MONETARY MADHOUSE
Copyright April 2005 Charles Savoie

“The Constitution of the United States, in forbidding the States to make anything but gold and silver coin a legal tender for the payment of debts, seems to define money, and to express the will of the people to make a distinction between money and the promise of it.  Paper money cannot be as good as coin as a legal tender for deferred payments, unless it can be made absolutely certain that it can be converted into as much coin at the maturity of the debt as it passed for at the inception.  And it is equally true that on no other condition can it as well perform the function of coin as a storehouse of purchasing power.  The proper material for money is determined by the nature of things, a law higher than any government.”---“The Relations of Debt and Money,” North American Review, May 1877, pages 421-422, 431, article by Elizur Wright (1804-1885) who developed actuarial tables and is known as the “father of life insurance.”

“The ancient and hideous spectre of fiat money” (North American Review, June 1892, page 669).

“The immense chasm between real money and this fictitious paper representative.”  (The Century Magazine, letter, February 1884, page 630).

“Spain and Italy, now wallowing in the mire of depreciated paper”  (North American Review, October 1897, page 552).

“I shall not dwell upon our financial conditions, which are in reality much more unfavorable than they are officially represented to be.”  (North American Review, June 1895, page 702, “The Silver Question”).

“Enormous amounts of gold, silver and copper coin are in the pockets of the French, preferred to paper.”  (North American Review, June 1892, page 667).

“The most incredible things are invented, spread abroad and made use of.  North American silver mines, it is said, are inexhaustible---although the reverse is true, for it is well known that the richest North American mines are exhausted.” (North American Review, June 1895, page 704).

“The silver question soon absorbed public attention to such an extent that it became practically the sole political topic considered throughout the country.” (North American Review, October 1896, page 704).

Remember Charlton Heston in one of his “Planet of the Apes” movies, as he was being subdued by his ape captors after an escape attempt, yelled---“It’s a madhouse---a madhouse!”  We are residents of a monetary madhouse called the United States.  If only we did have apes in charge, it would be easier to dismiss them.   Several problems form crazy tributaries to make it a madhouse--- ballooning national debt; widening foreign trade deficit; federal deficit; private and corporate debt; stock and bond markets at risk of collapse; unfunded pension plan liabilities; seniors having to take minimum wage jobs to survive, some going on the streets; more low-wage service jobs being offered; increase in destitute homelessness; escalating crime rates due to economic hopelessness; loss of manufacturing base; fewer students attaining scientific and engineering degrees; lack of savings; erosion of savings due to dollar deterioration; family discretionary budgets approaching zero; both spouses employed, yet the income remains insufficient; rising rates of foreclosures, repossessions and bankruptcies; mounting percent of Americans forced into permanent renter status (communes); medical noninsurance crisis; more public servants caught embezzling tax funds; well meaning but misguided souls willing their estates to the Treasury Department “to help retire the national debt;” weakening of tourism and airline industries; unsold inventories backing up like constipation;  other countries losing tolerance for being paid in dollars; a blue whale of a derivatives pyramid subject to violent disintegration; the prospect of uncontrolled, runaway “immigration” from our southern neighbor; warfare in the Middle East, and hostile relations with Venezuela choking off petroleum supply, sending prices skyward; an increase in tyranny, in the name of security, directed by the Federal Government.

We hear and read really maniac statements over the years about economics, such as—“the national debt isn’t a burden because we owe it to ourselves.”  “Benign inflation” is another term that attempts to make the unwholesome acceptable.  We can spend or borrow our way to prosperity; Treasury deficits are normal!  “We don’t need gold and silver backing the currency, because the currency is backed by the productive capacity of the United States!”  (If such were true; but our “internationalists” sent the productive base overseas).  Legal tender laws give actual value to the Federal Reserve note!  You cannot run a monetary madhouse without pervasive propaganda barrage.  We have a Federal agency that insists there’s nothing wrong with the pricing of silver, yet it’s a price which disallows supply from attempting to match demand.   But of all our problems, surely the worst is the debased currency and banking system we’ve operated under starting in 1913 with the exploitative Federal Reserve Act.  That problem intensified in 1933 with gold nationalization; and again in 1965 with issuance of clad slug token coins; and again in 1968 with the ending of silver certificate redemption; and finally in 1971 with the closing of the “gold window.”

Fifty-eight years passed between 1913 and 1971---roughly three generations time.  It takes time to introduce radical, destabilizing changes.  If, in 1913, it was suddenly announced that a piece of Congressional legislation was introduced that attempted to institute all those changes at once, it could not have passed; or, if surreptitiously passed, it would have been quickly struck down as unconstitutional, or repealed.  Countless students in colleges and universities have been indoctrinated by textbooks and economics professors dispatched by the paper money mob, to delude them into believing that ink printed on paper with fancy engraved designs---backed by nothing---is wealth, provided that it is issued exclusively by a central monetary authority chartered by Congressional statute.  Thefts brought about by progressively depreciating paper currency have reduced the standard of living for almost everyone living under the system.  It is the predators, parasites and pillagers back of the system who alone benefit.  Fiat currency is legalized play money in this monetary madhouse.

Propaganda, brainwashing, indoctrination, misinformation, wholesale deception, yes, even mass hypnosis, concerning the real essence of “money” and debt has been so unceasing, and so strong a current, in the past 92 years, that probably at least 98% of Americans believe Federal Reserve Notes to be true money, or real wealth.  They believe that even while the inflation created by the national “Reserve” bank robs them of savings, retirement, and purchasing power.  Accounts of the plunging U.S. dollar on the international currency exchange markets are to be found daily in many news sources, yet we are still urged by the bloodsucking banking community (as it exists currently) to “put your savings in a C.D.”  Contrast that to credit card interest.  Suggest to a dozen clerks operating checkout registers that the paper currency being used has no actual value, and you will be looked at as if you’re unbalanced!  Isaiah 59:4 & 5, 14 & 15 describes this monetary madhouse--

“None call for justice, nor plead for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.  They hatch cockatrice’s eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he who eats of their eggs dies, and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper.  Judgment is turned away backward, and justice stands far off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.  Yes, truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.”

What kind of society is it when we say things which are based upon facts, upon history, and upon our great Constitution---and for so stating, we are taken for drooling crackpots?  The paper money mob took us through a transition from gold and silver, to demonetizing silver, then it was partially restored in 1878, and continually attacked over the years, till at last, before the end of the 1960’s, we were off silver entirely.  When they began their attacks on silver, they assured us gold was all we needed; never mind the fact that many average people lacked means to own gold.  Silver was the common man’s money; gold was best for settling large transactions.  Just three years after silver certificate redemption ceased, Nixon closed the “gold window.”  J. Laurence Laughlin (1850-1933), an “economist” wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly, May 1884 called “The Silver Danger.”  Laughlin was a very active promoter of the Federal Reserve System---see www.ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scotjp/v50y2003i3p311-325.html On page 680 of his misleading article he wrote---

“After the passage of the Bland Bill, the Clearing House Association (November 15, 1878) decided not to receive silver dollars for balances, a decision which was met by counter legislation in 1882, aiming to prevent the national banks from observing the rule; and inasmuch as national banks formed almost the entire Clearing House Association, they repealed their prohibition July 14, 1882.  The same was done in other cities; so that if the treasury now orders it, nothing exists to prevent payments in silver.”   

