The Legalized Crime of Banking
The Legalized Crime of Banking
The Legalized Crime of Banking
http://muslimvillages.com
The Legalized Forewords
Crime of Banking Chapter 2
and a Chapter 3
Constitutional Chapter 4
Remedy Chapter 5
Chapter 6
by Chapter 7
Silas Walter Adams Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Meador Publishing Chapter 11
Company Chapter 12
324 Newbury Street Chapter 13
Boston 15, Massachusetts Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Copyrighted 1958 by Silas
Walter Adams Chapter 16
Library of Congress Card Chapter 17
Number 58-9762 Chapter 18
Chapter 19
E-Text prepared by
Gary Edwards
(garyedwa_at_hwy.com.
au),
14th July 2002.
Note: Spelling has been
changed from
U.S. American to
Australian.
http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/silas/legalized_index.html5.4.2006 9:12:52
Silas Walter Adams, The Legalized Crime of Banking
http://muslimvillages.com
[from back cover]
The Legalized Crime Of Banking is a simple story of The Federal Reserve System, dealing
principally with the unconstitutional creation of money and the control of credit by private
corporations. The author suggests a concrete, simple solution, which Congress could employ,
which would make the transition from private banking to the Treasury without injuring anyone
enjoying a constitutional right, or without upsetting our normal course of trade, industry, and
agriculture.
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 them $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.
To
Edward Kirby Meador
Who has dared to publish challenging books on money, exemplifying those qualities of rugged
and courageous man hood so essential in the ongoing of a free republic, in which no man should
The Author.
To My Banker Acquaintances
I have assailed you in much harsher terms than I do when I think of you as my neighbour. I
don't thin that you ever stopped to analyse what you are really doing in your banking business. I
think you are a gambler at heart, and gamblers have big hearts — Al Capone took from the rich
and ministered to the poor; so did Robin Hood — only, dear sirs, you don't minister to the poor.
Many of you have never reasoned that you are the croupiers at the roulette tables, and have been
taught that it is part of the game to press your foot on the hidden pedal just in time to win the
table's take. Many of you have been stepping on the pedal never knowing that you did; because
you were afraid to investigate, fearing that you might find you conscience and streak of honesty
too big to let you keep walking on such treacherous ground.
I know that you reason as my good banker friend in Port Lavaca reasoned when he said to me:
“You must not forget that there is a great deal of difference between a moral wrong and a legal
right.” And maybe you have a true picture of banking and its evils, and say with Sir Josiah
Stamp, “. . . but as long as the nation will let men do this thing, a man is foolish not to be a
banker.”
I'd lay down my life for your right deeds; I would sacrifice your good esteem that I might
combat a wrong.
I hope that within the immediate decade, you must cease forever to be bankers; and become
what you stoutly maintain you are, “money lenders.”
First memorize the succinct, beautifully worded Purposes of Our Government, the Preamble to
the Constitution of the United States:
“We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence,
Under the Federal Reserve Banking System, World War II has cost us to date:
By 1980, another $130 billion in interest will make the cost of World War II exactly $2 trillion
($2,000,000,000,000).
Had Congress in 1933 taken over the creating of money and the keeping of the people's
deposits, cashing and clearing our cheques, World War II would have cost us just
$250,000,000,000 (billion). And to date that would have been a saving to the people of the
stupendous sum of $1,620,000,000,000 (trillion).
And the costs for future wars, and they will always be the creatures of bankers, annually, will be
$32 billion. This cost since World War II has approximately amounted to $384,000,000,000
(billion), which is more than the total wealth of the United States in 1932.
Chapter I
Foreword
Fifty-two years ago in August, 1905, I went to Abbott, Texas, as principal of the school. Later
in the fall the little bank in West, Texas, seven miles away, failed.
This story was told to me: A farmer sold his farm for $3600 cash. He reached the bank as the
cashier was closing the doors. The farmer said, “I have just sold my farm. Here are $3600 —
all I own is in my hands. I am afraid to keep it until I go west and buy another farm. Will you
open the bank, and let me deposit this money? I owe you $500. I will come in Monday and pay
you.”
“Sure,” replied the young cashier. He reopened the doors, took the farmer's money, gave him a
deposit slip, knowing that the bank was busted, and would not reopen, Monday. He stuck the
“I shall set myself to the task of learning how such a crime against decency, justice
and equity could have the sanction of law: why a deposit slip has no standing in
court, yet the note a man gave the bank for the deposit slip has; why a depositor
cannot sue a busted bank on a deposit slip and get judgment against the
stockholders of the bank, while the stockholders can sue and get judgment on the
note the depositor gave the bankers in exchange for the deposit slip; why a banker
could take a farmer's cash, his life's savings, and abscond legally, then sue the
victim on his note and get judgment, yet the depositor had no recourse at law.”
So for 52 years the practices of bankers have been deep in my subconscious mind. I have read
everything that I could find on banking and money; scanned newspapers and magazines for
revealing information. I found that all I read was coloured, or half told, that the people might be
kept ignorant of money, banking. Bankers misinformed me as often as I asked them for
information. I could only observe bankers in action, from the deposit-window point of view,
and as a borrower.
A quarter of a century later I had the answer, but I still lacked official confirmation of my
discoveries. On May 1, 1939, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System published
a booklet of 128 pages — “The Federal Reserve System — Its Purposes and Functions.” I got
hold of a copy. It officially confirmed the correctness of my findings.
The Constitution of the United States of America is explicit in its delegation of powers to
Congress. It says:
“The Congress shall have power. . . to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and
of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.”
After enumerating the legalized crimes of banking, and proving that the coining of money and
“Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. . . . Bankers own the world.
Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control
credit, and with a flick of the pen, they will create enough money to buy it back
again. . . . Take this power away from bankers, and all great fortunes like mine will
disappear, and they ought to disappear, because this would then be a better and a
happier world to live in. . . But if you want to continue to be the slaves of bankers,
and pay the costs of your own slavery, let them continue to create money, and
control credit.”
Stop and find your place in our present economic system - that is, are you a beneficiary; or, are
you a victim? Are you a gainer; or, are you a loser?
If you work for a living, with hands and/or head, or both; or, work for others for pay, you are a
loser, the heaviest of all losers! You toil to provide man all his material wants, or to serve him,
and you are paid with a cheap, inflated 25-cent dollar, which we persistently call a 100-cent
dollar — a private dollar created by a private corporation. If you have earned your money either
by producing something, working for yourself or as an employee, or in serving others, and
through thrift and economy you have stored it away for the rainy day; or, if an honest man and
would not take anything from another that you did not give in return an equal value of goods
and/or service, you are doubly a loser; for the bankers' constant stream of created new dollars
pouring into circulation cheapens your dollar, and lowers its buying power. You get only a
pound of coffee today for the same money you could buy four pounds of coffee in the thirties.
If you are on a pension, or living on your life's saving, even on the coupons you have been
clipping from World War II U.S. Bonds, you are a helpless loser, because bankers in the last 20
years have reduced the buying power of your dollar to one-fourth its 1935 buying power.
But, if you are a gambler, and live by your wits play the stock markets and otherwise take usury,
take from others without producing or serving others, take that which you have not earned, you
are a gainer; aye, more, an enemy of all honest, producing, serving, toiling people. You are the
burden that is crushing to the earth the masses, the 99 and 9 of us.
Austin, Texas
The Author.
On July 4, 1951, I issued a little 16-page pamphlet, “The Legalized Crime of Banking - Facts
About Money,” and it slept peacefully in my office until on or about July 4, 1957. In some way
an interest grew among the people, and now I am getting orders for it from coast to coast.
I am reproducing the major portion of that pamphlet, because it exposes the “Legalized Crime
of Banking,” in a nut shell. It is a thumb-nail story of the abuses of the bankers in their creation
of money, and their control of the Nation's (not their own) credit.
I am giving you this story, because it covers the entire process of creating bank reserves, bank
credit, and deposits to the credit of the people on the books of the 14,756 commercial banks in
the United States.
You cannot refute, deny, or question this summary of the evils of banking, because I quote the
Board of Governors to prove every statement I make. However, the booklet issued May, 1939,
by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, cannot be had at this time at any
price, unless you find it in some private library, and find the owner willing to sell. I have one,
and no price would buy it, because after Mr. Eccles left the Board of Governors as chairman,
everything that could be done, has been done to suppress the circulation of the book. They have
reprinted some of it under a “revised” edition, and the same name, “The Federal Reserve
System — Its Purposes and Functions,” but they studiously omitted all these damaging (to
bankers) statements.
Because just a thumb-nail story never completed the task of informing the people and the
creating in their minds a determination to do something about a situation, I shall go into
repetitious details, and cite many instances of the practices of bankers, that you may know that
indeed you are the slaves of the bankers, and “pay the cost of your own slavery.”
After you have read this thumbnail story of banking, I am sure that you will want to know more
about it; and what my solution of the problem is.
Note: My son's Publishing House, “The Chaparral Press,” is reprinting this Reserve booklet, and
you may get a copy on request, at a very nominal cost, through The Meador Publishing
Company, 324 Newbury Street, Boston 15, Massachusetts, or directly from The Chaparral
Press, 2004 South First, Austin 4, Texas.
The Author.
Before we go into the discussion of the banking problem, I want to give you many quotations
from the booklet issued May 1, 1939, by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System, during the chairmanship of Marriner S. Eccles.
Page 18: “The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee comprises the seven members of the
Board of Governors, and five representatives of the Federal Reserve Banks. The Committee
directs the open market operations of the Federal Reserve Banks; that is, the purchases and sales
of United States Government securities and other obligations in the open market.”
Page 18: “Member banks include all national banks in the continental United States, and such
State banks and Trust companies as apply for membership, meet the requirements, and are
admitted. On December 31, 1938, the membership comprised 5,224 National banks and 1,114
State banks. There were over 8,000 other State banks and trust companies that did not belong to
the system. . . .”
Pages 19 & 20: “. . . Currency is actually used for only a small part of the country’s total
volume of payments, the greater part being effected by the use of bank: cheques. . . . it is
possible for them to borrow additional funds from their Federal Reserve Bank, and possible for
the Federal Reserve authorities on their own initiative to supply additional funds through open
market purchases.”
