Chapter XIX
Money in the Atomic Age

Dear Reader: Let me emphasize, in the beginning of this chapter, that just as with our daily lives, money has passed the "horse and buggy days."  Therefore, we must change completely our conception of money; forget the substance we have been calling money; forget all we have read about, the standard of value, of the gold standard; of the silver ratio; of the national credit . . . all of it must be junked.  We must cease to think of bills, coins, even personal cheques as assets.

The following House Resolution (64), adopted June 27, 1957, and inserted in the Appendix of the Record, August 30, 1957, by that erudite, intrepid Senator, Paul H. Douglas, is the most astounding admission by the Congress wholly responsible for the danger.

The first "Whereas" shouts: ". . . the problem of inflation is national in scope, and poses the danger of destroying our economic system, and with the failure of such system, the Nation itself; and

"Whereas the scope of the problem is too broad for anyone State to solve; and

"Whereas the consumer price index has gone up 3.4 points in the past 12 months. . . : and

"Whereas in addition to other causes, the swollen national budget, through increased spending, will result in more inflation; and

"Whereas Government spending is a prime cause of inflation in that spending does not increase the Nation's productivity. . . Therefore be it resolved. . . That it is the sense of this house that the Congress of the United States should establish a commission to study all aspects of the inflation problem. . . That Congress should curtail spending so as to lessen the outlay of money. . . and that the Commission shall make recommendations to the next Congress for means and methods of curbing the inflational spiral. . ."

Well, general reader, let me comment on the solution NOW.  If Congress will follow our suggested solution, outlaw banking, divorce the people's money from the stock market gambling, and resume their Constitutional mandate "To coin money and regulate the value thereof," the whole inflation business will be forever relegated to the limbo of "gold standard," "sound currency," and other ought-to-be-forgotten rubbish in the money realm.

But, don't forget that the hand of the Federal Reserve System penned that bunch of "whereases," and is seeking another "commission."  Remember that the bankers, who have been the same since the Reserve Act in 1913 as they were for four hundred years theretofore, pulled the "near destruction" of our "nation" in the 90's, called for a "commission," which 10 years later came up with the Reserve Act.

And don't forget that with all that Congress could give them for giving us a "sound currency," it took them only 16 years to "bust nationwide."  And they did this, not of necessity, but that they might kick out a semblance of "soundness" "gold as a basis of bank reserves," (because they could not control gold, it's coming and going) and substituted "corporation stock," which they could manipulate at will and readily to their own benefit.

This new commission has a joker up the banker's sleeve, and when they pull it, this will be a nation of the extremely rich and extremely poor.  Less than 5 percent of the people will own the nation's material wealth, and employ as many of the remaining 170 million people as they need to man their giant tractors and manipulate their vast hives of industry, and the rest of us will be put on a dole, and spurned because we are so worthless and indecent as to "beg" our government for a crumb of bread.

But let me give the lie again and again to the assertion that inflation is a product of government spending.  Government spending has no influence whatever on the volume of money, which is inflation; for it is merely spending taxes and revenues the people paid into the Government that "their" Government might pay its running expenses.  It is the normal, beneficent, life-giving flow of deposits from buyer to seller.

Even its 90-, 180-, and 365-day current deficit borrowing has little influence on inflation; but it does inflate the bankers' coffers, because it takes 143 dollars now to pay the interest on the same amount of deficit money as it took in the 30's ...or our dollar we use to pay interest to the bankers of these short-time notes is now a 7 mills (not 100 cents) dollar.

The Government is, criminal in leaving in the hands of the Bankers U.S. Bonds, for as often as they buy one from the people, they give new deposits for them, and these new deposits create new reserves for the banks, which increase their bank credit by five times the value of the bond.  There you have inflation: first the value of the bond, then the bank credit which is five times the new deposits paid for the bond.

The "nigger in the woodpile, reader, is the purchases of corporation stock on the open markets of the vast ocean of corporation stock.  And the day-to-day purchase of "investment obligations," which create new deposits, adding to the volume of money constantly.  But, that is not the half of it: every time a banker lends a person $50 (or less or more), a firm $500 (or less or more), or a corporation $10 million (or less or more), it adds the face of the loan to the then volume of deposits, increasing the total volume the face of the loan. These run into the trillions of dollars. . . and there is, inflation.

Too much money is inflation.  Government spending is not to blame, labours' wages is not to blame.  High prices is not inflation.  High wages is not inflation.  All are the result of cheap money, and cheap money is always the result of too much. . . . German marks of the 20s, an instance.  The lack "of gold content" has, nothing to do with it.  Lack of faith of the people in it has nothing to do with it — there is just too much of it.

So long as the people have faith in their Government (and Congress may keep that faith or barter it away) our money, if in the hands of Congress, and its volume kept in lockstep with our national business demands, a deposit in the Depository, evidenced by a personal cheque, will be GOOD money, and no seller will question it, if he knows that the giver of the cheque has the deposits to cover it allocated to that particular cheque.  And that is what the seller will know with our "Treasury-Personal Cheque," as, outlined in our solution of our monetary wrongs.