The Bland act of 1878 caused issuance of the Morgan silver dollars, which the New York banks boycotted.  Page 681 saw Laughlin raving about  “the insane silver policy” and he urged---

“A serious responsibility rests upon our national legislature to save the business community from any further complications by an instant repeal of the Coinage Act of 1878.  Every member of Congress who does not move in this matter to save the business interests of the country ought to be defeated at the next election.”

By “business interests of the country,” we can take it to mean, those who were endeavoring to impose another central bank on us.  Revealingly, Laughlin referred in a footnote on page 681 to the Bank of England.  Apparently that’s where he was getting his signals.  Notice his call to political activism.  We should be combating those forces in Congress because they remain across the generations, eating away at our future.

An example of the cumulative effects of generations of spurious economic educational misrepresentations appeared in the Wall Street Journal, July 13, 1982, page 41 titled, “Utah Grand Jury Charges Greenbacks Are Illegal Tender,” subtitled, “Strange Indictment Sought By Gold Standard Backers Upsets the U.S. Attorney”---

“Salt Lake City---An embarrassed U.S. attorney’s office here is withholding comment on how a federal grand jury last week handed up an indictment against the Federal Reserve System for issuing currency not redeemable by gold or silver coin.  The four count criminal indictment was described by federal attorneys as “rinky dink” and “a very strange document.”  It was apparently inspired by a group of Utah “Constitutionalists” and backers of a gold standard for currency.”

“The group persuaded a quorum of the grand jury that the Federal Reserve System has been operating in violation of the Constitution since 1933, when Congress banned redemption of federal notes for gold and silver.  U.S. district court Judge David K. Winder on Friday formally dismissed the indictment after the U.S. attorney for Utah, Brent D. Ward, who kept the document secret for two days, refused to sign the indictment on the basis that it was illegally prepared.”

“Assistant U.S. Attorney Sam Alba said yesterday that his office wouldn’t respond to questions on how the allegations against the Fed arrived before the grand jury sometime between March and July.  Mr. Ward, in a letter to Judge Winder that was attached to his motion to dismiss the indictment, said the document was delivered by the grand jury without the “knowledge, participation or consent” of his office.  But a quorum of the 23-member grand jury responded to Judge Winder’s dismissal of the indictment by rewriting the document as a petition for a civil lawsuit against the Fed, and filing it in federal court minutes after the indictment was dismissed.  The civil suit was filed under the name of “plaintiff pro-se G.J. Foreman,” referring to the unidentified grand jury foreman, acting alone without legal counsel.”

“And yesterday, Gary James Joslin, a Salt Lake City lawyer, filed a petition with the court on behalf of the grand jury, charging that Judge Winder and Mr. Ward “intimidated” the grand jury by making comments on the indictment that served “to dissuade, discourage or weaken the resolve of the grand jury to make this investigation.”  The petition, which claimed that the “sanctity of the grand jury system under the common law and Constitution is at stake,” seeks a formal hearing before Judge Winder to clarify the grand jury’s prerogative and procedure to pursue the investigation.  The petition also seeks to discover if Judge Winder or Mr. Ward breached any legal or ethical rules through comments made when the indictment was dismissed.  Hearings haven’t been set for the grand jury civil suit or Mr. Joslin’s petition for a hearing.”

“Lawrence R. Topham, a spokesman for a Utah movement of gold-standard backers, said yesterday that the indictment stemmed from a letter sent to the U.S. attorney’s office last March containing allegations against the Federal Reserve System.  The letter was written by Mr. Topham and Edward Dean Christensen, a southern Utah farmer who objects to federal income taxes on the basis that a cash payment would violate the U.S. Constitution, because without a gold or silver standard, the system is “fraudulent and fictitious.”

“Mr. Topham, a former U.S. Senate candidate from Utah on the American Party ticket, said the letter was apparently given to members of the grand jury, who translated the complaint by Mr. Topham and Mr. Christensen into an indictment against the Federal Reserve.  The grand jury’s unusual action may be its last.  The U.S. attorney’s office wouldn’t discuss rumors yesterday that it will soon seek permission to dismiss the grand jury, which has been convened for about 13 months, two months short of its 15 month statutory life.”

Was that judge Winder---or judge Sidewinder?  He got a law degree in 1958 from Stanford University---an institution in the paper money mob’s network.  Sam Alba is currently a magistrate under senior judge Winder in Salt Lake City.  If you care to read the complaint filed against the Federal Reserve in its entirety (not very long) go to www.ttc-cmc.net/~nlight/federal.htm and for additional material on the matter go to www.americanfreeenterprise.blogspot.com/2003/10/class-action-suit-i-heard-about-this.html

Martin Larson, author of “The Federal Reserve and our Manipulated Dollar” (1981) said on page 268 that federal judges “constitute a major threat to our nation.”  Because of political appointments, there is probably not one federal judge in the country today who would entertain an indictment against the central bank.  “Constitutionalists” are depicted by the media as looney idiots; yet the money we propose to use requires no government guarantee of value.  “Money” published in 1998 by James Ewart, page 50, documents a phone conversation he had with a former United States attorney in San Diego, in which the other gentleman admitted the play money status of Federal Reserve notes!  While Federal Reserve notes are themselves fraudulent, the organization itself has a web page concerning “frauds and scams,” and they wouldn’t be amused reading essays like this one with justified contempt for their funny money www.newyorkfed.org/banking/frauds_scams.html

A brief note concerning the Federal Reserve and silver---the younger half brother to Nelson and Herbert Hunt, Ray Hunt, is currently chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.  You would suspect that these half brothers aren’t on speaking terms with Ray.  Recall it was the Hunts with Arab partners who tried to corner the silver market in 1979-1980 and were crushed by the powers that be, including Andrew F. Brimmer and Paul Volcker, Federal Reserve personalities!  The Dallas Fed is interlocked with four universities---necessary for promoting favorable indoctrination about fiat currency---and a research institution with a staff of 2,800--- 
www.dallasfed.org/fed/board.html

The other Federal Reserve banks are similarly interlocked with universities; therefore, don’t hold your breath while you wait for economics professors to recommend gold and silver over paper.  The Chicago fed bank website mentioned using savings as a means to build wealth!  That, while interest on savings is pathetic and dollar purchasing power never stops fading!   Just when a shopper thinks prices have stabilized, he or she discovers that the volume of the product purchased for the same price as previously, has been reduced, or the quality of the ingredients cheapened---an attempt to disguise eroding purchasing power.  The Bank of Canada website speaks of “the nuisance of silver coins.” To be shielded from currency erosion, hold your savings in precious metals and well-managed mining companies.

  The same people who campaigned against silver money over a century ago, saying only gold was good money, later turned against gold.  It was a mutating agenda, made necessary by the fact that people would only absorb just so much---to use their expression---“rinky-dink” propaganda before revolting.  Speaking of “very strange” documents, the nation’s libraries are full of economics books and bogus journals written by emissaries of the paper money mob, many of whose indexes mention neither gold nor silver!  Let’s flash back over 100 years again and consider the Crime of ’73 and events following.  That you recall was the Coinage Act of February 1873, which demonetized silver coin for all debts exceeding $5!  The Crime of ’73 was directed from London by the British Crown and its allied London and New York banking interests.  (This also took place in Russia on September 9, 1876, the sole exception being silver coin used in trade with China).  Long years of hardship followed, many bankruptcies were precipitated, and the middle class saw many of its members slip into poverty, which was exactly the feudalistic intent behind Ernest Seyd’s behind the scenes maneuvering in Washington in the early 1870’s.  He was an economist sent by the Bank of England to wreck finances over here.  But they weren’t out to sabotage everyone’s finances---just those who weren’t holding gold!  Unless references are made in support of precious metals as money, I usually think of “economist” as on the same moral level as terms such as “grave robber,” “arsonist” or “child molester!”