Page 22: “The Federal Reserve Act. . . empowered the Reserve authorities to discount paper for
member banks, to engage in open market operations, and to issue Federal Reserve notes. . . .
The member banks. . . may deposit in their reserve accounts in Reserve Banks the cheques on
other banks (after first giving deposit credits to customers on the bank’s book-double deposits)
and surplus currency received from their customers, and on the other hand, they may draw on
their reserve accounts for various purposes, especially to procure currency and to pay the
cheques drawn on them by their customers and deposited in other banks.”
Page 23: “Since the Federal Reserve authorities have the power to increase or decrease the
supply of reserve funds and within limits to increase or decrease reserve requirements, they are
able to exercise considerable influence over the amount of credit, in the aggregate, that banks
may extend.”
Pages 23-24: “The duties of the Reserve authorities . . . . are principally the following: hold
member bank reserve balances; furnish currency for circulation; facilitate the clearance and
collection of cheque; supervise member banks and obtaining reports from them; and act as fiscal
agents, custodians, and depositories for the United States Government.”
Page 26: “Federal Reserve notes are liabilities of the Federal Reserve Banks that issue
them. . . . They are also obligations of the United States Government.” Which makes the
Government the guarantor of private notes.
In the past those who have tried to change our monetary system, have been “greenbackers,”
“Free Coinagers,” and “ 16-to-oners.” These reached their highest altitude of absurdities in
“Coin” Harvey, who wanted to load the buyer down with tonnages of “Silver Dollars” beyond
the power of the transportation system to carry from buyer to seller.
All of them have kept their eyes and their readers’ eyes so close to currency (bills and coins)
that they could never see either the fallacy of thinking of money in terms of “cash,” currency, or
of trying to carryon modern business by transporting tons of currency back and forth between
buyers and sellers, living in remote points from each other.
But it has been necessary to keep the people believing that cash is the real money of the Nation
in order that bankers may continue to hide behind the lie that they are lending the depositors’
money. That they have had many columns of deposits, but only a fragment of the total deposits
to the credit of all of the people, appears in the only two items mentioned in their “meaningless
public statements.”
You will find listed “Demand deposits, subject to cheques” and “Time deposits against which
no cheque can be drawn.” The totals of these two deposit accounts, let me repeat, are miniature
in comparison to the total of other accounts, which are hundreds of billions of dollars to the
credit of Bankers (the bank), of the rich who have non-chequeing accounts of the saving
institutions, of the many lending agencies.
Then there are billions in the forms of investment obligations (United States bonds, Promissory
Notes, Mortgages, Deed of Trust, etc.) which may be quickly transmuted into deposit credits,
subject to cheques.
And these hundreds of billions of deposits and investment obligations (nascent money) are
money, and may be used in the buying of anything of value, services and pleasures. They lie
there, for the most part, dormant, ready to emerge from their hibernation to crowd the
production dollar, the earned dollar out of the markets. But let’s quote some of these men who
have talked about money, banking:
Rothschild said:
“Let me have the power to issue and control a Nation’s money, and I care not who
writes its laws.”
He was a top stock market gambler, and loved the game because of its hazards and its easy takes
for the ins.
Jack Woodford said:
“As an ex-banker and one who has scuttled quite largely about this country of
“The Government, under the Constitution, has the power to create all the money.
It issues both money and bonds, and sells the bonds to the bankers that create
deposit money. If banks need the cash to pay the depositors, the Treasury supplies
it free. In that way, Congress has farmed out to private bankers the nation’s credit
free, and Congress’ power to create money, the greatest and most profitable
privilege our Nation had, absolutely free; and of course, unconstitutionally.
“Congress has farmed out to selfish private banking corporations the credit of the
nation free, and empowered them to create all of the people’s money. Some day
the American people are going to blame this 1943 Congress for not changing the
system at this time as we are entering on a $300 billion war program.”
Mr. Eccles, then the Chairman of the Reserve Board, said in replying to a question asked him
when he was testifying before the Ways and Means Committee of the House, in February 1943:
Mr. Patman.
“Mr. Eccles, the $20 billion of United States Bonds the bankers now own — they
created at the time they bought the bonds the money that they paid for them did
they not?
Mr. Eccles:
“That is the function of a bank. When a bank makes a loan to a utility, or a farmer,
it creates the money that it lends at the time the loan is made.”
Congressman Voorhis:
“The Government should create money, not lend it; banks should lend money but
not create it.”
Congressman Callaway:
“I voted against the Federal Reserve Act because it gives the bankers the power of
life and death over every person in the nation.”
“And how can you do that Nick?” And Nick replied: “By extending or
withholding a loan.” And Andy shot back, “Then, Nick, by the eternal I’ll kill
your bank”;— and he did.
And that was exactly what he wanted Andy to do because Nick’s heart was set on private
banking; and from that calamitous act of Andy in the 1830’s, the Nation has lived a hectic life
at the mercy of private banks that would organize, issue money far beyond their ability to
“redeem,” use this money to buy property and pleasures, then bust, leaving the depositors broke.
Sir Josiah Stamp, while in Austin in the 20’s, in an informal talk to about 150 professors of the
University of Texas, said:
“Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. . . . Bankers own the earth.
Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money, and, with a
flick of the pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. .. . Take this
great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine (he was the second
richest man in Great Britain, and president of the Bank of England) will disappear,
and they ought to disappear, for then this would be a better and a happier world to
live in. . .. My sons are well educated; they should not hesitate to take their places
in the ranks of humanity, and forge their own fortunes. . . . BUT, if you want to
continue to be the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let
bankers continue to create money and control Credit.”
Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma in a preface to a book written by Winslow and Brogham,
wrote:
“It would appear that there could be no subject of more supreme importance to the
people of the United States than an understanding of money and its powers. It is
remarkable, and a fact of surpassing importance, that the provision of the
Constitution of the United States authorizing Congress exclusively to coin money
and regulate the value thereof has been overlooked by American statesmen. Their
failure to perceive the deep significance of this language of the Constitution has
resulted in the indefensible expansion and contraction of money by private
persons, bringing on monetary depressions periodically.”
“The death of Lincoln is a disaster for Christendom. I fear that foreign bankers
with their craftiness and tortuous tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of
America and use it to corrupt modern civilization. They will not hesitate to plunge
the whole world into wars and chaos, in order that they may inherit the earth.”
How prophetic. The three world wars, and this cold war; and the present stringency of credit,
invoked by the Federal Reserve authorities.
The President of the American Bankers Association, speaking in their convention, in 1931,
almost two years after they pulled the stock market down into one of its worst crashes said:
“We the men in this hall, who control the economic destiny of the Nation, knew in
1927 that this terrible depression was coming, and we did nothing about it.”
Of course they did nothing about it. They planned it, and carried it to a successful (for them)
conclusion.
And he could have quoted the American Bankers Association as having said, in 1891:
“We authorize you (our loan agents in the western states) to loan funds on good
real estate to fall due not later than September 1, 1894, and at no time thereafter.
And on and after that date we will not renew our loans under any consideration.
But on September 1, 1894, we will demand our money. We will foreclose and
become Mortgagees in possession. We can in this way take two-thirds of the
farms west of the Mississippi and thousands of them east of the Mississippi as
well, at our own price. We will own three-fourths of the farms of the West and the
money of the nation. Then farmers will become tenants as in England.”
“Dear Sir: The interest of National Banks requires immediate financial legislation
by Congress. Silver, silver certificates and U.S. Treasury notes must be retired.
National Bank Notes on a gold basis must be made the only money. This will
require the authorization of $500 million to $1 billion new U.S. Bonds as basis of
circulation. You will — MUST retire at once one-third of your circulation, and
call in loans. (They got this in 1934! They never quit.)
“Be careful to make a monetary stringency among your patrons, especially among
influential business men. Advocate extra session of Congress to repeal the silver
purchasing clause of the Sherman Law. Act with other banks of your city in
securing a large petition to Congress for its repeal. Use personal influence with
your Congressmen, and particularly let your wishes be known to your Senators.
The future of National Banks, as fixed and safe investments, depends on
immediate action, as there is an increasing sentiment in favour of Government
legal tender notes-bills and silver.”
Ex-President John Adams wrote to his friend Ex-President Thomas Jefferson, and said:
“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in
our Constitution; not from want of honour or virtue, so much as from downright
ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.”
Siegfried said:
John Skelton Williams, Comptroller of the Currency, said to the Deflation Committee of the
American Bankers Association, in 1920, in protest of their resolution to contract money and
“Don’t you know that this will break every little bank in the country?”
And the bankers replied cold-bloodedly: “They ought to break; there are too many of them.”
But, he retorted:
“They ought to be ruined; they are getting so prosperous (following World War I)
they won’t work.”
You only have to recall the late 20’s and 30’s to remember how thoroughly the bankers busted
the little banks, the farmers, and the small business men.
Henry Ford said:
“Here is a nation that might be the richest nation on earth, when actually we
haven’t enough of anything, because there is not enough production. The need is
here. The ability to produce is here. The people are eager to produce — willing to
work. The stoppage is the system that puts profits before production — and that is
the money system.”
A final personal story: A local linotype operator in Austin, who is steadily employed, got a
notice from a local finance company (and all of them are children of bankers, through whom
they shunt their mountains of deposit credits in their surplus and undivided profits columns)
informing him that he had a $400 loan without investigation or bother, for him, if he would
come in and claim it. Well, the working man’s family never have their wants satisfied; so he
went down and was met with glad hands and unction dripped from the lender’s jowls.
Without “investigation” for the lender had done that, finding the man regularly employed, a
loan agreement (not a note) was laid before him, for his signature, with the assurance that he
(the lender) would complete all the papers, and send them to him in a few days. The man
couldn’t suspect such a nice man’s being tricky; so he signed the loan agreement, for that is
what it amounted to, and the lender handed him a cheque, and wished his victim on his way.
Said the borrower to me: “In a few days I got the papers and found that my life had been
insured, the debt had been insured, and costs of making the loan had been added; and instead of
my loan agreement calling for my payment in instalments of $400 and interest, it called for a
total payment of $676 in instalments,” and that loan agency is a department of an Austin bank.
And my final quote from our Constitution:
Section 8: The Congress shall have power . . . to coin money, regulate the value
thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.