And this final word: when you read about "dangers to our monetary system," remember the banker is alarmed and what he means is, "We fear that we are going to lose OUR FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM."  That is the economic system they are worried about.

I wish I knew the trillions of deposits which have been "created" (added to the volume of deposits) since 1934!  And, whatever it is, the whole of it is still intact, for bankers have no way (except through bursting banks) of writing them off.  The 1939 Reserve book says "deposits tend to cancel out," but they never give an example when deposits were cancelled out; but those of you who had deposits in a busted bank know that that is a very direct and effective way to "cancel them out," and that you had no recourse.  . . you took your loss and liked it; and wonder of wonders, you have continued to have "faith" in the men who robbed you and probably refer to him as "our most respectable citizen." Won't you ever learn?  May God have pity on your soul, if you continue in ignorance of this crime perpetrated against you hourly, daily, yearly — on and on.

We must drop the word banking, and disassociate money from capital and surplus. We must cease to play liabilities against assets in the realm of money.  We must wipe the money slate clean, and ventilate our mental processes, that we may grasp, not what money is, but what service it shall in the future render man; for it must be man's servant and not his master.

It must not be something that is convertible into other substances, or convertible therefrom.  It must have a value, and this value must be arbitrarily fixed; not on basis of gold or silver, or other material thing; but upon the work that it has to do.  We must keep the dollar as the unit, but we must not escape the service that money is to perform. . . we must let the idea take possession of us, master us" convince us that it can and must perform that service.

Long ago when man first began to use money, he did it that he might have something, then a substance, to serve as a medium of exchange.  Until he found that something, he was left to barter in the exchange of his surplus commodities for others' surplus commodities.  Then even barter was confined to members of 'the same or nearby clans.  Iron, shells, and many other substances were used, but as the exchange of surplus products increased and the distance between those making the exchanges grew greater and still greater, and the seller did not know the buyer, the Government stepped in and took over the manufacturing of the coins.  When men began to write, the buyer began to give the seller his written promise to pay the seller for the goods at some later time; and in the meantime, the seller found others who knew the giver of the note, who were willing to accept the note for goods the note holder wanted.

Then followed paper money; but there was always in the minds of the sellers that the giver of the note, even with the government's, endorsement, might dishonour the note.  Then the middle ages, during the Crusades, brought the goldsmiths into the picture; and they began to issue certificates against the gold and silverware of those leaving on a crusade; and out of this grew modern banking.

When our nation was launched under the Constitution, paper money was under great disfavour, and silver and gold coin had come into extensive use; so the Constitution provided that the "Congress should have the power to coin money, and regulate the value thereof."  As proof that they had but one conception of money, and that was that it was a medium of exchange, in the same sentence it couched the power to coin money, the Constitution provided (and) ". . .  fix the standard of weights and measures."

Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Robert Morris, and James Madison, among the signatories to this great document, knew that only gold and silver would inspire confidence in the minds of the people; and that even with a gold-content dollar, its ultimate value was the quantity of goods it would buy; hence they placed under the one power to coin money, the power of making uniform the weights and measures of goods.  That effecting the exchange of goods would be the prime purpose of money.  They never dreamed that we would have a debt dollar; they would have fled from the very thought of basing the volume of money on corporation stock, or the whims of 19 citizens.

Like King Henry turning to another religion that he might divorce a wife and take another, in the evil act he opened the way to protestantism, a great service to mankind, in the opinion of protestants; so in the creating of the Federal Reserve System, at the behest of bankers, in 1913, great good has come out of all of its evil, because they have fully shown that you do not need gold, or silver, or even material assets as a basis of "creating" money; you may do it in simple bookkeeping.

Not the type of money they have given us — the ocean of the evil debt-dollars - but the mechanics of money they have perfected, with some trimming away of non-essential steps, opens the way to us for the best money system on earth.

Now let's take a frank look at 'the need for money.  In the vast expanse of the world, today, people are busy producing goods, offering them in the markets of the world, in the raw form, in the semi-fabricated form, and in the final manufactured form; in all stages, offered for sale.

All that they offer for sale is a surplus, goods they have produced and which they do not wish to use themselves.  All of this totals great mountains of the products of the labours of man, and that these surpluses may reach users, and the users' money may return to them that they may buy from other producers goods they need and desire, there must be a something that one may hold as evidence — we call that something money.

Every person who touches these goods from the time of planting the seed, or going into the forests and mines and taking the raw material, until they are in the hands of consumers, users of these goods, adds a value; for a true value is the labour that man puts into goods before they reach the consumer.  That is the goods' value.  That measures the value of money; and not the other way around, as we have been taught.