The North American Review, February 1889 had an article entitled, “Shall We Banish Silver Coin?” by Edwards Pierrepont.  He began by discussing the Royal Commission on Precious Metals (London) which, after two years of so-called “investigations” reported in September 1888 that the use of silver in the monetary system was (page 227)---

“A chimerical proposal, unworthy of serious consideration” and warned that to use silver as money would be to “risk creating evils exceeding those which we at present experience.”

A chimera is an animal-human hybrid (in legend).  The Royal Commission on Precious Metals was “royal” because the Crown chartered it.  English royalty and other big rich were hell-bent on controlling the world through domination of the financial system, and the posture remains identical today.  The Royal Commission expressed the view (pages 227-228) that if an international bimetallic agreement was reached, some nations might withdraw from it, and cited that as a “reason” for dropping any such idea.  Page 229 noted that the Queen, in her address to Parliament in September 1888 said in reference to the “suffering agriculturists” in India---

“I deeply grieve to add that there is no mitigation of the suffering under which large portions of the agricultural community continue to suffer.”

That came about because of what Mr. Pierrepont termed “the combined raid on silver” (page 234) which occurred during 1871-1874.  No mention was made whether the Queen issued any pitying remarks about Americans who suffered especially from 1873-1878 from the silver demonetization, many of whom lost their land and homes, when only gold was the only legal tender metal for sums over $5.  (The attack on silver money also did great harm to China and Japan---North American Review, June 1895, page 707, statement by Matias Romero, Mexican Ambassador to the United States).  First they intentionally wound you, then they say they feel for you while acting like they had nothing to do with causing your pain.  It is not fitting that the symbol of British monarchy be on the .9999 Canadian Maple Leaf---a view with which the ethnic French in Quebec province surely agree.   Mr. Pierrepont’s own view was (page 238)---

“It is to be regretted that the Royal Commission were not in favor of an international treaty upon the subject of silver.”

Pierrepont (1817-1892, Yale 1837) was an interesting character.  The genealogy may trace to undesirable connections; however, his stance was certainly in favor of silver.  He was a lawyer who became a New York state Supreme Court justice, 1857-1860, then in 1867 was appointed to prosecute John Suratt, one of the Lincoln assassination conspirators.  President Grant appointed him Attorney General in 1875, then he was U.S. Minister to Great Britain, 1876-1877.  Was his departure from that post linked to his support for silver---an interesting research matter!   Pierrepont commented on the assassination of silver money, starting on page 229---

“We have to consider what has caused the fall of silver, and what influence its exclusion has had upon the trade and agriculture of England, India and the United States.  It is related that a plain man called the attention of Sir Isaac Newton to an apparent fact, confronting one of Sir Isaac’s theories; that the great philosopher, having made examination, said---“The theory must give way, there is no arguing against a fact.”  I propose to call attention to certain facts of authentic history and to give certain dates bearing upon the causes of the fall of silver, the depression of trade and the fall of prices, and to prove the fallacy of certain theories which have deluded so many sensible men on the subject of gold and silver.  The fall of silver commenced in 1873, and its tendency has been downward ever since.”  (page 230)

“The tables of Pixley show that during a period of forty years prior to 1873 the average price of silver in the London market was about 61 pence per ounce, with but little range of variation during the whole forty years; and that during the short period of thirteen years from February 1873 to July 1886, there was a variation of 17.9375 pence, and that on the 19^th of May 1887, silver fell to 41.625 pence.  How happens it that for forty years prior to 1873 the price of silver was nearly stationary, and that within the short space of thirteen years thereafter it had fallen close upon 19 pence per ounce?”  (page 230)

“For a time it was claimed that the cause of the fall was to be found in the superabundant product of silver and the scarcity of gold; but examination of the facts proved that theory to be entirely fallacious.  There has been no scarcity of gold and when in 1879, the silver dollar was at a premium of 5.22 over the gold dollar, the gold in proportion to silver was greater than ever before known, and during the twenty five years following 1850 there was added to the world’s stock from the mines 3,317,625,000 dollars of gold and but 1,395,125,000 of silver.  Thus, three thousand three hundred and seventeen million six hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in gold were added---a greater addition than had before been made since Columbus discovered America.”  (page 230)

“There is but one enduring CAUSE OF THE FALL OF SILVER, and that is the cessation of the demand for it in the standard coinage of the mints in the Christian world.  On the 23^rd of November 1871, after Germany conquered France, and Bismarck exacted a thousand million dollars in gold indemnity, he commenced the execution of his scheme of new coinage in Germany, and on the 9^th of July, 1873, was ordained by law the national gold standard with the gold mark as the unit of value.  Before this the metallic currency of Germany was silver.  She then commenced the coinage of gold, called in her silver in exchange at the ratio of 1:15.5 and threw her silver upon the market.  Then Denmark, Norway and Sweden changed their currency to gold and threw their silver also upon the market, and the Netherlands did the same.”  (pages 230-231)

“Then France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and Greece at first restricted their silver coinage and soon ceased to coin it at all, and what is truly amazing, the great American Republic, producing nearly as much silver as all the world besides, by the Act of February 12, 1873, stopped its coinage entirely, made the gold dollar the sole unit of value, and thus helped to degrade its own great product of precious metal.  Every nation in Christendom now has free coinage for gold, and not one of them allows free coinage to silver.  Does any one need to look further for the causes which have depreciated silver and appreciated gold?”  (page 231) 

“Every one familiar with financial history knows that for centuries prior to 1873 gold and silver both, have formed the currency of the commercial world, and together measured the value of commodities, and that more than half the money of the world is silver.  (Estimated in the Treasury Report of December 1875, at 54 per cent.)  That from the early development of commerce in England, until 1816, the unit of value was silver, and that the English pound was silver.  That from the foundation of the government of the United States until February 12, 1873, the silver dollar, of the same weight and fineness as now, was a unit of value, full legal tender, and that its coinage was free.  That during a period of forty years prior to the passage of said Act of February 12, 1873, the same silver dollar ruled at a premium over gold.”  (page 231)

“That until about the date last mentioned, every important government in Christendom, except England, allowed free coinage to silver, and that since that time not one of them has permitted its free coinage, but all have given free coinage to gold.  That from 1873 until 1878, the United States did not allow its mints to coin a single silver dollar.  That England changed the coinage act in 1816, made gold the unit of value and allowed it free coinage, but allowed no legal tender to silver in a greater sum than forty shillings.  That so soon as the Act of Congress of February 1878, requiring a limited coinage of silver (on government account only) was passed, the gold advocates loudly predicted that even this limited coinage of silver would drive all the gold abroad, cheat the laborer of his hire, and bring general disaster upon the country.  That the silver bill of February 1878 has now been in operation more than ten years, and every one of the gloomy predictions of the gold men have proved to be false.”  (pages 231-232)

“When it was found that they could not stop the coinage of the dollar, the gold advocates insisted that the silver would not circulate, that the disgusted people “would not have it.”  The President’s message, lately issued, states that on the 30^th day of November 1888, 312,570,990 of the silver dollars had been coined, and all but 14,181,654 were in actual circulation, $60,970,990 in silver dollars, $237,418,346 in silver certificates.”