Section 10: No state shall . . . coin money, emit bills of credit, make anything but
gold and silver coin tender in payment of debt.”
“The Government of the United States, under the Constitution, has the power, and
it is the duty of the Government, to CREATE ALL MONEY. . . . This being true,
why should Congress sit idly by and allow the (private) banks to expand $20 to $1,
or even $50 to $1, in order to finance the war and the other costs of Government
when it is nothing more nor less than Congress permitting the credit of this Nation
to be farmed out for the selfish benefit of private banking corporations? The
Treasury issues both money and bonds. Under the present system it sells
(deposits) the bonds to a (the) bank(s) that creates money (bank deposits)! Then, if
the bank needs the actual money, the actual printed greenbacks (or coins) to pay
the depositors, the Treasury will furnish that money to pay the depositors. In that
way Congress farms out the use of the government’s (nation’s) credit absolutely
free.
“It is the duty of Congress to issue — coin or create-money and regulate its value
under the Constitution. This great privilege has been farmed out free to the
privately owned banks by Congress. This privilege is worth billions of dollars a
year to those exercising it under laws passed by Congress.
“The United States Treasury prints and issues both the interest-bearing bonds and
the money (bills and coins) which is another form of Government obligation, not
interest-bearing.
“The Reserve banks are owned by the private commercial banks, including the
bank that bought the bonds. The Federal Reserve banks are Federal in name only;
they are owned lock, stock and barrel by the private commercial banks, which
have invested a very small sum of money upon which they get 6% per annum.
“The present banking system, thru the use of the Government’s credit, as now
(1943) proposed to finance the war can issue more than $240 billions in money,
and every bit of it will be issued on the banks’ $8 billions capital and surplus and
the Government’s credit. Of course, it will be the Government’s credit that will
make it secure, as the $8 billions will be insufficient for that purpose. . . . The
Government pays interest for the use of its own credit.
“Who created such a system that is costing the taxpayers $1,750,000,000 this year
(1942) and will cost the taxpayer $4,500,000,000 a year (years and years ahead)
when our anticipated expenditures for [our] war purposes are made? The answer
is that such a system was built up over a long period of years (from 1781 to 1942).
Congress (has) passed monetary laws without giving a great deal of attention to
them, being told (by bankers who had written the bills) that money was (is) a
mystery and that few people understood it and those understanding it were the
ones wanting the laws. It was (and is) smart (alecky) for a Congressman to say,
'All I know about money is that I don’t have enough of it,’ or some similar crack
that invariably drew laughter and applause, and the bill was passed (practically as
the bankers wrote it). If some person who had given the subject thought and
consideration attempted to show how the credit of the Nation was being farmed
out FREE to privately owned commercial banks, he could be silenced very quickly
by a whispering campaign that he was a monetary crackpot, or a greenbacker, who
wanted to flood the country with worthless printing-press money. Then, with a
few references to continental currency, fiat money, and German inflation, the bill
was sent on its way. All such bills were referred to as a bill to further strengthen
our sound currency.
“I am opposed to the Government, which has the sovereign and exclusive power to
create money, paying private bankers for the use of its own money. The private
bankers do not lend their money to the Government; they lend the Government’s
money to the Government, and collect interest annually. I want to say that the
highest authority and best in our Government, the President of the Federal Reserve
System, the Secretary of the Treasury, as well as all informed people, admit it.
The banks say they lend the depositors’ money; 'we’re responsible for it, and if we
I was reluctant to admit that the wrongs I found in the West bank were universally practiced;
yet I had heard all of my life of banks closing their doors, and the depositors losing all; then
came the deluge in 1933, just 20 years after the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, when every
bank in the United States closed; and while the depositors did not lose all, millions were lost to
them.
Charley Dawes, ex-vice-president of the United States, and at the time head of the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, hung to his post until he was granted a $90 million
Refinance loan to resurrect his Chicago Bank.
Then is when Congress should have said to the banking boys: “We gave, you every law for 100
years that you wrote and asked us to pass. Finally in 1913 we gave you the Federal Reserve
Act, on your assuring us sound money, panic-free banking methods, and top to bottom
prosperity for the people of the United States would follow. But here you come up after a 20-
year trial under this act, ask the President by Executive Order to close all banks for re-
organization and “getting-our-breath” again.
“We shall return the creation of money to the hands of Congress where the Constitution reposed
it; and take over the mechanics of money (keeping of the depositors’ accounts, cashing and
clearing their cheques), and return you boys to the actualities of money lending: you will lend
only the money you have to 'the credit of yourselves on the books of the United States
Depositories, which we shall scatter over the United States as prodigally as post offices.”
After all this had taken place, and I had been crying for years that all banking laws are
unconstitutional because the Founding Fathers said specifically:
Article I, Section 8: (Sixth Power) “The Congress shall have power . . . To coin
money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of
weights and measures.
And in Section 10: “No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation,
grant letters of marque and reprisal ; coin money; emit bills of credit; make
anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts. . .” Therefore, no
state or private banks.
I reprint the first 11 pages of a 16-page pamphlet printed July 4, 1951. It is the full story of the
creation of money by the Reserve Banks, with all of the camouflage torn away. The enormity
of the crime of banking strikes you a stunning blow when you read that the bankers profited in
the last World War over a trillion dollars, and the people lost that amount, plus the lives of
many of our manhood's best, and billions in property destruction. Read this story as a starter of
that completer story to follow.
1. The Government does not create nor issue money. Banks create and issue all
our money
2. Coins and currency are not money-just tokens. Our money is bank credit in the
form of bank deposits.
3. Banks do not lend cash, currency-coins or bills. They do not lend their own
capital, surplus or profits. Not their depositors' deposits; nor their own credit; nor
the nation's credit. Period. Bankers do not lend money or anything; they only buy
notes (your note), mortgages, bonds, securities, money, or other investment
obligations; and they pay for them with bank credit in the form of new bank
deposits which they create at the time they make the purchase.
In a hearing in Congress, in February, 1943, Cong. Wright Patman asked Marriner
S. Eccles., Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,
". . . the U.S. Bonds ($20,000,000,000) the banks hold today - they created the
money to buy those bonds, did they not?" And Mr. Eccles replied, "The banking
system as a whole creates the (bank) deposits as (at the time) they make loans and
investments, whether they buy Government bonds, or whether they buy utility
bonds, or whether they make farmers' loans.."
In the process the banks created $120 million bank deposits, came into ownership of the $20
million corporation stock and $100 million in personal notes, mortgages, bonds etc. They will
re-sell the corporation stock and add the $20 million bank deposits they receive for them to their
profit account, for the stock did not cost them a thin dime. In due course of time the bankers get
bank deposits for all loans and will re-sell all securities, and add this $100 million plus interest
to their account, making a total of $120 million plus interest and dividends the bankers add to
their profit accounts when the cycle is completed.
The $20 million Reserve cheque, the $20 million corporation stock, $20 million bank reserves,
the $100 million bank credit—none of it cost the bankers one thin dime; therefore the $100
million in notes, mortgages, etc., which they bought with the bank credit cost them not one thin
dime. Then the $120 million profit they added to their account cost them not one thin dime.
Their customers got the use of the $100 million at heavy interest cost, for just a short time, then
it became the permanent assets of the bankers. The whole process was just simple bookkeeping.
That's how Sir Josiah Stamp meant bankers would with the flick of a pen create enough money
to buy the world back again!"
Legalized Robbery
The United States Government issued more than $250 billion U.S. bonds during World War II.
Adding the $250 billion deposits that the banks paid the Government for the bonds and we find
the war created $1,750,000,000,000 monetary assets, and only the $250 billion the Reserve
Banks paid the Government escape their assets, but they have the U.S. Bonds, which cost them
not one thin dime.
And they sell the U.S. Bonds daily which will finally transfer the $250 billion deposits they
gave for the Bonds - and the complete ownership will be theirs!
There Sir Josiah was vindicated in one war. With a flick of fountain pens the bankers created,
in five years, $1.75 trillion in monetary values! and at the end of the cycle securities and
deposits are their assets. And none of it cost the bankers one thin dime.
They are mad men madly plunging the World into World War III - Creditalism's Armageddon.
The people pay for the wars in materials, human sacrifice - the cold corpses and mangled living
bodies of their sons, in anguish, toil, sweat, tears and blood yet they plod back to empty larder
in a roofless home, and before they can eat or buy material to build their home and a lot to rest it
on, they must fall upon their knees before these bankers, who contributed no materials, no
sweat, few tears and little blood: who made $1.75 trillion just by selling Uncle Sam the Nation's
own credit, for enough of these $1.75 trillion of bank credit to build their little cottages. With
cold indifference the bankers said, "You have no credit. You must get the Government to
indorse your notes." That to the men who had fought, while these bankers stole from them and
the rest of us (legally) $250 billion in U.S. bonds and $1.25 trillion in bank credit.
Beef steaks selling at $1.1 a pound, $30 land selling for $400, a $1234 cottage selling for $5275,
is the result of this increase of bank deposits, inflation of money. High prices are not inflation:
Well, Josiah Stamp said that so long as a nation will let private corporations create money and
control credit, one is foolish not to be a banker. Too, you have heard that there is no better way
to learn than by doing. So let's you and I go into the banking business. I don't mean that we
shall buy stocks in some bank. We are going to be top dogs or nothing - in this our make-
believe story.
There is a little story behind this, decision. We have been trying for years to get a bank on the
wrong side of the river. The big uptown banks blocked us year after year because they didn't
quite own the earth, and didn't want opposition, I believe it is called competition. Since the big
boys control our Banking Commission, the commission sat and patiently listened to our plea for
a bank charter, and would always say no. But you and I finally got the charter, and scraped up
$200,000, with another $100,000 for surplus, and were soon in the banking business, and I
mean the banking business in a big way.
When we got our charter, we went to Washington and bought from the Reserve Bank $200,000
U.S. Bonds. Let me add that we organized a South Austin National Bank, which gave us front
seat on this master stock exchange. Well that was good business for we had "invested our
capital" in the best securities on earth, the promise of Uncle Sam to pay, U.S. Bonds, so it was
not long until we were clipping coupons, and handing them over to Uncle Sammy, and he was
handing us cash. Within a year we had collected $7,000, but that is chicken feed in our
language.