Since we have been unable to ascertain that exact value as applied to all production, with service added therein, man has been forced to take some commodity as a basis.  He has been in the night of his being, from the stone age to the atomic age, so he took gold.  But gold no longer can meet the demands of money.  It is too heavy to send from buyer to seller; it is too dangerous to expose gold to thieves.  Even its quantity dwarfs, into a puny supply, when you take into consideration the world's needed supply of money; so long ago man during the horse-and-buggy days, began to print paper bills that he might have 25 or 50 times more "money" than he could get hold of in gold. And this failed, because the few billions of paper money could not shuttle back and forth between buyer and seller.  Then came the personal cheque.  The bills and coins now could sleep snugly in bank vaults, while the buyer mailed the seller in a distant city his cheque to cover the costs of goods which he had bought.  The cheque might be for $5.00 or any amount, $5,000 or more, if he had that amount to his credit in the bank.  Three cents would take the cheque to the seller, his bank gave him credit for it, the bank sent it to its Reserve Bank, the Reserve Bank credited the seller's bank with say $5,000 in its reserve fund, then it went to the Reserve Bank of the buyer's bank, and this Reserve Bank debited the buyer's bank reserve account $5,000, and the Reserve Bank sent the cheque to the buyer's bank, and his account was debited $5,000.

And the only material thing that made the rounds was a small piece of paper, a personal cheque.  Other than the cost of bookkeeping, the debiting and crediting of the $5,000 on four different books, the entire cost was the postage, which amounted to 12 cents.

Under our proposed plan, both the Reserve Banks would be eliminated, and the seller's bank would credit the seller's account $5,000, and the buyer's bank would debit his account $5,000.  Could you desire a more fluid money?  Could you devise a simpler way of keeping track of the money of the nation as it shuttled back and forth between buyer and seller?  Could you wish for a safer method of keeping your money, the country's money?

But I have gone a bit ahead of my story.  We have shown that money is intangible.  We have shown that it is an evidence that man had produced a surplus of goods.  That it is an evidence kept on the books of banks.  That it can be transferred from one depositor's account to another's account in remote cities, simply on a written order from the buyer to the seller, made through a personal cheque, mailed to seller.

The goods which may have been consumed and now non-existent, and only the goods are the bases of the deposit credits — of money.  You need no gold reserves, no chattels, no "securities."  The figures on the books of the banks, when placed there only to the credit of the producers of goods, ought to be the only visible form of the billions of dollars which may appear on the books of the banks to the credit of the people - or that would have been true, if the Congress had obeyed the Constitution and kept the power to create money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin (in terms of our own).

What I have been leading up to is this fact:

Money is figures on the books of banks, to the credit of the people who have sold surplus goods, and service, and the only visible form of this money is personal cheques, and currency.

If the Congress will take back the creation and control of money, keep the deposit accounts of the people, and squeeze all of the debt-dollars out, and permit no dollar to appear on the books of the depositories, except a dollar earned by the production of goods; then our money will be the soundest money on earth.

So long as a person holds a deposit dollar on the books of the depositories, that means that he has sold surplus goods or services to that amount more than he has consumed; and as often as a person exhausts his deposits, it means another or others have surrendered to him an equal amount of goods to the goods he had formerly surrendered.

This will make an endless, unbroken chain, links added as production increased, links (dollars) ever increasing as products increase.

Forget all that you have thought you knew about money; forget the school book definitions of money.  Just remember that it is "an evidence" that surplus goods and labour have been produced and rendered.

Forget bills, forget coins, remember they have not the least relationship to money, any more than your unsigned personal cheque; that your personal cheque, when properly filled in and signed, if you have deposits in the bank to cover, is just as good money as bills and coins.  Always when you think of money, think of figures on the books of banks, now; please, God, it may soon be the books of U.S. Depositories.

Had Congress taken over money in 1934, instead of giving the bankers almost unlimited power over money and the nation's credit, there would not be $272,000,000,000 U.S. Bonds drawing $10 billion interest (taxes) a year; and there would not be a trillion in personal accounts, in competition with our personal earned dollar, making it a 20-cent dollar as against a 100-cent dollar of the thirties.

I have made these explanations because writers always stress currency (coin and bills) in their money discussions.  You must place currency and personal cheques in the same category.  Each is an instrument you may use in paying for goods or services.  Each is convertible into deposits; and deposits are convertible into cash or personal cheques.  But the personal cheque always takes the lead.  If you have deposits, and wish to convert them into cash, you must write a cheque against your deposits, surrender it to the banker, and he will hand you the cash; or if you have cash and wish to convert it into deposits, you may hand it to the banker and he will hand you a deposit slip, showing that you have had your' deposits credited with the cash you surrendered.

I want you to forget all forms of money but the figures on the books of banks; then when I talk about a debt dollar, or an earned dollar, you can get the difference.  An earned dollar is one you get when you serve someone, or sell some product of your labour, or some product you have come into possession of.  A debt dollar is a dollar you came into possession of when you borrow from a banker, not a loan shark, or a person who must give you the cash or his cheque against his deposits.  All dollars created when bankers buy notes, mortgages, and other investment obligations, or lend you on your personal note, are debt dollars.  These are the dollars we must destroy, and prevent their ever being issued again.

