper” actually money? If “paper” was money, and it was a particular form of “paper” that was accepted, then you would have to borrow it, right? Well, what if “paper” wasn’t money and it was something else? What if it only “circulated as money?” Then would you still have to borrow it? Why don’t you just print your own? Well, probably because there are laws and regulations that prevent you from doing that, right? Well, how come, some people or corporations (Banks, like the Federal Reserve) can print their own “money” or “paper,” and force others (the people) to use it? Have you ever thought about that before? Maybe you have, but only briefly. In this chapter I will explain why this is, using quotes from writers, Congressmen and lawmakers, law citations and definitions, and the banks own rules and regulations.
In Europe, in the 1700’s and 1800’s, they used “Bills of Exchange” commonly between bankers and businessmen. A “Bill of Exchange” would be drawn on one bank ordering them to “Pay” to another Bank or another Party, and presented for “Acceptance” or “Dishonor.” This method of doing business without metals goes back even further to the time of the Knights Templars in the 1100’s and up to the 1300’s. These early day bankers invented the modern day “Check.” They stored their immense treasures of gold and silver in the temples. If you were a traveler and you dealt with the Templars, you could present a check to them drawn on your account from another temple. (Things don’t change too much over time, do they? The Templars are called the “Masons” today, and the temples are called “banks”).
Edward Flaherty, a writer, has written a few words to introduce people to the Federal Reserve as it came to be. He sources his information from the book by William Grieder, Secrets of the Temple, “Money Bill goes to Wilson, New York Times, Dec. 23, 1913, and Wilson signs the Currency Bill, New York Times, Dec. 24, 1913. Flaherty writes,
“In 1910, Senator Nelson Aldrich, Frank Vanderlip of National City (Citibank), Henry Davison of Morgan Bank, and Paul Warburg of the Kuhn, Loeb Investment House met secretly at Jekyll Island, a resort island off the coast of Georgia, to discuss and formulate banking reform, including plans for a form of central banking. The meeting was held in secret because the participants knew that any plan they generated would be rejected automatically in the House of Representatives if it were associated with Wall Street. Because it was secret and because it involved Wall Street, the Jekyll Island affair has always been a source of conspiracy theories. But the conspiracy theorists overestimate the significance of the meeting. Everyone knew Wall Street wanted reform, and the Aldrich Plan which the meeting produced was, in fact, rejected by the House.”
“The Aldrich Plan called for a system of fifteen regional central banks, called National Reserve Associations, whose actions would be coordinated by a national board of commercial bankers. The Reserve Association would make emergency loans to member banks, would create money to provide an elastic currency that could be exchanged equally for demand deposits, and would act as a fiscal agent for the federal government. The Aldrich Plan was defeated in the House as expected, but its outline became a model for a bill that eventually was adopted. The problem with the Aldrich Plan was that the regional banks would be controlled individually and nationally by bankers, a prospect that did not sit well with the populist Democratic Party or with Wilson.
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Con’t: “The Democrats and Wilson were not opposed to banking reform, nor were they opposed to a form of central banking. They were fearful that the reforms would grant more control of the financial system to bankers, particularly to the Wall Street crowd. They also remembered their history: the First and Second Banks of the United States were brought down in part by foreign ownership of the Banks’ stock, a fear of centralized power, and because the Banks competed with the private banks they were regulating. A return to central banking must not be accompanied by those features.”
“What eventually emerged was the Federal Reserve Act, also known at the time as the Currency Bill, or the Owen-Glass Act. The bill called for a system of eight to twelve mostly autonomous regional Reserve Banks that would be owned by commercial banks and whose actions would be coordinated by a committee appointed by the President. The Federal Reserve System would then become a privately owned banking system that was operated in the public interest. Bankers would run the twelve Banks, but those Banks would be supervised by the Federal Reserve Board whose members included the Secretary of the Treasury, the Comptroller of the Currency, and other officials appointed by the President to represent public interests.”