Well, you neophytes are wondering where we are going to get any money to lend. We have
already lent our capital to Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam is the nicest old fellow you ever saw. When
we got the bonds, he smiled and said, "Sonnies, just to show you how much I appreciate my
enterprising boys, take this $200,000 in cash just as a present." Now, what do you know about
that? We go to Washington with a cheque book, write a cheque to the Reserve Bank for
$200,000, and get for that cheque against just ordinary bank deposits we had piled up in Austin,
$200,000 in U.S. Bonds, and $200,000 in cash. That certainly doubled our money before we
got our doors open to lend our neighbours money. (Note: We used Uncle Sammy instead of the
Reserve Bank, because in reality Uncle Sam stands behind them, and is endorser of all that they
do.)
Well, you look at me and I look at you and both of us are wondering how we are going to keep
robbers off our trail as we return to Texas with all of that $200,000 in cash. Uncle Sam, seeing
our perplexed expressions, said, "Now, boys, you will not need all that cash to do business on.
Since you are a country bank (he knew we were on the wrong side of the river) you will need
only $32,000 in the vault just leave all of the cash here in your reserve fund. The Reserve Bank
will send you the $32,000 cash when you build your vault and get ready for business, and the
$168,000 will be your reserve fund.
Assets
We own U.S. Bonds. $200,000
We have cash in vault. 32,000
We have Bank Reserves. 200,000
Total. $432,000
Liabilities
Demand Deposits. 32,000
Net Assets. $400,000
Of course we have overlooked the $100,000 surplus, but that would just confuse us a little, and
it does not amount to much anyway; so we will just let it alone.
But that looks pretty good for first day's business doesn't it, Sam? We went to Washington with
a Cashier's cheque for $200,000, and on first day of business we find that our net assets are
$400,000. But, Sam, you have not heard or seen anything yet. Tomorrow we will begin
Say, Sam, why did we fool away the best part of our lives selling hams and harness? Well, I
don't know, Tom. You know that bankers never told us anything about what a nice thing they
have, I guess is the reason. We just didn't know this sort of thing could be done.
Yes, replied Tom; but, Sam, I find that we can get more bank credits, if we will just ask for
them. I understand that the Reserve authorities will buy corporation stock, and pay for it with a
cheque against no funds. Our school bus factory here in South Austin is growing so fast that
they are in great need of additional capital.
[begin page 57]
Let's show them how easy it is to issue stock, and sell the stock to the Reserve authorities.
So Tom calls the President of the School Bus Factory and says, "Henry, you were talking to me
the other day about your; need of a $1,000,000 for expansion and improvement. I have figured
out a way to get the money. Come over and let's talk about it." Henry hurries over, for
dangling a $1,000,000 before a hungry corporation president's eyes renews his youth. It is
agreed that the Bus Company would print up a $1,000,000 new stock for the corporation. Steck
does a beautiful job. And Tom and Henry (I'm Tom, don't forget) hurry by plane to
Our customers' deposits are $6,479,643 . . . And, Sam, this is just cash items we are listing. . .
there are those ranches we have bought, that ten acres we bought is now oil. . . Now, Sam, that
Being convinced that the greatest problem before the people of the United States is money, its
correct functioning, I shall undertake to give you a picture of money as it now functions, and
then suggest a remedy. The entire discussion shall be from the standpoint of a depositor-
borrower, and I shall seek to make it a story that the man on the street may understand.
No organic body can survive, or remain in a healthy state, unless its bloodstream is filled with
pure blood, bearing in its liquid stream the proper food elements, and in the proper proportions.
Its tissues starve without the proper amount of food supplied constantly. Whether the body is
active, or in a passive state of complete relaxation and rest, the bloodstream must never stop for
a moment.
Civilization is an organic body, composed of millions of cells (each a human being), just as the
body of a man is composed of millions of cells. Just as the cells of the human body are held
together by a centripetal energy, the law of cohesion, so are the cells of the body of civilization,
society, held together by a centripetal energy, adhesion, a more flexible law than the law of
cohesion. And, just as a cell of the human body, failing to receive constantly an adequate
supply of the proper food, failing to receive the constant renewing of its cells by the bath of life-
sustaining food, diluted in the bloodstream, dies and weakens that portion of the human body;
so with the cells of civilization, society, when they fail to get their required bath of life.
sustaining blood, bearing in its liquid form food for the cells.
Some two hundred and fifty years ago Pope said: "Money is the lifeblood of Civilization," while
Locke, even earlier, said, "If exportation will not balance importation, away must go your silver
again, whether monied or not monied." In those two concise, congent statements, we find the
complete purpose and danger of money.
Just as the bloodstream of the human body must perform two definite labours, if the body is to
remain normal and healthy; so must the bloodstream of civilization. First. The bloodstream
must carry the proper food in the proper amount to every cell of the body; and, Second. The
bloodstream must carry away worn out and/or unneeded particles of food and of the body.
To carry this simile further: while money is the lifeblood of civilization, the banking system is
the arteries and veins of the body of civilization through which this lifeblood flows. The two
functions of banking — the keeping of the people's money on deposit together with the cashing
and clearing of their cheques, and the lending of money, fit nicely into the figure of speech. The
Treasury of the United States (ought to be), under the Constitution of the United States, is the
heart of the blood system" while the banks are main arteries, and veins, and the depositing of
money in the banks and the chequeing it out, is the network of capillaries breaking down the
bloodstream and taking food to every particle of the body. This the banks fail to do
consistently. Money lending is an aid to the process of growth, which adds new tissues to the
body by swelling the bloodstream.
"The Congress has passed your proposed Act, and it will become popular, and the
people will accept it readily because it will look so much like Treasury
Certificates. Very few citizens will understand the National Bank Notes Act, but
those who do will be under such necessity of enjoying the banks' favours that they
will say nothing about it, and the masses will bear the burden never knowing what
it is all about."
That assertion is as true today as in the 70s when John Sherman wrote the letter.
But following the panics of 1873, 1893, and 1907, when banks failed and depositors lost
billions of "money" deposits, a committee was appointed, at the behest of the bankers, to make a
study of banking and money. When this committee made its report to Congress, the bankers
introduced the Infamous Federal Reserve Act, which became a law with only six Congressmen
and Senators voting against it; the others voted yes, and many of the leaders had been royally
entertained at "Hobcaw", the 17,000 acre "Shangrila", owned by Bernard Baruch, a Doctor's son
who went from rags to riches via the New York Stock Exchange.
The producers and servers laboured long hours' for their dollars. The bankers with the flick of a
pen could create billions while the producers were earning hundreds.
Dollars are like spuds, the more you have of them, the less they will sell for; so every time
banks add phoney money to the stream, it cheapens every earned dollar and unearned dollar, too.
The only solution is for Congress to obey the Constitution, and take over the creation of money,
deposit credits, which are transferable by cheque from buyer to seller; then keep the people's
deposit accounts, cash and clear their cheques.
And keep this in mind, the $1,250 billion bank credits created in the issuing and selling $250
billion U.S. Bonds during World War II, was just as good money as the time deposits on the
books, of the banks, and that sum, plus the $250 billion in bonds, gives a total of $1 trillion
$500 billion dollars. All was a gift from the people of the United States of America; and as an
added punishment for dumbness, we are having to pay $10 billion a year in interest.
I have said that the Federal Reserve Banking System has given us the most fluid money in the
I have also said that all that they do is unconstitutional. It's their abuse which must we must
stop.
To explain how they render those essential monetary services, would be easy, if you let me junk
all the gobbledegook bankers use in running their business, and the page after page of "rules"
they literally "have" Congress, pass as laws; and that is exactly what I shall do and have done.
In Chapter II, I have quoted from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System's
booklet, first printed in 1939, "THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM — Its Purposes and
Functions," excerpts which succinctly tell the "how" the system functions . . . I omit the
purposes (almost) because they say nowhere and at no time the "real" purpose of banking. They
always say: "Just trying to give the country a sounder money." And always repeating "To
control credit."
I want you to read and re-read those lifted statements, given here with Chapter II, page 18, and
try to see if you can get a clear picture of banking. It is pretty good, because those statements
were made under the direction of the Reserve Board headed by Mariner S. Eccles, inoculated
with the Dr. Roosevelt serum.
It was the first official serum administered to public officials which made them prone to put
human rights above property rights; and these enlightening quotations should be memorized by
you that you may understand what I shall say, and why.
There are two parties deeply involved in money: the buyer and the seller; there are two parties
mixed up in the creation and control of money: the Government and Private Banking
Corporations. There must always remain the buyer and seller, for money is an invention made
by them, not as a measure of value but as an aid in the exchange of goods and services. The
interests of buyer and seller are always antagonistic so the Government should act as umpire
and call the plays.
There must not continue the co-partnership in creating and controlling money: the Government
and banks. One must be eliminated, and the Constitution definitely eliminates the private
banking corporations; therefore there must be only the Government in control of the creation of
money, and fixing its purchasing power.
The first Article of the Constitution, and the very first Section says:
"To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the
standard of weights and measures."
Memorize that section; for it must ever be in your mind, as you study banking, money, your
place in the system.
I shall prove to you that we must eliminate the banking corporations from the creation,
circulation, and control of money; and confine them to "lending only the deposit credits" to their
credit on the books of the United States Depositories in absolute control of the Treasury of the
United States, with the hand of Congress guiding every step and act in the business of providing
the Nation its money supply — even the lending of deposits.
The trouble with bank deposits is that they are created in too large volume by private
corporations for the corporations' gain, and incidentally usable as a "medium of exchange."
We have had this sort of money since Andy let Nick taunt him into killing the Second Bank of
the United States, first in small quantities, as Gold and Silver. Even at that late date coins were
shuttling about in an effort to meet the fluid demands of money; while today personal cheques
are used in over 90 percent of our monetary payments.
We might wink at the Congress's farming out the public credit to private banking corporations,
and giving them absolute (almost) control of the creation of money and the control of its
circulation, and credit, if they did not hog the wealth of the Nation "with phoney money."
Under the Federal Reserve Act, bankers, private corporations formed strictly for private gain,
use the credit of the United States (its vast natural and material resources, its vast industrial and
commercial activities, its resourceful planning, its eager, know-how man power, its, most
democratic government poorly umpiring) to the hurt of the masses, the toiling, labouring,
planning workers. The banking practices, given unlimited powers over money under the
Federal Reserve Act, empowers them to expand or contract the flow of money at will, on a
moment's notice, which either gives us "good times," or puts us in the bread line.