When we eliminate the debt dollar, we will eliminate fluctuating prices, eliminate the fellow who comes in with his debt dollar to compete with you in the markets of the world.  Returning to the earned dollar will wipe out all national debts, all debt dollars, and destroy the army of people who live off the cream of the earth and never serve anyone or produce anything.

But the man willing to work and produce, or serve others, will prosper as never before.

It will end wars, it will end hunger and want, it will put us in lock-step with the atomic age.

It will end great fortunes, and debt money cannot come into a community and build great trade emporiums not needed, and destroy the businesses of those who serve in the retailing of goods: on a modest basis.  It will not handicap needed industry, but will protect it from the exploitation of the debt dollar creators.

It is a far cry from the "coining of silver and gold coin" for money, to the flood of debt dollars the banks are flooding the country with, hourly, daily, monthly, year in and year out.

Then your insurance premium will not bounce higher, while your insurance policy skids lower and lower.  Then your savings will not be cut in half, to one-third, aye, to one-fourth, as now.  It will mean, when our earned dollars as evidenced on the books of the depositories are controlled and limited in volume to the surplus goods produced and consumed, that your dollar will buy the same quantity in 1997 it buys in 1957.  Stability, soundness, elasticity, and confidence will tincture every American dollar.

Perhaps we can see the injustice of our present debt dollar by taking the simplest unit of people, the family.  Let's take the proverbial family of nine, the parents and seven sons.  All working together can easily produce an abundance of needed food, clothing and shelter; but four of the sons, the eldest and strongest, decide they will quit work, dress well, spend their time leisurely enjoying reading, travelling, or just loafing.

The other five then must do the work of the nine.  That means that to enjoy the same abundance, they must work four-fifths longer hours.  When all were working they could easily do all of the work in 10 hours, but now the five must work 18 hours a day, to meet the accustomed plenty.  But they can't work that many hours daily.  Human strength will not let them do that, so they struggle 12 hours daily, and fail to fill the barns and store houses as before.

But the four well-dressed, soft-handed brothers write debt dollars, and buy the products their brothers and parents have produced, leaving the producers an insufficient supply.  The older sons of other families seeing this easy life for the strong, begin the same practice.  Meeting often in their leisure, they discussed among themselves their great advantage.  They decide to open an office, let this office issue debt dollars, and have some system about it, to the end that the sons of one family could buy surpluses of other families, and because there was no limit to the amount of debt dollars they could pile up, soon the working, producing members of the families found that the debt dollar they got for their goods would not buy as many goods as they had surrendered to their loafing neighbours for their debt dollars, and the weaker families soon had to go back to a full family working at the difficult task of producing a living.

The issuing of corporation stock is one of the greatest sins in this field of debt dollars.  You as an individual, wish to enlarge your business, and you borrow from the money lenders money to do this.  You mortgage all your assets as security.  You must pay heavy interest, whether you make a profit on your business or not, and should you fail within 18 months to pay the note in full, you would be brought into court, and the lender would take your property, your business away from you and other assets.

But when the corporation wants to expand its business it issues more stock certificates, but gives no mortgage, and puts, them on the market.  The Reserve Banks, or the City National Bank of New York, buys the stock.  They put it on the stock exchanges, and suckers buy them as an "investment," and the corporation uses this money, oftentimes just to increase their luxuries and not their business facilities.

The corporation has issued a strange form of note to get the money.  It is supposed to draw interest, but may never pay a dividend.  Should the corporation fail as the small business man did, the holders of these corporation stocks could not sue and receive their money; they would have in their hands worthless notes un-collectable through the courts.

But in each instance debt dollars were created and added to the money supply, and these debt dollars remained to cheapen the earned dollar.

Take from the bankers, all money lenders the power to add debt dollars to our money supply, and you will make it impossible for a few to not only own the material wealth, but the production and the manpower of the nation.  It will make it impossible for a man, within a few years to rise from poverty to assets running into the millions.  Throughout the United States, those who enjoy the creation of debt dollars are using this almost worthless money to buy all property.  Our lands are passing rapidly into the hands of a few.  Our industries are being consolidated into the hands of a few.  Men speak of their 85,000-acre ranches. . . contractors boast of having a half billion contracts to build great dams or to do other works of magnitude.

All of this, while the toiling, working, suffering masses struggle for a bare subsistence.  The small business man is rapidly being crowded out.  The small farmers are being driven from their farms.  The small industries are being consolidated under a few giant corporations.  The duPonts, as a horrible example, not only control the productions of arms and ammunition, extensive industrial corporations, but are deep in the banking business, the business of issuing billions of debt dollars and using them to buy up the resources of the Nation — and all the time fomenting wars because wars, as nothing else, make billionaires.

Congressman Patman quoted in the Congressional Record, a few days ago said: "I believe it was Lenin who said. . . when asked why America did not go Communistic, that as long as America has a system wherein so many people are engaged in small business and have a stake in their economy the country will never go Communistic."