At this point, a private bank was being put into place to allow the control over the American currency and thus the American economy. If I control all the money in the economy, and I loan out $100 in one year at 8 1/2 % interest. At the end of the year, there will only be $91.50 left in the economy and I can repossess someone’s property, now, because someone is bound to default on their loan. There isn’t enough money left in the economy to pay back the money that was borrowed, in addition to the interest, if I never loaned the interest out. Now, if I do loan out more money, there is more interest, so next year, there will be even less in the economy. Do you see how that works?
I am only going over this because I know there will be people reading this that won’t have a clue as to how money works, even though some people already know this. There is simply no reason why America had to borrow money from anyone, and pay interest. This interest is Great Britain’s and has been a bloody wound, sapping America of her financial and sovereign strength now for over 100 years.
Now that we have the Federal Reserve Act in place in 1913, the U.S. government corporation started borrowing money (credit) from this “private central bank” with interest! Well, what do you think was the collateral on this debt originally? It was all the gold held in the reserves of the U.S. Treasury. Now that’s a sweet deal! The U.S. government can trade all of its gold for paper, and we’ll be a lot better off because…. Well, I can’t think of one reason why we’d be better off, can you?
Here are the words of Woodrow Wilson, in 1913, the President who signed into law, the Federal Reserve Act:
“We are at the parting of the ways. We have, not one or two or three, but many, established and formidable monopolies in the United States. We have, not one or two, but many, fields of endeavor into which it is difficult, if not impossible, for the independent man to enter. We have restricted credit, we have restricted opportunity, we have controlled development, and we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men.”
“The great monopoly in this country is the monopoly of big credits. So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved and who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom. This is the greatest question of all, and to this statesmen must address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the long future and the true liberties of men.” – The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People by Woodrow Wilson (1)
(1) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm
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In 1913, before the signing of the Bill, here is what one Congressman, Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. had to say:
“This Federal Reserve Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President Woodrow Wilson signs this bill, the invisible government of the monetary power will be legalized …the worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill.” –Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr., 1913 (Verified)
“From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.” — Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., 1913 (Not verified)
During Lindbergh’s time as a Congressman he introduced articles of impeachment against several officials on the board of the Federal Reserve. Here is a section of the record, which charges “Conspiracy against the United States”, Feb. 12, 1917:
“I, upon my responsibility as a member of the House of Representatives, do hereby impeach the said W.P.D. Harding, governor; Paul. M. Warburg, vice-governor; and Frederick A. Delano, Adolph C. Miller, and Charles S. Hamlin, members, and each of them as members of the Federal Reserve Board, and also impeach all of them collectively as the five active working members of the Federal Reserve Board, of high crimes and misdemeanors of aiding, abetting, and conspiring with certain persons and firms hereinafter named, and with other persons and firms, known and unknown, in a conspiracy to violate the Constitution and the laws of the United States and the just and equitable policies of the Government, which said conspiracy developed and grew out of and was consummated from the following facts and acts, to wit:
“First, on or about the month of July, 1906, the exact date being unknown to the relator, the late J.P. Morgan, of the firm J.P. Morgan and Co., and the said firm, private bankers and brokers, with their main office in New York City and doing business all over the world; Paul M. Warburg, of the firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Co., also private bankers and brokers doing business all over the world, with their main office in New York City; Lee, Higinson and Co., also private bankers and brokers doing business all over the world, with their main offices in Boston and New York; Kidder, Peabody and Co., also private bankers and brokers, doing business all over the world, with their main offices in Boston and New York; the National City Bank of New York, with its office in the city of New York, doing a general banking business, domestic and foreign; the First National Bank of New York, with its office in New York City, doing a general banking business, domestic and foreign, and various other persons and firms, known and unknown to the relator, did conspire with each other to devise a means