How true Ex-Congressman Callaway's statement to me in 1933: "I voted against the Federal
Reserve Act of 1913, because it gives the bankers the power of life or death over every man,
woman and child in the Nation."
The mechanics of money are so simple, when shorn of all the lengthy "red tape" bankers use to
obscure money! The best money the world has discovered, as I have and shall often repeat, is
"deposit credits, transferable by cheque, wherewith people make the bulk of their monetary
payments." The Federal Reserve Act, which has just this year been "revised and amended,"
extending the red-tape obscurations, covering 252 pages, makes the creation of money a most
mysterious thing.
Here are the essentials in that best money, which I shall reveal to you:
That would be the whole of the mechanics of that soundest and most fluid money the world has
ever seen, if the Congressmen would quit perjuring themselves by taking an oath to support and
uphold the Constitution, then turning around and violating that Constitution either witlessly or
ignorantly.
The source of all deposit credits to the credit of the Government and the people, of course, will
be Congress! And the only way new deposit credits may get on these books will be by an order
of Congress, and the new deposits will be written in the Depository's account by the Treasurer.
Money's coming in from foreign countries, of course, will have to be handled by a special
department of the Treasury, under rules laid down by Congress, that no additional deposit
credits from any source other than from and through Congress, may enter the Nation's money
stream.
There will be little bookkeeping required of the Depository's staff, other than crediting deposits
to the depositor's account who hands, them cash or a cheque, or debiting another depositor's,
account when a cheque he drew is presented to his depository. Of course they will keep an
adequate supply of "United States tokens," money, on hand to cash cheques when presented and
this will really be "cashing cheques," the transforming of deposits into currency. At the end of
each day, each depository will send to the Treasury in Washington, a report of cheques cashed,
deposits credited to customers, and deposits charged to depositors' accounts; and these reports
will be quickly tabulated, and the Treasury will know how much money has been chequed out
(or received by each and all Depositories in the Nation) , and where the deposits are, Depository
to Depository, and ,the grand total of these each day must be the same as the grand total of the
day before; for under the Treasury control and administration of the Depositories it is important
that, no deposits can appear or disappear, without the fact being conveyed to the Treasury, then
to Congress.
One of the major objectives of the Congress will be to keep the supply of money constant from
day to day. The constant volume of deposits transferable by cheque, will maintain a constant
value of the dollar; for dollars are like spuds, the more you have of them (the nation as a whole)
the less the dollar will buy; and the only value you can give a dollar, is its purchasing power.
I have quoted many men — giving their opinions and observations about banking, money. I
have printed excerpts from the book issued by the 1939 Board of Governors of the Federal
Reserve System — The Federal Reserve System — Its Purposes and Functions. I have given
many details of the functions of the Federal Reserve System. I have said little about the
purposes of the Reserve System, for there is little to say, and that is that The Federal Reserve
System was created by an act of Congress, at the behest of bankers, for the purpose of giving
bankers absolute control of this country, and of giving them title to the wealth of the Nation.
(But that, of course, is not mentioned in The Reserve Act.)
A bank is a private corporation incorporated for the purpose of making money. It has no
humanitarian purpose to serve. It holds no interest in the general welfare of the country, other
than the farmer has in his mules. It looks upon persons as cogs in a giant industrial wheel,
whose every turn must make them richer and richer. It is a person in the sense that the Supreme
Court of the United States declared a corporation a "person." It is nerveless, conscious-less,
unmerciful, domineering, wholly destructive, and as dishonest and ruthless as any pirate that
ever sailed the seven seas.
I have not undertaken to delineate its mechanics beyond its creation and control of money and
credit. While its activities in every phase of our monetary life affect the lives of all of us, we
have in mind only the mechanics which create our money, control our money and our credit. In
brief, I am interested only in returning, the creation of money, and the regulating the value
thereof, to the hands of Congress.
Let me enumerate the steps taken in the Reserve Banks in the creation of credit, the transmuting
the credit into bank deposits, and the cashing and clearing of cheques drawn against these bank
deposits.
First, The Reserve authorities create bank reserves.
Second, Reserve Bank credits are convertible into commercial bank credit.
Third, Commercial bank credit is convertible into bank deposits to the credit of borrowers from
the banks, or sellers who sell to the banks investment obligations.
Those are the three steps in the creation of "bank deposits transferable by cheque wherewith
business men and other persons make the bulk of their monetary payments.".
On page 55, Federal Reserve System booklet, we find:
"Loans and purchases of securities by the Federal Reserve authorities are one of the important
sources of member bank reserves."
These securities may be U.S. Bonds, corporation stock, notes, mortgages, debentures, any
investment obligation. When the Reserve authorities buy corporation stock, they give a cheque
against no funds in payment for the stock, and the corporation deposits this cheque with its
home bank. This creates bank deposits; then when the cheque reaches the bank's Reserve Bank,
U.S. Bonds, which will draw interest from here on out. $250 billion
Reserve Bank Deposits to the credit of The United States. $250 billion
Reserve Bank reserves to the credit of the member banks. $250 billion
Member Bank Credit, which they may use to buy investment obligations or make
loans $1,250 billion
Member Bank Deposits to the credit of their depositors subject to cheque. $1,250
billion
Investment obligations owned by the member banks. $1,250 billion
An Infamous Total. $3,000 billion
In all of my tables, I have sought an idea and the figures are only approximately true. . . . Our
National debt today is approximately $276 billion, and the Congress is raising the debt limit to
$280 billion, in anticipation of nuclear wars.
Of course, Reserve Bank reserves and member bank credits are not actual money, transferable
by cheque. They are fictitious "funds" bankers keep on their books, as basis of loans, but funds
which they use to buy investment obligations. So they are "cash" to banks. And these fictitious
funds cost the bankers nothing, except the trouble of keeping the people's deposits, cashing and
clearing their cheques . . . the cash cost them nothing, and the clearing of the cheques, is just a
bookkeeping routine, performed by underpaid men and women.
Page 29. Article 34, (6) (A) (The total obligations to any national banking association of any
person, co-partnership, association, or corporation shall at no time exceed 10 percentum of the
amount of the capital stock of such association actually paid in and unimpaired and 10
percentum of unimpaired surplus fund . . . Such limitation of 10 percentum shall be subject to
the following exceptions:)
"(6) (A) Obligations of any person, co-partnership, association or corporation, in the form of
notes or drafts secured by shipping documents, warehouse receipts, or other such documents
transferring or securing title covering readily marketable non-perishable staples when such
property is fully covered by insurance, if it is customary to insure such staples, shall be subject
under this section to a limitation of 15 percentum of such capital and surplus in addition to such
10 percentum of such capital and surplus when the market value of such staples securing such
additional obligation is not at any time less than 115 percentum of the face amount of such
obligation, and to an additional increase of limitation of five percentum of such capital and
surplus in addition to such 25 percentum of such capital and surplus when the market value of
such staples securing such additional obligations is not at any time less than 120 percentum of
the face amount of such additional obligation, and to a further additional increase of limitation
or five percentum of such capital and surplus in addition to such 30 percentum of such capital
and surplus when the market value of such staples securing such additional obligation is not at
any time less than 125 percentum of the face amount of such additional obligation, and to a
further additional increase of limitation of five percentum of such capital and surplus in addition
to such 35 percentum of such capital and surplus when 'the market value of such staples
securing such additional obligation is not at any time less than 130 percentum of the face
amount of such additional obligation, and to a further additional increase of limitation of five
percentum of such capital and surplus in addition to such 40 percentum of such capital and
surplus when the market value of such staples securing such additional obligation is not at any
time less than 135 percentum of the face amount such additional obligation, and to a further
additional increase of limitation of five percentum of such capital and surplus in addition to
such 45 percentum of such capital and surplus when the market value of such staples securing
such additional obligation is not at any time less than 140 percentum of the face amount of such
additional obligation, but this exception shall not apply to obligation of anyone person, co-
partnership, association, or corporation arising from the same transaction and secured by the
identical staples for more than ten months."
Gentle reader, I have quoted that 350-word paragraph (plus the parenthesized sentences
preceding same as introductory to the paragraph) to indicate how industriously the bankers seek
to camouflage and muddy their legal waters. They used 100,000 words in this latest act they
compelled Congress to enact into law, and the President had no other course, for as they defied
President Truman when he appealed to them to not let market price of U.S. Bonds drop below
par, they could have visited reprisals upon the Government itself in such force that there was no
other course for a supine Congress and a pliant President to do but pass the act and sign it.
In 1942, a young father of 32, volunteered for naval duty in World War II, and served until V-J
Day in 1945, serving the last 18 months of the War in the thick of Japan's, Kamikaze type of
warfare, having his ship hit by a suicide plane, then watching the crew turn the hose on, washing
the blood and bits of the Jap from the shattered deck. He rose from raw recruit to rank of
Lieutenant Commander. He had spent the previous seven years in government service in
Washington. He reached home in October 1945. He spent a few days in Marshall with his wife
and daughter. He had no property, no established business, no credit, and little money. He did
not want to go back to Washington, although he had been offered $6,000 a year job, if he would
return. He had promised himself while hourly facing mutilation on the Pacific, that if he
returned from this carnage, he would build the dream of his boyhood and youth, a print shop,
patterned on the Roycrofters of East Aurora N.Y., and that he would build near the University
of Texas. So he came to Austin to look the possibilities over.
In 1932, a man in his 40's who had made a start in the oil game in Ranger oil boom, went to
East Texas field. He was worth about $100,000. He installed a small refinery. He was one of
the lucky few. He survived the efforts of the major oil companies, aided and abetted by the
Governor of Texas, the Texas Rangers, the Attorney General of Texas, the Comptroller of
Texas, the Oil and Gas Commission of Texas, the city banks of Texas, the banks of Cleveland,
San Francisco St. Louis, Chicago and New York, every little bribed constable of Texas, the
National Guard (officered by employees of the majors) of Texas, District Courts of Texas,
legions of smart lawyers in Texas, in Washington and in New York — to kill the small oil
operators and small refineries in the oilfields of East Texas. Not because he was a good fighter,
but because the major oil companies chose him, along with a few more small operators, to
survive.