So much for the lie that average people only wanted gold money.  It was a severe case of highly placed hoodlums attempting to put words in the people’s mouths.  France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland and Greece were members of the Latin Monetary Union started in 1865, which was destabilized by German silver demonetization, 1871-1873.  Pierrepont continued (pages 233 and 239)--- 

“Can upright men think it would be honest for the Government to reduce the mixed currency of some twelve hundred millions to a single gold currency of six hundred millions, and thus compel mortgage debtors and others, whose debts were made under the larger currency, to pay in full, when every dollar of the currency exacted by the creditor was worth two which he loaned to his debtor?  There is not a bond, greenback, or other obligation of the United States which the silver dollar cannot lawfully discharge.  When these obligations were issued the silver dollar was at a considerable premium over the gold dollar, and neither on their face or in the statutes authorizing their issue is gold mentioned at all.  Of all the subtle devices which the wit of man has contrived to despoil the community of their property, nothing equals the contrivance of laws which limit the currency to gold  and require all debts to be paid in legal tender money.”

Page 236 has Pierrepont displaying a subtitle “The Gold Trust Of England”---

“There are no silver mines of importance in the British Empire, but gold mines of vast production.  To keep up the price of this metal by artificial means, she formed a trust long before the oil or sugar trust was formed in America.  She gave free coinage to gold but not to silver, and the Act of Parliament---VII and VIII Victoria, Chapter 32---compels the Bank of England to purchase all gold bullion offered at three pounds seventeen shillings nine pence per ounce standard.  Of course by this powerful trust gold is appreciated, and silver being banished from coinage increases the demand for gold.”

There was an extremely powerful conspiracy against silver, based in London, beginning just after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.  The British Empire MUST control the globe!  First, do so with monetary subversion!  However, it still took over half a century to draw in major European nations and the United States into this plan, backed by English Royalty and its financiers.  With widespread demonetization of silver, the purchasing power of British gold zoomed, and that of those who were team players with the British.  As countless millions lost their property, it must be assumed these vultures were on hand seizing it at distressed rates.  If you engineer a plan to ruin silver as money, you realize what the consequences will be, and you ready to profit thereby.  Who knows how many land titles changed hands from honest, hard working people, into hands spiritually covered with scales.

What probably made possible the demonetization of silver across Europe beginning in 1871 was the royal intermarriages of the British Crown and associated nobles with European counterparts.  The common man still had to be propagandized, and a major European war had to be staged between Germany and France, to shove silver aside.  All holding silver were therefore gravely impoverished!  The “secret society gradually absorbing the wealth of the world” which was formally organized in London in summer 1902, existed long before that on an informal basis.  It is always the same story---the powerful organize in secret and conspire to impoverish those outside their circle.

Pierrepont resumed his comments (pages 236-237)---

“It would be desirable to have England join us---with the great commercial nations of Europe---in an international convention upon the silver question.  But if Germany comes in, England is not at all necessary.  She was outside before the Franco-German war, and ever since 1816.  It is not at all necessary for the United States to have any ally in this great measure.  We have grown so fast that we are unconscious of our strength.  But we are beginning to realize our financial resources.  Let England stick to her gold monometallism, oblivious to the changes wrought by the Franco-German war and the consequent banishment of silver from the mints, and before the year 1900 she will be likely to find that her gold has largely departed and that London is no longer the money centre of the world.”

Several years after his death in 1892, Pierrepont’s dream was crushed.  The silverites attempt to win or influence the Presidency failed.  Subversion out of London mounted, and by 1913 we had another British imposed central bank thrust upon us.  Following that gallows event, movement continued to build against silver coinage here, and by 1965, the paper money mob had their big breakthrough.  Just six years later, the “gold window” was also closed and the stage set for full-blown fiat currency---leading to eventual collapse of the currency and, so the London based conspiracy intends---loss of American national sovereignty.  Pierrepont mentioned fiat (page 235)-

“The paper note of the Bank of England and the American greenback are both legal tender; neither has any intrinsic value, yet in payment they can discharge any debt; this is done by the fiat of law.”

He mentioned the superiority of gold and silver money over “created” money (page 240)---

“Gold and silver mines are worked at great expense and the product is always limited.  Inflation comes of paper money (so-called).  The amount of its pernicious issue is only determined by the power of the printing press and the will of the government.  Not so with gold and silver.  Here nature’s law intervenes and municipal laws are powerless.”

Pierrepont made these observations and recommendations (page 237)---

“We are told that dealing with a gold country, we must pay our debts in gold; but I trust that we have no member of Congress so ignorant as not to know that every year we produce from our mines more gold than we need to pay our balances, and that we receive more gold from Europe than we send there; and further, that we are by far the greatest producers of silver in the world.  IF ENGLAND OWNED OUR MINES OF SILVER SHE WOULD PROTECT SILVER AS SHE NOW PROTECTS HER GOLD.  Instead of trying to enhance the value of our great product by giving it free coinage, as would England, we strive to degrade it by exclusion from our mints.”

“Repeal the compulsory Coinage Act.  Gradually pay off the interest-bearing bonds and the greenbacks.  Allow free coinage, but restrict the coinage of silver to our own product until the other commercial nations join us in a treaty.  Upon the deposit of gold or silver coin, or gold and silver bars, let notes issue of convenient denominations, payable on demand.  Thus the holder of every note would be absolutely secured by a metal deposit; the government would issue no more interest bearing bonds in order to make a basis for national currency, there would soon be no paper money not secured by gold or silver, dollar for dollar; the only necessity for circulating notes at all would be convenience.”

“The gold and silver now in the country, and yearly coming from the mines and from other sources, would be ample, and under the system of free coinage no more would be mined than it was found profitable to mine, and no more would be coined than was needed; the currency could only expand as the silver and gold increased, and the past history of the world demonstrates that a currency composed of gold and silver only will not become redundant.  It is superfluous to add that no unhealthy inflation can possibly arise from the issue of notes secured by an equal deposit of bullion or coin.”

The British, while working against silver, were also active in absorbing gold production from the United States, to add to their stockpile.  “The Decline In The Value Of Money” (North American Review, October 1852, page 417) referred to parts of a speech by New York representative James Brooks on June 15, 1852, originally printed in the National Intelligencer---

“Mr. Brooks is patriotically indignant that the golden product of our California miners should go forth to the world “under the impress of British sovereignty,” the glorious stamp of the American eagle being effaced, and the paw of the British lion put in its place.  He hopes to see the day when the rich argosy of silver, now freighted to England under the British flag, will be freighted to New York, under the stars and stripes.”

The silver mentioned was going primarily to British India.  Brooks said in the House of Representatives---

“For the sake of national honor, I beg you to guard your own eagle, your own emblem of sovereignty, from the British lion, and to feel as the Englishman feels, when he puts the British emblem upon your gold production, by the universal circulation and dominion he thus gives that British emblem the wide world over, wherever British gold goes; for the day is coming when the American eagle---I mean no eagle emblazoned on any warlike standard---will thus traverse the world with this British sovereign, and triumph over him, if you throw no obstructions in the path of his victory.”

ECONOMISTS ON A RAMPAGE!