through social, political, and other ways strategy and by general chicanery, to deceive the people of the United States, the Congress, and the President of the United States for the purpose and with the object to secure an act of Congress, providing for a new monetary and banking system, to have in it a provision for a managing board vested with unusual and extraordinary powers, and to secure the appointment upon the upon the board of management which should be provided for in the act persons on the member of the board who would, by subterfuge, manipulation, and false administration, so manage as to avoid the spirit and the purpose of the people of the United States, the Congress, and the President aimed at in the passage in such an act, and instead of administering the act to meet with the spirit and comply with its terms, to induce and secure such board to enter into the conspiracy aforesaid, to administer the act for the special benefit and advantage of all of the said conspirators hereinbefore named, and their associates, and contrary to the letter, intent, and purpose of the act itself and in contravention of the Constitution and law; that in order to start the campaign with a plan well matured to succeed in said conspiracy, Paul M. Warburg, now vice governor of the Federal Reserve Board, but then a member of the firm Kuhn, Loeb, and Co., was a most active participant in drafting the main features and principles which should be embodied into whatever bill might be put through Congress, and did also assist in a plan for a secret campaign, to be kept from the knowledge of the President, with the appointing power, and from the Senate, with the confirming power, in the selection and confirmation of all high Federal appointive officials in order that a board of administration should, when the time came for its selection, be appointed that would carry out the designs of the conspirators aforesaid;
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Con’t: “that there were many secret meetings held by the conspirators for this purpose, which under the very circumstances would be screened and kept from the public and made practically impossible to discover, but nevertheless made certain of the fact because of the acts which point back to their creation; that one of such meetings, which your relator does not undertake to verify the truth of its holding, but is reliably informed that it was held – is described in Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly Magazine, in the October 19, 1916, number thereof, which is hereby referred to as showing the method most likely to have been followed for planning the then contemplated act of Congress, which is now the act known as the Federal reserve act.”
Continuing a little further, concerning count nine, is most important to consider. It deals with the vast amount of natural researches that will be squandered for the interest of Europe. To all nature conservatives, this is important: (2)
“Ninth. That as part of the said conspiracy and in furtherance of the same the said aforesaid conspirators, in violation of the Nation’s heretofore established economic policy of conservation of material and natural resources, conspired with European speculators to draw upon the natural resources of this nation for export with no correlation between the value of the materials exported and the value of the materials imported; that in consequence of the conspiracy to affect said export of material resources belonging to this Nation and to the people of it approximately eight thousand millions of dollars in value of the material resources have been exported since the war in Europe began; that as a result thereof the said conspirators acted with the said five members of the Federal Reserve Board in manipulating bank credits, and through credits the markets increased the cost to American consumers in the same period approximately sixteen thousands of millions of dollars in excess of the real values, which extra cost has mainly been the profits that have been added to the fortunes of the aforesaid conspirators; that as an addition and future loss to the people of this Nation in consequence of the facts aforesaid, the natural material resources of the Nation are forever less, and the costs made forever higher than they would be if trade and commerce were not manipulated through a false administration of finances.” (3)
(Now, here is the part where they planned to steal all of our gold)
“Twelfth. That during the Civil War the government of the United States issued money commonly called “greenbacks;” the same being issued upon the credit of the people of the Nation; that of said “greenbacks” so issued there have been ever since their issue and now are outstanding and in general circulation based upon the credit of the people of the United States $346,681,016 for which a reserve of $150,000,000 in gold is held by the Government to guarantee their redemption if demanded; that said circulating “greenbacks” have already saved the Government from paying approximately $1,000,000,000 interest during the time they have been in circulation and are now saving the Government approximately $6,000,000 annually; that in furtherance of said conspiracy in these articles of impeachment alleged and as part thereof, the conspirators have sought and by secret connivance now seek to have the said “greenbacks” retired and the $150,000,000 of gold guarantee, placed in the Federal reserve banks on which to base the loaning of “bank credits” as a substitute for the money owned by the people;