One afternoon, a Standard Oil Company official walked into this oil man's little office in an old
cottage on his refinery grounds, and said: "We don't want to kill all the little refineries. The
public would shout monopoly. So we must have a few to play against that cry. We have killed
most of them but there are still too many. Why don't you buy one of them?"
This oil man asked, "What would I use for money?" "We'll honour your draft."
"Well, I have a $30,000 note due tomorrow at the First National Bank in Dallas. When you
came in I was wondering where I would get enough money to pay it off."
The Standard official walked to the door, called to his Secretary who left the big polished
Cadillac, and with a brief case under his arm, entered the little oil office. In fifteen minutes the
small oil man had a $30,000 draft on the Chase National Bank, New York. The little oil man
had arrived. He had been accepted by the majors. A few weeks later an issue of his little
company's stock appeared on the New York Stock Market. Yep. It had been bought in the
"open market" by the Reserve Authorities. The little oil man was entering the big oil man's
Then Pearl Harbour. Limit jumped in March 28, 1941 to. . . $125,000,000,000. The sky was the
limit. The bankers stopped the little fellows who had been pouring tiny millions into gopher
holes — raking leaves in never-visited parks, lining with stones the ravines running through the
bankers' large blocks sprawling over vacant portions of thousands of towns, building parks in
Article I, Section 8: The Congress shall have power to coin (create) money, regulate the value
thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.
Article I, Section 10: No state (then certainly no private corporation) shall . . . coin (create)
money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payments of
debts.
Certainly these three means of "regulating the value of money" have failed: (a) make all money
gold and/or silver coin, (b) make gold the money standard with private corporations in control,
(c) "fix prices on wages, goods, rents, and profits," as Mr. Baruch induced the Government to
do in last two great World Wars.
Modern life could not be served with metallic or paper money; but it is being served by the
substitution of deposits on the books of the banks to the credit of the people. This money can be
used by means of a personal cheque.
Deposit money can be limited, or fixed in volume, and therefore its buying power can be made
constant and fixed. Not by fixing the volume at a fixed figure, but fixing its volume at that
proper ratio to the business the Nation transacts in any given year. If you keep the ratio of
money constant. The Reserve System has a board of 19 members who meet tri-weekly. They
could fix this ratio so definitely that the buying power of the dollar would be constant; that is, if
that were their purpose, but it is not. Their business is to make profits; not for their customers,
the people of the United States, but for the stockholders, which constitute a very small
percentage of the people of the United States.
That they might get more and more investment obligations, for ten years now, they have been
pouring bank credit into the money stream of the Nation, making the dollar cheaper and
cheaper, until today it buys on an average about one-fourth as much as it did in the 30's and
early 40's.
Now their vaults are bulging with "investment obligations," and they have decided that it is time
to begin foreclosing and taking title to the lands and industrial and commercial properties of the
people of the United States. A few months ago these 19 kings of America met, scratched just
common, ordinary chins, and used just ordinary brains, and came up with the idea that now is
the time to put on the squeeze. So tight money followed, up to now just for the little man - the
big boys are still building houses in blocks costing many millions, but the little fellow who had
been building a house at a time, selling it, paying off the banker, then borrowing again to build
again, can't get a dollar.
Remember 1929, and the years that followed, and curse yourself for not compelling Congress to
take back the creation and control of money, and the Nation's credit then.
If Congress should "remember" the Constitution, and take over the creation of money, and its
control, cash and clear the people's cheques, the Congress could play the role of the 19 kings, to
There are six interlocking groups in the United States, which make it possible for them to
continually and systematically rob the people of their wages and products. They're creatures of
bankers who dominate them. They are named in order of their sinister power:
1. The 14,537 banks who have the absolute power of life and death over every human vocation,
business and institution in the United States—an octopus with myriads of tentacles, with
innumerable suckers fastened to every human activity;
2. Holding companies who water all public service corporation stock, dictate their practices and
policies, and suck their earnings so dry that there is nothing left out of which to pay decent
salaries and wages;
3. Stock and Commodity Brokers, headed by the New York Stock Exchange, Chicago Wheat
Pit, and New Orleans Cotton Market, with hundreds of branches, where thousands of men and
women gamble on the finances of industries and their products, while a few men manipulate the
prices of every product of farm, ranch, forest, mine and factory, fixing and fluctuating the prices
so that the producers in every line of human endeavour are robbed of a just price for their
products;
4. Stock-issuing corporations, led by United Steel in iron, Standard Oil in petroleum, General
Electric in power and light, General Motors in automotives, Bell Telephone and Western Union
in communication, and many others who dominate every industry and
5. Insurance Companies barnacled on lives and properties of the people of the Nation.
6. Oil and gas. These six groups of interlocking industries, headed, dominated by the bankers of
America control and dominate every firm, business and individual of the 171 million population
from the cradle to the grave, enriching a few, pauperising many many millions who have less
than a bare living. In each group control narrows down to a half dozen men, and only three men
dominate banking: J.P. Morgan and the Rockefellers of New York and A.P. Giannini of San
Francisco. And that narrows the 14,537 banks down to just three: Morgan's City National,
Rockefeller's Chase National, and Giannini's Bank of America (Italy).
Let me give you a couple of examples:
A Dallas Texan, R.L. Thornton, who grew up on an Ellis county farm "where he picked a lot of
cotton and a little learning," as a modest (?) one-bank banker; and a San Francisco Californian,
A.P. Giannini who spent his boyhood on a produce wagon, gaining much business knowledge
and little schooling, as an example of the stock-floating chain-bank bankers.
On October 24, 1916, during World War I, just before the United States entered the War I, R.L.
Thornton, a penniless salesman, borrowed $20,000 and opened in an old restaurant a new Dallas
bank. Twenty-seven years later, he moved his Mercantile National Bank with $184 million
resources into its 30-story $5 million building ten blocks up the same street, November 15,
1943, during the crucial years of World War II, when everyone was urged to cancel
First, there is the Reserve, authorities power to write a cheque against no funds.
Page 85 of Reserve Booklet: "Federal Reserve Bank credit . . . does not consist of funds that the
Reserve authorities "get" somewhere in order to lend, but constitute funds that they are
empowered to create. The process of creation is one of giving the promises of the Federal
Reserve Bank — in the form of Federal Reserve Notes and Reserve deposits — in exchange for
the promises made by others to the Federal Reserve Banks, the reason for the exchange being
that the Federal Reserve Banks' promises are recognized BY LAW as having a particular
monetary utility not possessed by the promises of individuals or of private institutions."
That simply means that the Federal Reserve authorities can write a cheque against no funds or
give the sellers of securities to the Reserve Banks deposit credits on their books. These
securities are (a) U.S. Bonds, (b) Corporation stocks, or (c) investment obligations, which the
member banks may sell (or deposit with them) — and the member banks get; credit to their
reserve funds. If the Reserve authorities should pay for the securities (promises of others to pay)
with Federal Reserve notes, instead of just giving the seller deposit credits on its books to the
seller, it would mean nothing, because the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the Treasury)
prints reserve notes for Reserve Banks at a cost of only 30 cents a $1,000. To follow that course
would be both perfectly silly and useless; for the seller of the investment obligations would
have no use for the cash, he would just deposit the money in the bank, receive deposit credit
against which he could write cheques.
The Reserve Banks are now very careful to say, "We buy U.S. Bonds and pay for them with
Reserve notes." Bankers are fighting desperately to hide the fact, that, in reality, they are
lending no funds; but create funds every time the Reserve authorities buy investment
obligations, or make a loan, and every time any commercial bank buys investment obligations,
or makes a loan. Just as Congress, by law, empowered the Reserve authorities to write a cheque
against no funds; the Reserve Act empowers commercial banks, who are member banks — and
there are some 8,000 (total 14,537) other State banks and trust companies who do business as
branches or under trusteeship of member banks) to write a cheque against no funds.
A congressman wrote me that he used to think that when the Reserve Banks, which are the
fiscal agents of the Government (keeping its deposits and clearing the Government's cheques
paid to customers for materials and services) bought U.S. Bonds, that the Reserve Banks just
gave the Government credit in its deposit account for the bonds; but now he has learned that
"Instead money is created in the form of Federal Reserve notes taken from the Treasury's
Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and used to buy United States Government Bonds." He has
been brain washed.
The Congressman did say this: ". . . when Government bonds are bought for the 12 Federal
Reserve banks, the capital stock and surplus of the banks is not used for this purpose, and funds
The world has been cursed over 250 years by Creditalism parading under the banner of
Capitalism. The people of every nation who toil and produce every human want, the masses,
have come to hate the term Capitalism, and justly so because credit has been parading as
Capital. And the users of the people's own credit have not only robbed them of the use of it in
their own defence, but have created against the people a $250 billion debt during World War II.
Creditalism parading as Capitalism has won the hatred of the masses of the entire world because
wherever it goes it robs the masses of the products of their toil, takes from them title to their
lands, either ruthlessly kills them or forces them to toil for them as peons for peons' wages and
builds palaces and skyscrapers — and call it the "great works of Capitalism."
The peoples of Europe take America's food and turn from us to Russia not because they love or
want Communism, but because they hate our brand of Capitalism more and want it less. The
people, the producing masses of the United States, even the whole world are turning against
Creditalism as we know it and feel it today.
There are two sources of Capital — that is, of money:
1. The production of goods, which is itself an act of creation. The amount saved becomes true
capital which is stored or investment capital. That is true private capital, and the: person who
created it has a perfect social right to use it as he pleases. It is honest capital. It represents
wealth which he has created. It will always be limited to that portion man saves out of his
production of goods for all of us; therefore it could never become dangerous. A nation financed
on earned capital would be a democratic nation because no individual or group could become
strong enough to dominate or destroy individuals or other groups. A person or group needing
more capital than he or they had, would borrow earned (existing) money from others, and no
new money would be created and added to existing volume to inflate and cheapen it. This sort
of economy truly would be sound, beneficent Capitalism.