If you want to subvert honest money into a bad system, it is essential to have those who can claim to be experts, to assure the public that what they thought was against their interests, is really in their favor.  “The bankers gave us unbacked paper currency to help us” is in the subconscious of those who are swayed by the economics professor.  Enter the economists!  Sent forth by the paper money creators to beguile the public---and even Congress---their voices have clamored loudly first, against silver, then later, against gold also.  It was necessary to attack silver first, since it was the money of the average person, and the population is composed mainly of such average persons.  It was necessary to the power of the British Empire and its allies, the North American “robber barons,” to control economic systems via central banking establishments such as the Mexican entity that now calls silver money “anachronistic.”

Century Magazine, May 1893, page 150, spoke of “the peril which is aggravated by every fresh issue of silver certificates.”  Peril to whom?  To the money creators!  So silver was attacked as causing an inflation of the currency!  The August 1893 edition of Century Magazine ran a story called “Silver and the Debtor Class” (pages 636-637) portions of which stated---

“It has been the constant aim of the financial articles which have appeared from time to time in this department of The Century during the last few years, to show that an unsound money system is one of the worst evils which can befall a nation, and that the most severe sufferers from such an evil are always the people who have the least money.”

Sounds good so far, however, read more---

“We are rejoiced to say that our efforts in this direction have met with wide-spread appreciation, much of which has come from toilers and others in the humbler walks of life.  The writer of one of the letters of thanks that have come to us, who is an employee on a great Western railway, speaks gratefully of these articles as “efforts in behalf of the toilers, for they are the ones most interested in this question, though few seem to realize it,” and adds, “May God grant you wisdom, patience, and strength of mind and body to continue to labor for the working people.”

Were those letters like testimonials presented by those attempting to sell a product, signed by names like “Mr. H.H.T.,” Philadelphia?”  Are we to believe those the bankers ruined in 1873 were actually grateful for their insolvency, when they could no longer make payments in silver coin?  Continuing---

“We are confident that the experience of the West during the last few months has convinced a great many people there that advocacy of sound money principles is the best service which any public servant, statesman, newspaper, or magazine, can perform.  The numerous failures and business embarrassments which the West has been called upon to sustain are due to the influence of the West and South for silver, or debased and uncertain currency, has shaken the whole fabric of credit, and brought disaster to all its weaker portions.  The business of the world, as we have said many times, is carried on more and more every year by means of credit instruments, and with a diminishing ratio of coin.”

Blame silver for panics caused by New York financiers!  “Credit instruments” are not entirely subversive, however, creation of credit is an enormous power.  The bankers certainly did not want that power to be tied to a fixed ratio of silver; even gold was somewhat distanced---

“In Great Britain the daily clearances of the banks amount to nearly one fifth of the whole gold supply of the country, and it has been shown repeatedly that only about six per cent of coin is used in the transactions of the banks and bankers.  In New York City the exchanges of the Clearing House average over $100,000,000 a day, and the balances in actual money average not over $4,000,000, or only four per cent.  The usual percentage of credit instruments in the receipts of the New York banks in ordinary times is over 98, and in the receipts of all the banks in the United States it is 95.”

The move towards a precious metals based system of exchange towards a paper only basis makes a fascinating study.  The most fascinating aspect of it will be to see how it falls apart---how confidence is eventually lost in everything except what Murat Halstead (North American Review, June 1892, page 671) called---

“The two precious metals, sound, hard, ringing, lustrous money.”

Continuing, we find on page 637 of the August 1893 article---

“The mere suspicion last spring that the government might decide that the treasury notes, issued under the law of 1890, were payable in silver, sent a thrill of alarm throughout the whole credit system, and brought business of all kinds nearly to a standstill.  President Cleveland’s announcement that the Government would meet all its obligations in gold had a reassuring but not a permanently quieting effect, for the reason that the President cannot by himself repeal the Sherman law of 1890.  Until that menace is removed, credit will not be safe from assault, and every man who has need to borrow money will suffer severely in consequence.”

Silver worries bankers; silver can cause them to panic because they can’t create it, and they don’t want inflationary expansionism to be held in check by linkage to silver, which ironically they called inflationary.  The writer was bellyaching about the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890.  More discussion on this subject can be found in “Silver Wars And Silver Surprises” (Archives).  Cleveland was in the hip pocket of the New York bankers.  The writer spoke of creditors---

“He will lend only on condition of having both interest and principal payable in gold.  He would be foolish to lend in any other way so long as there remained a shadow of danger of having to accept interest and principal in depreciated money.  This is the situation which has confronted the borrowers, or the debtor class, since the danger of a descent to the silver standard first showed itself.  The uncertainty about the future which a threatened descent to a debased standard creates, impels a jealous scrutiny of all kinds of securities; and every borrower whose credit is not first-rate finds that he must not only promise to pay interest and principal in gold, but that he cannot obtain such favorable loans as formerly.”

The money lords debased the purchasing power of silver by law, then attributed the loss to the alleged fact that silver just was unreliable as money!  Never did they once openly admit their opposition to silver was based on two principles 1) as the money of the middle class, if they broke silver, they could become wealthier by impoverishing that class and 2) they can’t create silver like they can create “credit,” and they are determined to CONTROL.  The writer (probably the editor) concluded---

“This is the trouble with the West and South at present.  Their alleged determination to force the country upon the silver standard has weakened if not destroyed their own credit.  They can no longer borrow except under the most stringent conditions.  They are thus learning anew the lesson that all nations which have experimented with cheap money have learned before them, that an honest and sound money system is the only one which is beneficial to both debtor and creditor.”

Sounds like people who wanted to make payment in silver (legal tender according to the Constitution) had the screws tightened against them by the bankers.  The November 1893 issue of Century Magazine, pages 147-148, had an article, “Lessons of the Silver Delusion” probably by the same editor (unnamed)---

“The first lesson which we trust this country has learned from its recent disastrous experience with depreciated silver money is a correct idea of what constitutes a standard or measure of value.”

The silver depreciation was caused only by legislative action against silver.  The writer referred to Professor Frank Taussig (see “Silver Wars And Silver Surprises,” Archives) who was very anti-silver.  Reading on---

“What we had been doing in this country from 1878 to the revolt against the silver purchase act, was to ignore and defy this decision of civilized mankind, this fruit of human experience for hundreds of years, and to try to set up as our standard of value an instrumentality which had been abandoned by other nations after long trial, because it lacked the first requisite of a measure of value---stability.”

More banker lies, economist lies, spewed out by a corrupt press!  As we saw from Mr. Pierrepont, the value of silver was very stable from 1833 to 1873, then commenced to plunge.  Blame was attempted to be placed on the increased silver output from the Comstock Lode.  However, the annual gold output, by value, was also up some 40% during the peak of the Comstock mines.  The actual blame for the “instability” in the value of silver was strictly because it was demonetized!  In 1871 Germany demonetized silver; in 1872 Norway, Sweden and Denmark did likewise.  In 1873 the United States saw the Crime of ’73.  The fall in the value of silver was due to legislative attacks, not to the world being flooded with silver.  The editorial alarmism on silver continued---

“The mere threat of such conduct was sufficient to unsettle American credit the world over.  In proportion as we advanced towards the accomplishment of the threat this alarm increased, until credit was entirely destroyed and the country was brought to the verge of financial, commercial, and industrial collapse.  The entire trouble was due to a fear that we would repudiate the gold standard and gold values, and pay all our debts in the depreciated and unstable value of silver. 