“that if the Federal reserve banks are allowed to secure possession of said gold, when the time comes that the conspirators aforesaid shall be able to use additional bank credits to their advantage in exploiting the people, the same would become the basis for additional bank inflation, directly and indirectly, to the extent of over a billion dollars upon which the banks would collect a great sum of interest, and the speculators would scalp even greater profits from additional manipulation of the markets, all of which would be added to the cost of living for the people to pay.” (4)
(2)https://kryspawareness.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/ct-cal-sr-articles-of-impeachment-1.jpg
(3) https://kryspawareness.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/ct-cal-sr-articles-of-impeachment-3.jpg
(4)https://kryspawareness.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/ct-cal-sr-articles-of-impeachment-4.jpg
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Next, the conspiracy to control “big business” is mentioned in fourteen. And in fifteen, the final charge, Lindbergh has this last added point to make;
“Fifteenth. That the Federal reserve act is void and unconstitutional, but that, notwithstanding, the conspirators aforesaid, have so manipulated things as to prevent the question of constitutionality of the act from being brought before the courts.” (5)
Here is a quote from Lindbergh, from his book, “Banking and Currency and the Money Trust,” 1913:
“To Man: Behold him in his application with the free gift – America. He has gone out over the plains and through the forests; developed the farms; built beautiful villages and great cities; constructed highways; furnished communication between them all; and then developed them by his ingenuity. All these are the expressions of his own energy – the results of his toil, but notwithstanding the gifts of God and the giving by Man of his own energy, he is burdened with a huge debt – the greater because of the largeness and richness of Nature, the expenditure he has made of his energy, and the accumulation by the few of the products. Why should we all labor to produce material wealth called capital, when it is appropriated by the few and made the basis on which they tax us and collect from us more interest and dividends!”
Also, Lindbergh had this to say regarding the history of central banking in America, including the influence of the bankers since the time of the Civil War:
“In the panic of 1903 I began taking notice of the operations of the larger banks. At that time, as far as I could see, there had been no attempt to form combinations in order to centralize deposits. Each banker seemed to be working out his separate business existence along that line, and at the same time getting all that he could in return. There were, however, banking associations which brought the bankers together, and in these meetings they discussed ways and means for their mutual advantage – even to the extent of maintaining sufficient influence over legislation.
“Ever since the Civil War, Congress has allowed the bankers to completely control financial legislation. The membership of the Finance Committee in the Senate and the Committee on Banking and Currency in the House, has been made up of bankers, their agents and attorneys. These committees have controlled the nature of bills to be reported, the extent of them, and the debates that were to be held on them when they were being considered in the Senate and the House. No one, not on the Committee, is recognized under the practice of the House as long as a member on the committee wishes recognition, and one of them is sure to hold the floor unless someone favorable to the committee has been arranged for. In this way the committees have been able to do as they pleased. The men who have appointed the committees in the last 50 years have not had the clear and earnest viewpoint of our forefathers. On Tuesday, January 14th, 1794, the following resolution was introduced in the U. S. Senate:
“Quotation “A.” – “Nor shall any person holding any office or stock in any institution in the nature of a bank, for issuing or discounting bills or notes payable to bearer or order, under the authority of the United States, be a member of either House whilst he holds such office or stock.
“It passed the Senate two days later, after being fought by the bankers, and amended at their instigation in order that they might be allowed to sit in Congress, but it still remained a protest to bankers controlling legislation in which they were personally interested. At the present time we possess a dulled and worn appreciation of the general fitness and consistency of these things, and we have surrendered all of our finances, including the actual control of legislation in Congress to the bankers, their agents and attorneys. At the earlier date above stated, when people were less commercial and more ethical than now, . . . they feared to trust the bankers even as plain Members of Congress. We of this age allow them to absolutely control all of the committees in Congress that make the laws of finance. Some of the members of these committees belong to banking associations that lobby in Congress in order to secure action favorable to the bankers.