2. The creation of bank deposits by simply crediting the bank customer's account when "the
bank buys from him any security" — his own note and mortgage, deed of trust, or government
or corporation bonds, stocks or shares, or any other commercial paper. The bank gives nothing
of value. The act is called a loan, but you can't lend nothing. But the act creates by a "flick of a
pen, out of thin air," bank deposits which are transferable from buyer to seller, hence it performs
the primary and chief function of money, a medium of exchange. Bankers call it bank credit,
but that is untrue. It's the people's credit, made attractive on the faith of the people's own
Government. It is Creditalism and not Capitalism. It gives bankers absolute control over all
production, all transportation, all communication, all education — all industry, all trade and
commerce; and, in effect, title not only to the real wealth of the Nation, but title to its earning
power.
Will You Now Agree That What Might Have Been Must Come To Pass?
All discussions of money stress the importance of the volume of cash, giving it an undue
influence on the money supply. . . even today we hold to the fallacy that silver and gold have a
great influence on the money supply. In its latest edition of the Reserve book, "The Reserve
System — Its Purposes and Functions," the writers urge the importance of great floods of cash
flowing at certain times, and assert that the money supply consists of cash and bank deposits.
To make the cash a part of the money supply is absurd, because that is like saying that you have
two men working all of the time, when as a matter of fact, they never work at the same time.
When one is asleep, the other is working. If man was like money, tireless, one man working
continuously would accomplish the same thing, you might see the fact better. This can be
verified with electric engines. They work on endlessly and never tire. It would be foolish to
buy two engines to do the work one can easily do.
Depository deposits and cash are both used in buying and selling, but never at the same time.
You either cheque the cash out, or use a cheque book to pay seller. When you take cash out of
the bank, say $50, your deposits will be lowered $50, which will lower total volume of deposits
$50, but when you or the seller returns the $50, the deposits will be brought back to normal
volume.
Cash is exactly like the personal cheque. When in the hands of the buyer, it is active, real
value. Take your own bank account. You cannot have both the amount in cash and on deposit
at the same time. Say you have $500 deposits in the bank. When you write a cheque and draw
out $75 in cash, your account is debited $75, and your new account is $425.
In trying to establish the fact that you must add cash to deposits to arrive at the total money
supply, the Reserve book says: "When a person has $10 in his pocket and $100 in the bank, he
is in a position to spend $110. These two kinds of money represent his cash resources." The
writer forgot to say that he or some other person had to write a cheque against his deposits and
draw the $10 out; and when the $10 cash reached his hands, his deposits were $10 less.
The very circulation statement (of cash) disproves that cash is apart of our money supply.
Circulation Statement of United States Money, May 31, 1957, gives total cash supply at
$55,095,658,926, and out of the Treasury and in circulation, only $35,191,638,399; then they
whittle that down again, having "in circulation," that is in all of the 12 Reserve Banks and some
14,537 commercial banks" $30,636,348,266. So you see that $24,259,310,640 of the total never
leaves the Treasury. . . and to all intents and purposes is dead.
There is an interesting observation we may make here: while gold certificates are outlawed, and
cannot circulate, and get in Joe Doe's hands, this statement shows that the Treasury has printed
for the Reserve Banks $21,964,687,524 Federal Reserve Gold Certificates.
Then this same circulation statement shows under kinds of money gold, which, too has been
outlawed as circulating money, total $22,620,251,821. If you add this column, and we must
Then if we must add to the bank deposits the volume of cash in the treasury and the banks arrive
at a total volume of money; we should as the total of all companies' travellers and money orders,
also total p.o. money orders, to arrive at a grand total, for these are just as good money as
Reserve notes or silver certificates, as for that matter. The same as with personal with personal
checks . . . . good when signed and presented to seller.
You never saw a report of postage stamps in the post offices, total amount, and volume, etc.
The postage stamps have no value until taken out, and Uncle Sam is paid for them, not when he
sends them to the post-offices.
Had you ever thought that banks do not lend their capital, nor surplus, nor undivided profits, nor
Now that we have dealt with Congress' responsibility of "coining money," we must now take up
that more difficult task of "regulating" the value of money.
1. After Congress got full report from the Treasury, giving total deposits to the credit of the
people (and the Government), and after getting from other agencies of the Government
information which would lead them to a knowledge of the total business transacted in the
United States in current year, the Congress would then "regulate the value of a dollar" in terms
of the work it had to do. No other factors would enter; for the sole purpose and duty of money
is to serve as a medium of exchange between buyer and seller, and to serve as a measure of the
surplus products the people produce in anyone year.
Of course that would divide our deposits into two categories: (a) demand deposits used in
buying and selling goods and/or services, and (b) time deposits, or deposits to be loaned.
However, the total would be treated as a whole, because the making of loans would keep the
time deposits active, not in the names of the owners of these deposits, but in the accounts of the
borrowers of money.
Suppose that the Congress found that, after all monetary deposit credits of the people had been
totalled, there would be on deposit to the credit of the people $700 billion, but it required only
$350 billion to meet the demands of business annually. Then Congress would order the
Treasurer to instruct the Depositories throughout the Nation to rewrite all deposit balances,
giving each depositor credit for just half of his former balance. For example, should you have
$300 to your credit on the books of the Depository, the bookkeeper would strike out the $300,
and write $150. This would not cost you one penny because it would be like swapping 300 half
dollars for 150 dollars. Your new $150 deposits would buy just as much in the markets of the
Nation as your $300 did before the adjustment. Price tags would be rewritten at half the former
figures.
This would give us a sound, stable dollar. It would continue to buy the same amount of any
commodity every day. If it bought four pounds of coffee in 1957, it would buy four pounds of
coffee in 1997. This would be accomplished by the Congress keeping the total deposits equal to
the total cost of carrying on business as the years passed. They would do this by adding
deposits as often as the total demands of business was greater than total deposits. They would
add these deposits, by having the Treasurer give the Government deposits in the amount of the
extra deposits needed. This would be the only creative act of Congress. When it gave the
Government deposit credit for, say $10 billion, that would increase the total deposits $10 billion
which would have been a creative act, for no goods, chattels, or wealth would have been
involved; but when the Government chequed the $10; billion out to pay for services and goods,
the $10 billion would be added to the people's deposits, becoming a part of the permanent
volume of deposits, money.
Your lot that you say is worth $100,000 now, would be re-valued at $50,000; and so on down
the line . . . prices in most cases would voluntarily drop, but in those instances where they
would not, Congress would set a ceiling price over them.
There should be only two dealers between the manufacturers or producers of goods: (a) the
wholesaler, who would buy the goods, and store them in great storehouses for distribution to the
retailers, for resale; (b) the retailers who would buy them only for resale. There would be no
stock markets, stock exchanges, wheat pits, cotton markets, where men and women with phoney
money would gamble on the guess whether the price went up or down. A few men in Chicago
New York, New Orleans and a few other cities, could not then manipulate the markets exactly
as the dealer manipulates the roulette wheel.
As a boy on my father's East Texas farm, we planted cotton with the cotton market at 10¢ or
The Federal Reserve System banks, with all of their faults have rendered the people two very
essential services. First, they have created the Nation’s money; Second, they have loaned
money. There is a third service which the Constitution imposed on Congress: "regulate the
value of money." If the bankers have ever tried to regulate the value of money they have utterly
failed.
"The Constitution is very plain that Congress shall have all power over money,
but, obviously, Congress cannot administer that power. So Congress has delegated
it to the Federal Reserve System, which is all right if properly administered. . . . I
would not offer any suggestion that would lead to the repeal of a substantial part of
the Reserve Act, except one. That is to have the Government and Government
officials carry out this important function of regulating the value of money; in
other words, to determine the supply of money, the cost of money . . . there is not
enough interest in it. . . yet it is the most important subject that the members of
Congress have to deal with."
He had just said that "obviously, Congress can not administer the power of 'Coining money,
regulating the value thereof.'" Yet, he insists that Congress must administer the power to
regulate the value of money. And that is the most difficult thing to do with money, "regulate the
value thereof."
If Congress can grapple with the most elusive and the most difficult task before the Reserve
Banks, the regulating of the value of money; then the "coining (creation)" of money would be
just a minor problem. Bookkeepers could do that!
The coining and regulating the value of money are responsibilities of Congress, delegated to
Congress, and the Constitution nowhere gives them the authority to re-delegate that power.
Those are the two most important functions of the Government, the creation of money, and the
regulating the value thereof; and they are public services, which no private corporation could
possibly render fairly, because profits would lead them to abuse the power.
The other service the banks have been rendering, the lending of money, is not a public service,
but a private right.
Article I, Section 10; The Congress shall have power. . . to coin money, regulate the value
thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures.
There it is in black and white.
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington would print all Depository Cheques.
They would be blank cheques, similar to an American Express Company cheque. The cheque
would be the same size and design as that chosen for United States Treasury Certificates, with
only the capitol building at Washington as background.
The top half of the Treasury cheque would be very similarly worded to the above cheque. In the
left corner the wording "when countersigned below with this signature." In right corner would
be the serial number as above — each depository would have a key number, so that wherever a
cheque turned up, its home depository would be easily ascertained.
At top left would be line for signature of cheque holder as on the above cheque, and date line on
right, as in above cheque. Across centre would be printed in large type
"The cheque is legal tender for all debts, both public and private," when properly signed in
lower right corner with same signature as appears in upper left corner. In lower left corner
would be printed the signature of the "Treasurer of the United States." Then the following
wording would appear as on common cheques:
Pay to the Order of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ Dollars.
Of course no amount would be printed on the cheque, for it would be used exactly as today’s
bank cheques. It would be a domestic cheque, good in any place in the United States or its
possessions. A special form would be used for foreign trade.
You would buy the cheque book and pay with your deposits, which would lower your deposits
that amount. There would be no charge for the book, for it would be a form of money which the
Then it said that the Minister of Finance had squeezed the water out of the Reichsmark, etc.
Suppose we could squeeze that $65 billion a year out of our budget! We could as we would
squeeze (if the Congress takes over the creation and control of money) the $10 billion out of
Bond taxes.
Let Congress take over the creation of money, the cashing and clearing of our cheques, with the
safeguards we have set forth above, and there will always be sound money, fluid money, ample
money, universal confidence in our money, and all thought of "bank failures" will forever
disappear.