To inform the reader who hasn’t picked up on it---the Panic of 1893 was being referred to.  It was caused mainly by the J.P. Morgan interests as more agitation for the imposition of another British associated central bank.  They jumped on silver again and attempted to assign blame where it didn’t belong, for that is what liars do.  15,252 businesses went into receivership according to www.media.utah.edu/UHE/p/PANIC1893.html but be warned, at that URL you find the view that the Federal Reserve System, had it been in existence then, would have prevented the panic!  According to www.answers.com/topic/panic-of-1819 the Panic of 1819 was caused by the directors of the second Bank of the United States suddenly contracting credit---just what happened in 1929!  Recall that British collaborator and opium dealer John Jacob Astor was the leading director of that bank!  Unfortunately, that site blamed Jackson and his vice president, Martin Van Buren, who succeeded him as President, for the Panic of 1837.  The New York banks, acting collusively in unison, all stopped redemption of notes in gold and silver coin on May 10, 1837, which ignited the panic; Jackson and Van Buren were not at fault!  The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond at its website features this bit of propaganda, which shows that the exact same elements were involved with the earlier central bank---

 “The second Bank operated effectively and was an asset to the financial system.  Nevertheless, President Jackson vetoed renewal of its charter.”

Myers in “History of the Great American Fortunes” (page 78) said this of the first and second Banks of the U.S., which is fully applicable to the Fed today---

“No business institution in the first three decades of the nineteenth century exercised such a sinister and overshadowing influence as this chartered monopoly.  The full tale of its bribery of politicians and newspaper editors, in order to perpetuate its great privileges and keep a hold upon public opinion, has never been set forth.  With its control of deposits of government funds and by the provisions of its charter, this bank swayed the whole money marts of the United States and could manipulate them at will.”

Returning to the November 1893 article in The Century Magazine, the false complaints against silver raved on---

“In no other country in the world could a threat of this remarkable kind have been made with more disastrous results.  Our great need is more capital, especially for the South and West.  The great source of supply for this is foreign countries, yet we made it impossible for them to send it here by casting a doubt upon the value of the money in which we would repay our loans.  The consequence was that millions of money which would have come here, had there been no doubt about our standard of value, were locked up in London and other foreign cities, its owners preferring to let it lie idle rather than to loan it on such uncertain security as we offered.  Precisely the same effect was produced upon domestic capital lying in savings banks and elsewhere, and that, too, was withheld from trade.  Here, too, doubts about the value of our money in the future led to general hoarding, and money was so scarce that it commanded a premium for use in the transaction of business.  Industrial establishments were closed, and thousands of laborers were thrown out of employment.  Banks were forced to suspend, business houses doing a legitimate trade upon borrowed capital were forced to fail, and the whole country fell into the most widespread and distressing period of business depression that it had ever known.”

The writer stopped short of saying silver is the reason manure stinks!  Notice he mentioned London---capitol of the British Empire and of world banking.  It was after the engineered Panic of 1837 that the Rothschilds gained much additional control over U.S. banking operations.  The tirade went on---

“Behind the delusion for silver there lingered an idea that as a cheaper money it was to be desired by the debtor class---that gold was the money of the rich man and silver the money of the poor.  We trust that this idea has been exploded forever in this country.  Our readers will remember that we have maintained steadily in our articles in this department on “Cheap Money Experiments,” that the only money the poor man wants is the best money, and that he is always the worst sufferer from cheap money.  The worst sufferers from the recent depression were the poorer classes.  As working-men, thousands of them were thrown out of employment.  Through bank failures, many others, widows and orphans among them, lost part or the whole of all they had in the world.  Others, through the inability of banks and other concerns to pay dividends on their stock, because of the stagnation and suspension of business and loans, received no income upon their investments.  The money-lenders of the world are not all rich men, but people in moderate and even narrow circumstances who trust their little fortunes and earnings to capitalists and financiers to invest for them.  The incomes of all these were cut off for a long period by this infatuation for silver.”

The writer concluded that we must steer clear of silver money so as to not “fall behind in the march of civilization.”  This article was a major case of putting words in others mouths.  The response of the middle class to silver demonetization in 1873 was one of terrific outrage.  How would you like to be told that suddenly, your silver money---which in most cases was all the money they had---could no longer be used as legal tender for anything exceeding $5?  And then, some twenty years later, some jerk in New York, fronting for banking interests---tells you that you wanted to see silver abolished as money!  Myers in “History of the Great American Fortunes” (page 558) described the sentiment of the middle class about the silver demonetization as entirely negative!  Myers commented, not blaming silver (page 581)---

“In normal times the number of unemployed was about 1,000,000.  After the panic of 1893 the number reached perhaps 3,000,000.  Not a finger was lifted by the Government in the aid of any of these, nor was the remotest consideration given to means for alleviating this misery or to the causes producing it.”

Editor in chief of The Century Magazine was Richard W. Gilder, who either approved the anti-silver stance or wrote the articles himself.  He was listed as a charter member of The Pilgrims (World Money Power) in 1903, along with central bank activists such as Frank Vanderlip; Nelson Aldrich; and Jefferson Levy.  Otto Arendt (1854-1934), a German media figure, member of the Prussian House of Deputies and member of the German Silver Commission of 1893, confirmed the obvious as to the depreciation in the value of silver (legislation was the cause, not silver itself)---

“If there ever was a fact irrefutably demonstrated it is this, that the depreciation of silver was the consequence of the change in monetary laws.  This can no longer be seriously questioned after witnessing the consequences of the closure of the Indian mints.  The evils of the silver depreciation are everywhere recognized, and even in non-bimetallist circles the impression prevails which Prince Bismarck on one occasion voiced in private conversation---“We have got into a swamp with our gold standard, and we don’t know how to get out.”  The worst is that we are getting deeper and deeper into the swamp and that it is becoming harder and harder to get out.”

This was written by Mr. Arendt in his article, “The Outlook For Silver,” which ran in the North American Review, March 1896, pages 674-681.  Arendt remarked (page 680)---

“The fury with which bimetallists are here attacked is downright comical.  One of the favorite arguments is that we are bribed by the owners of American silver mines!  The fact that we aim at international bimetallism is purposely passed over in silence.  We are said to be grieved because we have not in Germany a radical silver party, such as you have.  I think the time of monetary polemics has passed.  THE DISPUTE IS NO LONGER AS TO WHETHER SILVER IS TO BE RESTORED TO IT’S FUNCTION AS WORLD’S MONEY, BUT MERELY HOW IT IS TO BE DONE.”  (emphasis added)

Another notable comment appeared on page 677 of Arendt’s article---

“The question is, whether the great revolution which is bound to occur may not be forestalled by common measures adopted by the nations for the rehabilitation of silver.  On this question we have been at work during a quarter of a century.  The people of the United States were the first to understand it and to favor international bimetallism.  And yet, it is mainly the fault of the United States that bimetallism has not yet been brought about.  The Americans ignored the great fundamental laws of circulation in trying to save silver by the experiments of the Bland and Sherman laws.  What silver wanted was not the demand, for that is unlimited.  Silver has never yet lacked purchasers.  What has been lacking since the abolition of the double standard is the fixed place of exchange between silver and gold, which can only be created by unlimited demand for both precious metals at a ratio of values.  Hence, limited coinage or limited purchases, such as were made in the United States from 1878 to 1894, are altogether inadequate.”