(5) https://www.scribd.com/document/21176029/Charles-Lindbergh-Sr-Congressional-record-Feb-12-1917; https://kryspawareness.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/charles-lindbergh-sr-articles-of-impeachment-against-the-federal-reserve-board/#jp-carousel-7
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Con’t: “Are we satisfied that the bankers to whom we pay enormous tributes from our very life’s necessities . . . should control financial legislation? . . . Shall the Senate and House continue to give the representatives in Congress who are supported by the financial usurers a monopoly of the committees that deal with this most important subject? . . .
Shall the people supinely pay the constantly increasing usury, and still cheer their popularly elected representatives for permitting bankers to control the bills that are to be reported to the House, as well as the debates on them? . . . Are the people to have no hearing on the questions of banking, currency, and usury?” …
“We have already stated that an enormous amount of watered stock, bonds and securities were issued prior to 1907. The old laws had aided the trusts in the manufacture of these, but at that time they decided that they must have new laws favorable to their operations if they were to aggrandize and monetize their securities as they wished. They had indeed secured great holdings – the largest ever. This 1907 panic was to be the means by which the people were to be forced to enact new laws, guaranteeing the full face-value of the watered stocks and bonds.
“That guarantee would make the people pay the interest and dividends on them forever. By this method the greatest steal ever contemplated since to be beginning of humanity would be accomplished. Thus, in 1907, when Nature had responded most bountifully and, when there was due to us the greatest prosperity, we were given a panic as the initial move for the proposed steal, – the Aldrich Plan.”
Then a little further down, Lindbergh addresses a circular from 1893:
“I call attention to another of their schemes. This bears a somewhat later date, one which I myself remember. I read the ‘Panic Circular of 1893’ at the time of its issue. It was that circular which started me to studying the problems of finance. The circular was issued direct by The American Bankers Association, an organization in which most bankers hold membership. It bears the date March 11th, 1893, and was sent to the trusted national banks in all states. It read:
Quotation ‘E’.”
“Dear Sir: – The interest of national banks requires immediate financial legislation by Congress. Silver, silver certificates and treasury notes must be retired and national bank notes upon a gold basis made the only money. This will require the authorization of five hundred millions to one thousand millions of new bonds as the basis of circulation. You will at once retire one-third of your circulation and call in one half of your loans. Be careful to make a monetary stringency among your patrons, especially among influential business men. Advocate an extra session of Congress to repeal the purchasing clause of the Sherman law and act with other banks of your city in securing a large petition to Congress for its unconditional repeal, per accompanying form. Use personal influence with your Congressman, and particularly let your wishes be known to your Senators. The future life of national banks, as fixed and safe investments, depends upon immediate action, as there is an increasing sentiment in favor of government legal tender notes and silver coinage.” –
Banking and Currency and the Money Trust – By Charles A. Lindbergh (6)
Here is what Lindbergh had to say 10 years later:
“The financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board. That Board administers the finance system by authority of a purely profiteering group. The system is Private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people’s money.” — Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., 1923 (Unverified)
Here is what another Congressman, Mr Crozier, had to say:
“These 12 corporations together cover the whole country and monopolize and use for private gain every dollar of the public currency…” — Mr. Crozier of Cincinnati, before Senate Banking and Currency Committee – 1913 (Unverified)
(6) https://archive.org/stream/BankingAndCurrencyAndTheMoneyTrustByCharlesA.Lindbergh/BankingAndCurrencyAndTheMoneyTrust-ByCharlesA.Lindbergh_djvu.txt
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And here are some quotes from Congressman Louis T. McFadden, who headed a Congressional Committee on Banking and Currency for 12 years, taken from the Congressional Record, June 10, 1932, one year before the National Banking Emergency was declared:
“Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it. Some people think the Federal reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man’s throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into States to buy votes to control our legislation; and there are those who maintain an international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and of wheedling us into the granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime. Those 12 private credit monopolies were deceitfully and. disloyally foisted upon this country by bankers who came here from Europe and who repaid us for our hospitality by undermining our American institutions. Those bankers took money out of this country to finance Japan in a war against Russia. They created a reign of terror in Russia with our money in order to help that war along. They instigated the separate peace between Germany and Russia and thus drove a wedge between the allies in the World War.”