Our ocean of debt dollars, dollars secured through corporation stock which the corporations will never pay for. . . they get the debt dollar, and continue to enjoy its power and profit, but they don't have to worry about the repayment of those notes, as the small business man must worry; this will drown us.

The Government builds great dams, makes possible thousands of acres of irrigated fertile land, but these acres have been bought up before the dam is well started by the men with debt dollars in the billions, and the family who might improve its living standards on 50 or 75 acres must stay in the hinterland, and corporations farm with big tractors and few labourers, blocks of a thousand acres.  And their products compete with the little man's products.

The oil man with gold flowing from inexpensive holes in the ground, take their billions and go out and buy up hundreds of thousands of acres of land, driving the small farmers off the land, into the cities to become burdens on the backs of the rest of the producers.

The Nation's bankers are busy destroying labour unions, the working man's only means of fighting for a decent wage, and entering into even union elections ...couple this with the debt dollar's dispossessing the property holders, and you put our government completely in the hands of the debt dollar few.  That means that by legislation they will have complete control.

Quoting Congressman Patman again, in the Congressional Record, April 30, 1957:

"Now let us take the value of money today.  They talk about a dollar going down to 50 cents.  For certain purposes it has gone down to 7 mills.  Imagine a dollar worth (only) 7 mills.  That is exactly right.  If you measure the value of a dollar in interest that was paid by the Government in 1939 on 90-day Treasury bills; with the interest that is paid today on 90-day Treasury bills, you will discover that to be a fact.  It is really astounding.  It is really shocking.  Yesterday the newspapers would not carry it because they thought there was something wrong about it.  There is nothing wrong about it.  You pay $143 today for interest on the same amount of money on Treasury bills, for the same length of time, that you paid only $1 for in 1939.  There is the value of a dollar sinking from $1 in 1939, for the purpose of paying interest on 90-day Treasury certificates, to 7 mills in April, 1957.

"Furthermore, the value of the dollar on prime commercial paper, 4 and 6 months - that is also very disturbing — is only worth 16.3 cents.  That is all it is worth for purposes of paying interest on prime commercial paper, 4 to 6 months. It is worth about one-sixth of what it was worth in 1939."

There you have the bankers' debt dollar in its naked setting.  There you have a crime laid at its door, an ugly sin.  If the Treasury must pay with such a cheap dollar; if the best borrowers have to pay with a 16-cent dollar; then try to imagine what the husband who must borrow on 30 days must pay for $100, he must have if his children eat.

The astounding thing about Mr. Patman is the fact that he ferrets out and makes public these astounding crimes of banking, yet he insists that we have the greatest banking system on earth.  He even admits, asserts that the banks pay nothing for these Treasury bills, the notes and mortgages of the people.  He asks, "What do they pay for those notes?  They do not pay anything.  This is one of the powers we (Congress) have granted to them, the power to create money, and they use that money to buy our government bonds.

They hold the bonds and continue to draw interest on "them!"

Then he laments, "That is the reason we have let the Federal Reserve System get away from Congress.  The Federal Reserve System does not come back to Congress for an appropriation every year.  It is the only agency of the Government that we have in our country that does not depend or rely upon Congress for anything. We have delegated to them enough power and credit where they buy our Government bonds, hold the bonds," collect interest running into the billions a year.

Why should the people submit to this criminal thing?  Why should we turn over the nation's credit, its power to coin money, to private corporations, then turn around and borrow that credit at a cost of billions a year in interest, in addition to giving them the principal in U.S. Bonds?

Think of a Congressman who has been there years, lamenting that the Government has no control over the banks.  That the Government must borrow money on short 90-day time.  Then, who is master of the Nation?  Congress? Certainly not.  The bankers have a death grip on our throats, and we ignorantly don't know whose hand is there.  Think of a 1939 dollar being worth only 7 mills today when Uncle Sam pays interest to these money thieves.

In 1943 Mr. Patman said: "Federal Reserve Banks are federal in name only.  The Government does not own one penny of stock in them." In 1957, after being brainwashed as chairman of the money and banking committee of Congress, he said, "This you can put down as an absolute fact — that the Federal Reserve banking system (that includes, 14,357 commercial banks) is not owned by the private banks.  It is owned by the Government of the United States."

Can you imagine anything more ludicrous?  If you had $5,000 in the bank, and needed $50 for a few days, would you pay the bank 143 times what you would have had to pay in 1939 for the use of your own money?  That is what the Government is doing through the ignorant, under duress Congressmen.  They have given the Reserve System the power to do this.  Then we are slaves of the bankers.  Our government is the slave of the bankers.

But to make Mr. Patman's position the ultimate in absurdity, he says, "The Constitution is very plain that Congress shall have all power over money, but, obviously, Congress cannot administer that power.  So Congress delegated it to the Federal Reserve System . . ."

Why didn't Congress delegate it to the Treasury of the United States, and keep a close rein over it?