The Bland Act of 1878 allowed only for some government obligations to be met in silver, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 fixed an annual amount of mine production for the government to buy.  Missouri Senator Richard Bland, one-time Nevada silver miner, commented in the North American Review, September, 1890 (page number not handy; trust me it’s there!)---

“The new law is a radical departure from the law of 1878 in respect to the basis or ratio of utilizing silver for monetary purposes.  The law of 1878 compelled the coinage of the bullion as fast as purchased.  The coin could be deposited and silver certificates issued thereon.  Whether the coin or certificate was in circulation, it went into circulation at the ratio of 16 to 1.  This is the established legal ratio between the two metals.  The new law, however, provides for issuing notes on silver bullion at its gold value---not coining value.  The metal is not to be coined at all after July 1891, except at the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury, and in amounts sufficient only for the redemption of the notes. But as pointed out before, the notes must be redeemed in gold if the theory of the gold standard is to be adhered to; hence no redemption in silver will be made.  The net result is the practical suspension of the coinage of silver at the legal ratio.  The only use to be made of the metal is as a bankable commodity on which notes may be issued, based upon the market value in gold of this bankable commodity.  Thus silver is virtually demonetized and discredited as a standard of value, and gold, and gold only, fixed as the standard of payments.”

MEDIA LYING FOR MONEY CREATORS!

Century Magazine, October 1896, pages 792-793, in the article “The Crime of 1873” issued a denial as to the actual facts of the Coinage Act of 1873.  It would be like your newspaper telling you America consists of 20 square miles; that it is situated South of Australia; or that the national language is Welch Druid!  The start of the article summarized the protests of the silver community, then the magazine followed the summary with its expected denial---

“No assertion in regard to silver has been made more persistently during the past few years that a “crime” of some kind was committed in 1873 when Congress passed the act demonetizing the coinage of the silver dollar as a unit of value, and establishing the gold dollar as the sole unit of value.  When first made the charge was that the passage of the act was the work of a “conspiracy” by some English and other foreign bankers, who sent an agent to this country with half a million dollars with which to bribe members of Congress.  This was soon abandoned, and in its place was started the charge that the act of 1873 had been passed “by stealth.”  One silver writer said it went through Congress “like the stealthy tread of a cat.”  Another said it was passed “surreptitiously” and a hundred silver advocates echoed the charge.  One silver advocate, who is a writer of history, put it into one of his books as a historical fact, that the silver dollar was “silently demonetized.”  Others added “secretly” to “silently” or “surreptitiously,” and all accompanied the charge with the assertions that the passage of the act took one half of our money out of circulation, and that remonetization would restore the lost half.”

The article then attempted to repudiate all those charges.  It quoted Congressman Kelly of Pennsylvania who stated---

“I would like to follow the example of England and make a wide difference between our gold and silver coins.”

There already was a wide difference---16 or so to 1.  Demonetization drastically increased that ratio.  The article denied there was British influence back of the bill, then quoted a member of Congress who said he wanted to follow the British!  Congressman Hooper of Massachusetts was referred to as saying “the silver dollar is melted by manufacturers of silverware.”  Gee---and we thought the silver users only started melting coins around 1941!  The article stated---

“At the time the law was passed, the silver dollar was an obsolete coin.”

Not true!  Here’s what Myers said about the Crime of ’73 in “History of the Great American Fortunes” (page 558-559)---

”The extraordinary financial laws passed during the Civil War were only the forerunners of other laws which the bankers and the creditor class in general caused to be passed in following years, and by which they instantly and vastly increased their wealth and power, and were enabled far more effectually than ever before to put the screws upon the producing class.  The most noted of these laws was that passed by Congress on February 12, 1873, practically accomplishing the demonetization of silver as coin.  This was the same Congress which, as we have seen, was bribed with a million dollars to pass an act granting an additional subsidy of $5,000,000 to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company.  The demonetization act went through by evasion; not a word was directly mentioned in it of the demonetization of silver; few knew of its purport; even the advocates of bimetallism voted for it.  It was one of the most adroit bills ever put through Congress, and it was only after it had become law that its concealed provisions came to public attention.”

“Then a terrific cry of rage went up from the middle class from one end of the country to the other; the excitement was intense.  The middle class was struck at hard; the supply of money was at once contracted, the purchasing power of gold was enhanced, and the power of the large creditor capitalists and banking institutions over the small property owning class was greatly augmented.  This law was passed at the same time that the Standard Oil Company was rising to give the death blow to free competition in trade.  The middle class representatives in Congress now began an agitation which lasted many years.  The charge that the demonetization of silver had been brought about by the conspiracy of John Sherman and a few other prominent men in Congress, with the financiers of Wall Street and Europe.  Successive volumes of the Congressional Record of those years were full of speeches in which this charge was brought out over and over again.  But the law stood; and what was more galling to the middle class, John Sherman, denounced so bitterly as a traitor, and as a mercenary of the bankers, was appointed a few years later to be Secretary of the United States Treasury.  From that time on, the bankers, national and international, came out more and more in the open in direct dictatorship of the financial laws and policy of the United States.  The great government bond issue of 1877, by which the bankers made colossal profits, followed Sherman’s appointment.”

Abuses inflicted on the public by depraved bankers run wild are too numerous to conceive, however an amusing example of a small scale banker ripoff was documented by Martin Larson (1981) in his outstanding book “The Federal Reserve and our Manipulated Dollar” (page 17) in which he cited a pre-Civil War state bank that had $580,000 in circulating notes, but only $86.46 in specie (precious metal coin) on hand for redemption!  That’s a ratio of over 6,700 to one!   The ratio, of course, now stands at ZERO! During the Civil War the New York banking interests got the National Banking Act of 1863 passed, which in a real sense was just a few degrees removed from creating another central bank.  A brief flash back to a time before that is in order.  Twenty-seven years earlier, Jackson let the charter of the second Bank of the United States expire.  On July 10, 1832 Jackson’s remarks to the Senate concerning the bank included the following---

“Controlling our currency, receiving our public monies, and holding thousands of our citizens in dependence, it would be more formidable and dangerous than the naval and military power of the enemy.  Congress has parted with its power for a term of years, during which the constitution is a dead letter.  It is neither necessary nor proper to transfer its legislative power to such a bank, and therefore unconstitutional.  We can take a stand against all grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges such as rechartering a private bank of issue against any prostitution of our government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many.”

Soon after Jackson became President he withdrew government funds from the Bank of the United States, and for that rash act of defiance he was depicted as a tyrant---

The cartoon was incredibly ironic, as it was the King of England who should have been depicted as the tyrant in that episode!  There has been no federal budget surplus since President Jackson’s administration!  It is the banking interests who have placed us into a Hades of debt.  On March 28, 1834, the Senate censured President Jackson, which was probably made possible by bribe money distributed by the London banking powers.  It isn’t common knowledge today, but there was an assassination attempt on President Jackson on January 30, 1835, which almost certainly was due to awareness of his intention to not renew the bank’s charter in 1836---

Jackson’s personal courage is justifiably legendary, as he was in a duel in 1806 with a lawyer named Charles Dickinson, a possible British agent.  Dickinson got off the first shot, striking Jackson in the chest near his heart.  Jackson remained steady, and fired his shot into Dickinson’s stomach, killing him.  Jackson’s bullet was never removed, and caused him considerable agony every day until his death in 1845 at age 78.  It is particularly amazing to consider his heroism as the general on horseback who defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815.  There was a hit song on that theme, for lyrics go to www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/battleof.htm Imagine carrying a painful piece of lead in your chest while battling British banking interests!  On August 16, 1841, President John Tyler vetoed a bill calling for another central bank.  A riot was staged outside the White House, probably with rabble paid as shills for the financiers and the British, who never gave up efforts at monetary control, which unfortunately paid off in 1863 with the passage of the National Banking Act and in 1873 with the Coinage Act.