Continuing on further, McFadden writes:
“It has been said that President Wilson was deceived by the attentions of these bankers and by the philanthropic poses they assumed. It has been said that when he discovered the manner in which he had been misled by Colonel House, he turned against that busybody, that “holy monk” of the financial empire, and showed him the door. He had the grace to do that, and in my opinion he deserves great credit for it. President Wilson died a victim of deception. When he came to the Presidency, he had certain qualities of mind and heart which entitled him to a high place in the councils of this Nation; but there was one thing he was not and which he never aspired to be; he was not a banker. He said that he knew very little about banking. It was, therefore, on the advice of others that the iniquitous Federal reserve act, the death warrant of American liberty, became law in his administration. Mr. Chairman, there should be no partisanship in matters concerning the banking and currency affairs of this country, and I do not speak with any. In 1912 the National Monetary Association, under the chairmanship of the late Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, made a report and presented a vicious bill called the National Reserve Association bill. This bill is usually spoken of as the Aldrich bill. Senator Aldrich did not write the Aldrich bill. He was the tool, but not the accomplice, of the European-born bankers who for nearly 20 years had been scheming to set up a central bank in this country and who in 1912 had spent and were continuing to spend vast sums of money to accomplish their purpose. The Aldrich bill was condemned in the platform upon which Theodore Roosevelt was nominated in the year 1912, and in that same year, when Woodrow Wilson was nominated, the Democratic platform, as adopted at the Baltimore convention, expressly stated: ‘We are opposed to the Aldrich plan or a central bank.’
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Con’t: “This was plain’ language. The men who ruled the Democratic Party then promised the people that if they were returned to power there would be no central bank established here while they held the reins of government. Thirteen months later that promise was broken, and the Wilson administration, under the tutelage of those sinister Wall Street figures who stood behind Colonel House, established here in our free country the worm-eaten monarchical institution of the ‘king’s bank’ to control us from the top downward, and to shackle us from the cradle to the grave. The Federal reserve act destroyed our old and characteristic way of doing business; it discriminated against our 1-name commercial paper, the finest in the world; it set up the antiquated 2-name paper, which is the present curse of this country, and which has wrecked every country which has ever given it scope; it fastened down upon this country the very tyranny from which the framers of the Constitution sought to save us. One of the greatest battles for the preservation of this Republic was fought out here in Jackson’s day, when the Second Bank of the United States, which was founded upon the same false principles as those which are exemplified in the Federal reserve act, was hurled out of existence. After the downfall of the Second Bank of the United States in 1837, the country was warned against the dangers that might ensue if the predatory interests, after being cast out, should come back in disguise and unite themselves to the Executive, and through him acquire control of the Government. That is what the predatory interests did when they came back in the livery of hypocrisy and under false pretenses obtained the passage of the Federal reserve act. The danger that the country was warned against came upon us and is shown in the long train of horrors attendant upon the affairs of the traitorous and dishonest Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. Look around you when you leave this chamber and you will see evidences of it on all sides. This is an era of economic misery and for the conditions that caused that misery, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks are fully liable. This is an era of financed crime and in the financing of crime, the Federal Reserve Board does not play the part of a disinterested spectator.”
“…Not all of the Democratic Members of the Sixty-third Congress voted for this great deception. Some of them remembered the teachings of Jefferson; and, through the years, there have been no criticisms of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks so honest, so out-spoken, and so unsparing as those which have been voiced here by Democrats. Again, although a number of Republicans voted for the Federal reserve act, the wisest and most conservative members of the Republican Party would have nothing to do with it and voted against it. A few days before the bill came to a vote, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, wrote to Senator John W. Weeks as follows:
“NEW YORK CITY, December 17, 1913. MY DEAR SENATOR WEEKs: ‘Throughout my public life I have supported a measures designed to take the Government out of the banking business • • •. This bill puts the Government Into the banking business as never before in our history and makes, as I understand it, all notes Government notes when they should be bank notes.