What is there difficult about money that makes it impossible for Congress to control it?  There is nothing but the crooked control of money by bankers. There are but two problems which would confront Congress: (a) the creation of new deposits as often as business needed them; and (b) the keeping of the people's deposits, cashing and clearing their cheques.  So simple that a graduate from a high school business course could do it.

Had Congress delegated this, work to the Treasury, when it needed ready cash and there were no funds in its tax balance, Congress would have ordered the Treasury to give the Government credit for the additional money needed, and there would have been no U.S. Bonds hanging over the rest of us from there on out, and the billions we are paying bankers for the privilege of using our own credit could go into better living for all of us.

Every time the Government or any private institution or person borrows money under the Reserve Banking System, new debt dollars are added to our money supply, to cheapen our earned dollars, and they, like U.S. Bonds hang on years and years, taking billions of interest money out of our pockets, hundreds of billions, each year.

Finally, let me quote the then second richest man in Great Britain, and at that time the top banker of the world, Sir Josiah Stamp:

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. . . . The bankers own the earth; take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and with the flick of the pen (debt dollars) they will create enough money to buy it back again. . . . Take this power away from them, and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, because this would be a better and a happier world to live in. . . . But, if you want to continue the slaves of bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and control credit."

Then go back to 150 years ago when the founder of international banking, Rothschild, said: "Let me create a nation's money and I care not who writes its laws."

Pass this book on to your neighbour; better, sell him a copy, and let's inform the people of the United States on the crimes being daily committed in the name of money, and compel Congress to take back the "coining of money and the regulating the value thereof."

Let me follow the last page of this book with this apostrophe to the suffering throughout the world — this dream the rest of the world has dreamed in anticipation and yearning that they, too might gain entrance into the United States of America — a dream that was beautifully unfolding until we began to draw about us the selfish robe of nationalism.

The most American way of life is to hear every man's story, put all of them in our mental mortars, bray them well with the pestle of thought, spread the compound thin on the mortar board, and then cut out a new pattern of life.  The truest American way of life is carved on the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door. — Emma Lazarus.

These have come and been cast into our melting pot, been fused into our blood, annealing muscle, sinew and bone, begetting physical form of beauty, strength and courage, temples of intellect that have astounded the world with their vision and creative thinking, delving into the most minute recesses of matter and projecting man, encumbered with tons of steel into the rarefied stratospheres, where Taurus in the light of the Moon, tips to his lips the Great Dipper, as he drinks a toast to the Pleiades; as they ride in the chariot of Night along the etherial Milky Way!

That this dream may ever beckon the homeless, tempest-tossed, huddled masses from every teeming shore, is the sincere wishes of the Author.

"We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of earth." — Abraham Lincoln.

The following quotation is lifted from the 1939 Edition of The Federal Reserve System — Its Purposes and Functions.

Page 70, Paragraph 3: Realizing that any additional loans it (the member bank) made would increase its deposits out of proportion to its reserves, the commercial bank might stop making new loans.  Suppose, however, that the Reserve authorities were of the opinion more loans might advantageously be made and that the bank should be provided with additional reserves so that it could make them.  Suppose they therefore purchased $20,000,000 of securities in the open market.  The seller of the securities would deposit in the commercial bank the money (the Reserve authorities' check against no funds) they received in payment.  The commercial bank in turn would deposit it (the seller's cheque received from the Reserve authorities) in its reserve account in the Reserve Bank.  Having these additional reserves of $20,000,000, the commercial bank, by making loans, could increase its deposits to five (or maybe seven times) as much or $100,000,000 — the $20,000,000 being the 20 percent reserves required against deposits of $100,000,000!  End of quote.  The parenthesis enclose my explanatory statements. — S.W. Adams, author of "The Legalized Crime of Banking."

The Reserve authorities may do this without consulting the bank.  Too, you will note that the Reserve authorities' cheque "created" two $20 million funds, and the third created $100 million: (a) it created for the seller of the securities $20 million bank deposits, subject to cheque; (b) then it went to the Reserve Bank to clear, and "created" $20,000,000 bank reserves to the credit of the commercial bank, and it could have demanded $20,000,000 in cash, but, of course, it didn't do that, so it left it there to the credit of its account; then the commercial bank too credit on its own books $100 million bank credit. This they used to make loans to customers, or to buy investment obligations - mortgages, promissory notes, debentures, deeds of trust, corporation stock, et cetera.  In making loans and in buying investments obligations, they converted the $100 million into bank deposits, subject to cheque wherewith "business men and other persons make the bulk of their monetary payments."  Adding the $20 million the stock seller deposited in his bank, and we have added in new money to our money supply $120 million!  And in addition to that the commercial bank holds $100 million in notes, mortgages and other investment obligations, which increases our monetary fund another $100 million, making a grand total of $220 million monetary values, which grew out of the Reserve authorities buying only $20 million corporation stock.