It is astounding that millions of people in all depressions and bank failures lose billions of
deposits, yet grumble to themselves, and go right on doing business with the same gang who has
robbed them for 150 years here in the United States. . . it was more decent of the Government
from the closing of the Second United States Bank by Andrew Jackson to the passage of the
Reserve Act in 1913, under Woodrow Wilson, because they merely sat idly by and let private
bankers go ahead in their boom and bust muddling of the people’s economy than since 1913,
because in the Reserve Act Congress adopted as law the rules bankers wrote, and permitted the
impression to grow in the minds of the people that the Government creates and issues all of our
money.
Finally let me point out to you that governments have uniformly punished severely
counterfeiters because adding new and uncontrolled money to a nation’s money supply brings
the counterfeiter into competition with the producers of goods, and every dollar added above the
existing supply cheapens every man’s dollar. It lets the man who does not produce or serve,
take of the products of others and their services without giving value received in return. They
Now that we have killed the bankers' goose that for a thousand years has been laying them
golden eggs; increasing in number of eggs as the years passed — just as the domestic hens of
the long ago like the birds of the fields, laid only one batch of eggs a year, in the springtime
when all life was multiplying; but now continue throughout the year, laying sometimes over 300
eggs a year; so has this bankers' goose that laid golden eggs: from a few eggs a year in the
middle ages, she has come to lay billions a year — we must provide for the poor fellows.
They have always told us simps that they are lending us the depositors' money, and we have
believed them! They never had the nerve to say we are lending our money. A small banker,
whose capital was $10,000, said to me: "We have to lend the depositors' money. Our capital is
only $10,000; we have loaned $65,000; and our depositors' deposits are $68,000!"
The Government will let them lend only their own deposits, and such deposits as other
depositors may subrogate to them for lending. These must be kept on the books of the
Depositories, and be disbursed by cheque.
Since we have executed the death sentence on the word banking, of course, they can't open up
banks; so the Congress will give their business a name, and outline the rules of their lending
deposit credits (they will not be permitted to lend money-currency, coin or bills.)
I suggest that the Congress give them the name of Deposit Lenders, prefixed with any
descriptive term they may choose, say "The Austin Deposit Lenders; but always keep it clear
before the public that they are lending deposits — their deposits and such deposits as other
depositors' may subrogate to them (for interest) to lend. Let the word money go too.
Let's emphasize that the lending of money, deposits, is a private right; and that we are going to
guarantee that private corporations or lending agencies shall be protected in the exercise of this
private right.
It shall be provided that when the Lenders make a loan, they shall use a special form of note,
provided by the Depositories, which shall recite the terms of the loan, the principal and rate of
interest, the time period of the note if it is to be paid in one lump sum; or the instalment periods
and the amounts of the instalments, if paid off in instalments. The borrower signs the note, and
such mortgages or security requirements as the lender may exact, and hands them to the lender;
the lender then writes a cheque on a special cheque form provided by the Depository, and hands
it to the borrower. On this cheque are all the details of the loan, listing the chattels put up for
security of the note, etc.
The borrower takes the cheque to the Depository the lenders must not be an adjunct of the
Depository or in the same building. The Depository gives the borrower credit for the cheque,
and debits the lender's account an equal amount. The Depository makes a photostat of the
cheque, marks it paid, and puts it with other cheques the lender has given to other borrowers;
and at the end of the month, these "paid" cheques will be mailed to the lender, for his files.
In Texas, and I suspect it is true in all states, we live under an oligarchy. Only three men
dominate and dictate what the Texas Legislature mayor may not do. The people nowhere in our
political system damning Texas have any voice, beyond the local precinct, and even there some
henchman of the oligarchy "presides" at all meetings.
Have you ever stopped to ponder the fact that you never know how many ballots are actually
cast at any election? How many are counted and how many are thrown out; how many were
"cast" by dead, or nonexistent voters? You certainly know that every person with sound mind,
over the age of 21, has a legal right to vote. Aye, more, have you ever stopped to ponder that
above your "legal right to vote," in a democracy You Must Vote. That to refuse to inform
yourself on candidates and issues and then fail to vote, you are as guilty of treason, as much as a
slacker who refuses to take up arms in defence of his country, and lends aid and comfort to the
enemy?
Certainly you know that as long as the rich are permitted to put up millions to elect "their" man,
and then follow him to Austin (or your state capitol, or our National capitol) and there spend
millions brainwashing your lawmakers, spent through lobbyists, buying copy in newspapers,
and journals, time on the radio and TV, you the masses, are not going to be represented either in
legislation or administration of the Government.
Then we must turn to our only weapon, our ballots. It must be an informed ballot. It must be
cast with the full assurance that it will be counted as a ballot, and not thrown out on the slightest
mark "mutilation" the election holders may discover. You may be a Ph.D., and yet cast as
ignorant ballot as the most illiterate person, and many of you do; because you "are above taking
an active part in politics - it is so dirty," and keep your noses stuck in some musty tome, and
never ascertain what manner of man is, asking your ballot.
Let us rectify our own shortcomings cast a ballot at every election, and not let the oligarchy man
our election staff. If we do they will defeat the wisest and most thoughtful ballot. So that the
ballot box should ever be in the hands of our citizens, no man or woman should be permitted to
help hold elections covering more than two years, within a period of twelve years, and that
where there are two parties to be voted upon, the holders of the elections should be equally
divided between or among the parties, and when issues are to be voted upon, the pros and cons
should be equally numbered on the list.
This would give every man and woman a chance to give his country that highest service,
helping to keep the ballot box clean. I have been casting ballots every election for 57 years, and
as the years have passed the faces holding the election have come to remain the same for years
and years. They grow "old in the service," yet they hobble to the polls, and sit with wizened
faces for us to gaze it. Here is the danger: If the election holders are the same year in and year
out, they come to a common understanding, and the "leaders" can put over the gravest abuses of
A Final Assurance
In all that I have written, I have had but one thought in mind, and that has been to let you see the
operations of the Federal Reserve Banking System, and to point out to you the tremendous cost
this private corporation is piling up against the producing people of the United States.
That it is unconstitutional for the United States to turn over to a private corporation the "coining
of money, and the regulating the value thereof," is evident without argument to anyone who will
take time to read the "powers" granted to Congress in the Constitution.
I have not sought to bring in religion or world cabals as productive of this money situation in
the United States. I blame no foreign nation for the situation. I do not wish to detract your
mind from the main issue, and that is that the Federal Reserve System is robbing the people
yearly of hundreds of billions of dollars, and that the few men directing its operations are mad
men, drunk on power, and obsessed with an ambition for power. . . money, gold per se has no
appeal to them, it is the feeling of power that inspires them to greater and still greater crimes.
Money never inspired a king; it was the feeling of power which he held over a people that urged
him on. And this is the urge behind the Federal Reserve System.
It must be thrilling to those who would rule to see the drying up or flooding of the Nation's
money supply, and watch and hear the people's shouts of joy, or pleadings for bread. Certainly I
am sure that when they see men of all calibres bending their knees in recognition of their power,
when they see the Congress meekly do their biddings, when they rebuke a president and he
takes rebuke humbly, that most dominant characteristic of mankind, the desire to be top dog,
must have full flowering. From the small grocery to the vast industrial empires, there is
someone in the organization who repeats, that his underlings may not forget, "I'm boss around
here."
The course of the Federal Reserve System could not be dominated by greed, for greed can be
satiated and certainly the ownership of the United States does that; it must be impelled and
dominated by the desire to go one's own way without obstruction or interference. And this
desire has never been satiated.
If the feeling of power and a desire to crack the whip over their fellowmen had not been the
ruling passion of their minds, if they had been prompted by a great ambition to obey that deeper,
finer impulse of man, to help all mankind, the Federal Reserve System could have been, even in
private hands, the most beneficent institution men could desire; for certainly the men directing
the Federal Reserve System could have turned great producers like Ford, Wilson, et al, to the
task of seeing that every citizen of the United States should be educated, well-clothed, well-
Permit me in this closing chapter to emphasize two facts: (a) cash, bills and coins, is not a part
of our volume of money; (b) Private banking corporations and not the Government and labour
are responsible for high prices. — high wages, high rents, high taxes, cheap money — inflation.
On page 27, Reserve book (1939) we read: "There are two principal ways by which any
individual gets paper money and coin. Either he draws it out of the bank and has it charged to
his account; or he is paid for his labour, his services, or his merchandise with money that has
been drawn out of a bank by someone else."
On page 19, same book, we find: "Currency is actually used for only a small part of the
country's total volume of payments, the greater part being effected by the use of bank (personal)
cheques."
Since one must cheque over to the bank a portion of his deposits that he may get cash, then it
stands to reason that personal cheques and cash are interchangeable, and not supplementary.
The last edition of this book, 1954, which seeks to camouflage the whole picture, says on page
5: "When a person has $10 in his pocket and $100 in his chequeing account in the bank he is in
a position to spend $110." Then on page 7: "For a general idea of money, the two kinds —
pocket money and demand money — should be considered together."
The author forgot that he or someone else had chequed the $10 out of the bank.
Both of those statements are designed to camouflage the fact that there is but one kind of money
today, bank deposits. If we are to consider different "kinds" of money, we must list more than
two kinds, we must list all express and postal money orders, all travellers cheques, cashiers'
cheques, because all of these forms of "money" are good in any market of the United States,
when bought and signed.
And to limit our volume of money just to the "demand deposits," is the sorriest sort of
reckoning. Time deposits may easily be transferred over to the demand column. And the same
is true of savings deposits, and many other "deposits" hidden in different nooks, and cached in
many secret places. Any form of monetary obligation may be quickly and easily converted into
demand deposits, therefore nobody, and I mean nobody knows the volume of all of the
monetary funds listed under the many headings. Yet, to arrive at the volume of money we must
ascertain all of these funds, and reach a grand total. To do so would alarm even the informed in
the creative field of money.
Cash does not enter that picture, because it is exchangeable with cheques, bank deposits. You
transform anyone of the several kinds of deposits into another, by changing the figures from one
column to another; but when you draw money out of the bank, you have your account debited
an equivalent amount, and while you have the cash in your hand, you use it rather than a
personal cheque.
It is the sorriest sort of cover up to say that we have just two kinds of money, cash and demand
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 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
"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.
May This Dream Forever be the Dream of the Poor in the World
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:
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
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.