“The powers vested in the Federal Reserve Board seem to me highly dangerous, especially where there is political control of the board. I should be sorry to hold stock in a bank subject to such domination. The bill, as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast inflation of the currency. There is no necessity of dwelling upon this point after the remarkable and most powerful argument of the senior Senator from New York. I can be content here to follow the example of the English candidate for Parliament who thought it enough ‘to say ditto to Mr. Burke.’ I will merely add that I do not like to think that any law can be passed which will make it possible to submerge the gold standard in a flood of irredeemable paper currency. I had hoped to support this bill, but I cannot vote for it as it stands, because it seems to me to contain features and to rest upon principles in the highest degree menacing to our prosperity, to stability in business, and to the general welfare of the people of the United States. Very sincerely yours, HENRY CABOT LODGE.”
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There is a little more, from the Record:
“In 1913, before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, MJ. Alexander Lassen made the following statement:
“But the whole scheme of a Federal reserve bank with its commercial-paper basis is an impractical, cumbersome machinery, is simply a cover, to find a way to secure the privilege of issuing money and to evade payment of as much tax upon circulation as possible, and then control the issue and maintain, instead of reduce, interest rates. It is a system that, if inaugurated, will prove to the advantage of the few and the detriment of the people of the United States. It will mean continued shortage of actual money and further extension of credits; for when there is a lack of real money people have to borrow credit to their cost.”
And there is a little more, continuing:
“It will take us 20 years to redeem our Government, 20 years of penal servitude to pay off the gambling debts of the traitorous Federal Reserve Board and the Federal re-serve banks and to earn again that vast flood of American wages and savings, bank deposits, and United States Government credit which the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks exported out of this country to their foreign principals.
“The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks lately conducted an anti-hoarding campaign here. Then they took that extra money which they had persuaded the trusting American people to put into the banks and they sent it to Europe along with the rest. In the last several months, they have sent $1,300,000,000 in gold to their foreign employers, their foreign masters, and every dollar of that gold belonged to the people of the United States and was unlawfully taken from them.
“Is not it high time that we had an audit of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks and an examination of all our Government bonds and securities and public moneys instead of allowing the corrupt and dishonest Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks to speculate with those securities and this cash in the notorious open discount market of New York City?”
And this last part, which really sums the matter up concisely. I believe Ron Paul was saying the same thing, not long ago, but this was from 1932:
“Mr. Chairman, last December I introduced a resolution here asking for an examination and an audit of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks and all related matters. If the House sees fit to make such an investigation, the people of the United States will obtain information of great value. This is a Government of the people, by the people, for the people, consequently nothing should be concealed from the people. The man who deceives the people is a traitor to the United States. The man who knows or suspects that a crime has been committed and who conceals or covers up that crime is an accessory to it. Mr. Speaker, it is a monstrous thing for this great Nation of people to have its destinies presided over by a traitorous Government board acting in secret concert with international usurers. Every effort has been made by the Federal Reserve Board to conceal its power but the truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States. It controls everything here and it controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will. No man and no body of men is more entrenched in power than the arrogant credit monopoly which operates the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. These evil-doers have robbed this country of more than enough money to pay the national debt. What the National Government has permitted the Federal Reserve Board to steal from the people should now be restored to the people. The people have a valid claim against the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks. If that claim is enforced, Americans will not need to stand in breadlines or to suffer and die of starvation in the streets. Homes will be saved, families will be kept together, and American children will not be dispersed and abandoned. The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks owe the United States Government an immense sum of money. We ought to find out the exact amount of the people’s claim. We should know the amount of the indebtedness of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks to the people and we should collect that amount immediately. We certainly should investigate this treacherous and disloyal conduct of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal reserve banks.” …
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