And remember the Reserve authorities wrote a cheque against no funds, which would make it a hot cheque if you wrote one against no funds, so the $20 million of corporation stock became the property of the Federal Reserve Corporation, gratis, the $100 million of bank credit became the property of the commercial bank, gratis, which it used to buy $100 million of investment obligations; and when the commercial bank collected all notes, or resold all corporation stock they may have bought, the banker had $100 million plus interest, less cost of doing business, gratis — and not a penny cost the bank one thin dime!

"We boast of having liberated four million slaves, but we are careful to conceal the ugly fact that by our iniquitous monetary system, we have nationalized a system of oppression more refined but none the less cruel than the old system of chattel slavery." — Horace Greeley on the passage of the National Banking Act, 1873.

So you can easily see how they can build great bank buildings, motor bank annexes, and buy interest in endless corporations — briefly how they can buy the earth with a flick of the pen.

And don't forget that when reserves were dependent on new gold, either from domestic mines or from foreign countries, the bankers had little control over the movement of gold; and, too it was always limited.  When they demonetized gold in 1934, and made the purchase of corporation stock the basis of bank reserves, the sky became the limit.  The only limitation on the creation of new bank reserves, as shown above, are the whims of the Reserve authorities, consisting of nineteen members — the seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the presidents of the twelve Reserve banks.

The pauper (the Federal Reserve Bank) with assets of $52 billion with no productive know how, and less than 100,000 stockholders, loaned the rich man (The United States Government) with well over $350 billion in physical assets plus $250 billion in productive capacity and know-how, with 170 million stockholders, $300 billion to fight World War II.

Can you imagine the greatest corporation on earth, with 170 million stockholders and assets running over $600 billion, turning to a corporation with less than 100,000 stockholders and assets of only $52 billion to borrow money?  Can you imagine Rockefeller saying to his chauffer: "Tom, I am transferring my personal chequeing account, which is around $1 billion, to your account.  You may spend it as you please, provided that when I need some cash, you will hand it to me.  Of course, I will give you my note for cash I receive and pay interest on the note."

Well, that is exactly what Congress did in 1913 when it passed the Reserve Act. To fight World War II, we gave the bankers of the United States $300 billion in U.S. Bonds that we might use the Nation's credit.  In addition, we permitted them to take a credit of $300 billion in their reserve accounts.  This gave then $2 trillion 100 billion bank credit.  These credits are to bankers what your deposit credits on their books are to you.  They can lend it, or buy investment obligations — it is cash to them!

So adding the $300 billion in Bonds to their bank credit, we find that the bankers (the then paupers) came out of World War II $2 trillion 400 billion richer than when we went into the War.  The United States' Government (the then rich man), thanks to the stupidity and venality of her sons (congressmen), and newspapers and journals, came out of the War $300 billion in debt!  And, dear reader, that fable happens to be true.

If interested, and want to know how this crime may be punished and the practice stopped, write S.W. Adams, 2004 South First St., Austin 4, Texas, and place your order for his book, "The Legalized Crime of Banking," and a "Suggested Solution."

The End.

Glossary

1.  Reserve Act of 1913-Created Federal Reserve System by which Congress abdicated its Constitutional authority to create money and control credit, turning this important function of Government over to private corporations.

2.  Reserve Act of 1934 — Demonetized gold, substituted Corporation stock as standard of money.  Raised price of monetary gold from $25.67 an ounce to $35 an ounce, and outlawed the selling of gold to other than the Government, and made it illegal for a person to have gold coin or bullion, except that which he bought from the Government to be used in his arts; making it compulsory that the Government buy all gold mined in the United States, or sent to the United States.

3.  Reserve Act of 1957 — Greatly extended powers of Reserve authorities.

4.  Federal Reserve System — Twelve Federal Reserve Banks and some 14,000 member commercial banks, trust companies and savings institutions, combined into a giant private corporation with the power to issue all money, create all deposits, and control the credit of the nation — it holds the power of life or death over every person in the Nation.

5.  Reserve Board of Governors — Seven persons appointed by the President of the United States, confirmed by the Senate, who serve 14 years.  They supervise the operation of the 12 Reserve Banks, and pump money into circulation or siphon it out at their pleasure.

6.  Twelve Reserve Banks — Each serves a district, with its branch Reserve Banks.  Each is a corporation.  Member banks are their stockholders, and their principal function is to create and hold the member bank reserves, cash and clear their cheques.

7.  Reserve Open Market Committee — Is comprised of the seven members of the Reserve Board of Governors, and five members of the Federal Reserve Banks. The committee directs the open market operations of the Federal Reserve banks, that is, the purchase and sale of Government securities, bonds, and corporation securities, stocks and bonds.  The purpose of these operations is to create bank reserves, basis of bank credit, which banks use to buy investment obligations, and to make loans.

8.  Reserve Advisory Council — Twelve members, one chosen by each district Reserve Bank, who work in conjunction with the seven members of the Board of Governors, in making policies, directing the over-all affairs of the Reserve System.

9.  Reserve Authorities — A term applied to any group of Reserve officials when it is unnecessary to indicate which group is functioning.

10.  Member Banks — All national banks, and such state banks and trust companies as meet requirements for membership.  There are some 14,000 member commercial banks, and trust companies, and several thousand smaller banks who must function under the wing of some larger member bank.

11.  Commercial Banks — Private corporations who carry the deposit accounts of the people, make loans and buy investment obligations.  They are the contact points between the Reserve Banks and the people.

12.  Currency — Is bills and coin engraved and minted by the Treasury to be used as cash register and pocket change.

13.  Treasury Certificates — Are the smaller bills, ten, five and one-dollar silver certificates, redeemable in silver.

14.  United States Notes — Under Lincoln's urgent demand, Congress ordered the Treasury to engrave approximately $350,000,000 simple promises of the Government without interest; and these notes are still in circulation, an unknown remainder of them, and they have been the best money the Nation has ever issued, and have done hundreds of billions of services with no interest costs.

15.  Gold Certificates — The Government cannot legally issue its own gold certificates, as it did before 1934, and does in the matter of silver, but it has  engraved in large denominations approximately $22 billion Reserve Gold Certificates which may not be; used in general circulation, but which transfers the title to our $22,620,251,821 gold stocks to private corporations, and these gold certificates lie in the 12 district reserve banks, which the holders could present if the crises came, and take possession of all the gold in the Treasury and in Fort Knox bullion tomb.

16.  Reserve Notes — The Treasury has engraved over $27 billion Federal Reserve Notes for the Reserve Banks at a cost of only 30c a $1,000.  These notes are used in preponderant volume in all currency circulation.

17.  Reserve Bank Notes — The Treasury did engrave early in its history several hundred million dollars worth but discontinued that because they had to pay a 1% interest on them; so they are rapidly retiring them.  Bankers like to collect interest, but hate to pay it.  In 1946 the Circulation Statement shows there were $455,708,045, but the 1957 statement shows only $135,333,191 in circulation.

18.  Reserve Bank Reserves — Funds created by the depositing of Reserve cheques by commercial banks, which had been deposited to the credit of the recipients (corporations) in their accounts, dollar for dollar.

19.  Commercial Bank Reserves — The same figures on the books of the Reserve banks to the credit of commercial banks.

20.  Reserve Bank Credit The unlimited power to create money, granted to them in the Reserve Act of 1913.  It "consists of 'funds' they are empowered to create.  The process of creation is one of giving the promise of the Reserve Banks, in the form of Reserve notes or deposits, in exchange for the promises made to other Reserve Banks."

21.  Commercial (Member) Bank Credit — A multiple, ranging from 5 to 10 times the amount of reserves the bank holds in its reserve bank.  The Board of Governors may raise or lower this requirement, making money tight or easy.

22.  Commercial Bank Deposits — The deposits created when banks make loans or buy investment obligations, and the borrower or seller leaves his money on deposit.  All deposits are created in this way, except when the Reserve authorities buy Government or corporation securities, then the deposits are created to credit of government.

23.  Personal Cheque — A depositor's order instructing his bank to transfer funds from his account to the recipient's account, and is used in making the bulk of their monetary payments.

24.  Legal Tender Money — Coin and currency.  On the Reserve notes there is printed this: "This note is Legal Tender for All Debt, both Public and Private and is redeemable in lawful money (that is by giving you another bill like the one you present) at the United States Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank."  On U.S. Silver Certificates, it is the same except it is "redeemable in silver dollars."

25.  Investment Obligations — U.S. Bonds, corporate bonds, personal notes, mortgages, debentures, bills of exchange acceptable promise to pay, anything representing a monetary value.

Loans — The extending of bank credit to borrowers, and the "purchase of investment obligations by banks is an extension of credit; therefore a loan.

Cash — Is the bills and coin bankers keep on hand to issue to depositors, to be used in over-the-counter purchases.  It has no value until in the hands of a would-be buyer.

Rediscount — The buying as a discount of commercial bank investment obligations by Reserve Banks.

Acceptable Paper — Usually drafts, bills of lading held by shippers or sellers of goods while in transit.

Fiscal Agents of Government — are the Reserve Banks who hold the Government's deposits, and clear their cheques; they also serve in assisting the Government in issuing bonds and other securities.

Issuing Currency — The Treasury engraves all bills and mints all coin, but all of it is put into circulation by the Reserve Banks.  All coin and Treasury certificates are deposited by the Treasury in the Reserve Banks, for which the Government gets deposit credit, but all Reserve notes and Reserve Gold Certificates are turned over to the Reserve Banks (on demand) gratis, and the Government gets no deposit credits for them.

Cashing Cheques — The depositor buys from the bank cash, paying for it by chequeing to the bank an equal amount of his deposits.

Clearing Checks — The passing of cheques drawn on one bank and deposited in another, through a "clearing house" or the Reserve Banks.

Public Debt — That sum spent by the Government above its income — now about $280 billion.