In “A Silver Senator Revisited” by Murat Halstead (North American Review, June 1892, pages 667-668), writing about William M. Stewart of Nevada, then chairman of the Senate Committee on Mines and Mining, had this to say---

“The United States is a silver producing country and France is not, and we, therefore, have favored silver by forcing its coinage and purchasing it in great quantities as a basis for notes.  The Senator from Nevada is not as specific as he should be when he charges that hostility to silver has been the policy of all administrations since 1873.  It was in that year that what the Senator regards as the crime of the century was committed.  This he styles the demonetization of silver.  The awful event was the dropping of the coinage of the standard silver dollar, during a time of profound suspension of specie payments, and the temporary substitution of the “trade dollar.”  This is surely the most startling form that hostility to a money metal ever took.”

Halstead seemed almost hesitant on some points.  The Senator was perfectly specific as to his charges.  Halstead appeared somewhat a fence-straddler.  Another voice more definite in favor of silver was that of Count Von Mirbach, member of the German Reichstag and the Prussian House of Lords.  His article, “The Silver Question---Germany’s Attitude As To A Bi-Metallic Union” appeared in the North American Review, June 1895.  Von Mirbach quoted (pages 699-700) the German Treasury Secretary as saying---

“At the conference convened by the former Chancellor, even the monometalists acknowledged that the depreciation of silver entailed serious damage to our industrial life.  It is indubitable that the lessened value of silver has exercised a disadvantageous influence upon our internal manufactures and exports.  It is, moreover, certain that our native mining interests are suffering most grievously from the depreciated value of silver.  Attach whatever importance you wish to these interests, it is well enough known that they constitute an old, traditional industry which gives occupation to many working people, that a transposition of the industry is, in its nature, impossible, and that the very existence of a great many working people is jeopardized by the decline of our mining prosperity.”

Butler has routinely lambasted silver company managements for remaining silent in the face of silver price manipulation in New York; the remarks are appropriate.  We have to ask some of them---is there a “fix” in on you?  Have you been warned or intimidated?  What do you hear from your primary bank?  Are some of your biggest shareholders---Soros and Gates--- opposed to return to silver as money?  The questions are neither insolent nor prying.  The future of we the shareholders is at stake and that is after all more important than worrying that someone could take offense.  We must allow that the purpose of some of them could be to wait out the price rigging, and then make commentary after the COMEX explosion.  They could say it’s a problem making allegations of shorting abuse, since the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) refuses to back up charges of short manipulation.  We wait to see what all parties concerned will say, and we stand ready to contradict any misinformation coming from the Monetary Madhouse of the televised and printed news.

There is one major silver company (if you’re well-informed you know which one) that has done everything right, except speak out.  On that point, in an annual report they said they had no intention of commenting “at this time,” suggesting a strategy is in place.  Their refusal to produce at manipulated prices, their purchase of physical metal, their intention to “vault” all silver produced after expenses are covered, are probably reasons the stock has been so savagely assaulted by shorts.  Perhaps they feel they would make themselves a target of a hostile media if they further distinguish themselves by sounding like Ted Butler.  Hopefully the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee summit meeting in the Yukon this August will turn the tide of the miners away from cowering timidity and deafening silence.  It would also be decontamination to know which organizations our executives and directors are members of.  Much of that information is already in the open and is often positive.  We need to know if any of them are linked to the paper money mob!  Will the Silver Institute ever advocate silver money?  Can we as silver investors mount an e-mail campaign to insist they do so, and ask them to make a policy statement against the CFTC and the COMEX?

Von Mirbach called for worldwide action in support of bimetallism (page 701)---

“If England joins an international bimetallic union, the solution of this problem cannot be difficult.  In that event the relation, 1:155, would also soon be attained, and maintained without the least disturbance.  But even without England’s cooperation, the accomplishing of an international bimetallism is possible.  If Germany, France, and the United States acted together, these states would be in a position to solve this seemingly difficult problem; and powerful enough, too, to maintain the fixed relation between gold and silver.  The exclusion of England would redound altogether to the advantage of the commercial relations and industrial exports of these three great powers; indeed, their advantage in these respects would be greater in that case than if England belonged to the union.  The economic condition of Germany calls loudly for a solution of the silver question; and this surely can be made possible only through international bimetallism.”

Von Mirbach spoke of excluding England from a bimetallic system and how it could benefit the other three leading economies.  Possibly he wasn’t aware of the long-standing incestuous relationship of British and American capital.  Just one generation after his remarks, witness what Gary Allen described in his landmark book “None Dare Call It Conspiracy” (1972) pages 72-73---

“Propaganda concerning the war was heavily one-sided.  Although after the war many historians admitted that one side was as guilty as the other in starting the war, Germany was pictured as a militaristic monster which wanted to rule the world.  Remember, this picture was painted by Britain which had its soldiers in more countries around the world than all other nations put together.  So-called “Prussian militarism” did exist, but it was no threat to conquer the world.  Meanwhile, the sun never set on the British Empire!  Actually, the Germans were proving to be tough business competitors in the world’s markets and the British did not approve.”

This isn’t the time to consider the relationship of gold, silver and paper money to warfare, but there is a link, especially with fiat money creation.  The Atlantic Monthly, May 1878, “The Silver Question Geologically Considered,” page 620 said---

“The expenses of the wars of Great Britain, which have given the little island its world-wide empire, were laid, in the shape of a national debt, as a tax upon its people for all time.”

The interests of middle and lower class residents of the British Isles aren’t being served by their demoniacal leadership.  Witness the treatment of the typical British sailor under their sea captains (“Mutiny On The Bounty,” 1962).  N.S. Shaler, the author, mentioned “Mr. Ernest Seyd” on page 628.  That was the economist sent by the Bank of England with $500,000 to buy off Congressional votes for the silver demonetization (original reference to Bankers Magazine, August 1873, appeared in “Silver Bonanza” by Blanchard and Sanders, 1993, page 29) Undoubtedly those who betrayed their fellow citizens switched entirely into gold ahead of the catastrophe they unleashed.  Moving generations into the present we await the inevitable catastrophe caused by the managers of this Monetary Madhouse.  Will it be extreme hyperinflation?  Mexico, not widely recognized by people here as being “as good a country in which to live as America,” appears ready to lead the way towards restoration of historic silver money; a money which, since it is real, can’t go broke.  As Matias Romero, Mexican ambassador to the United States during the Grant administration said in his article, “The Silver Standard In Mexico” (North American Review, June 1895, page 705---

“Mexico being the largest silver producing country, two-thirds of the whole silver stock of the world having come out of its mines, silver has been our only currency for nearly 400 years.  We never had any paper currency, either national, state, or issued by banks.”

A quick refresher, or first time intro to those for whom the information is new, is in order concerning what can happen in a disastrous hyperinflation of fiat currency (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)--

“By late 1923, the Quick Facts about: Weimar Republic
The German republic founded at Weimar in 1919 of Germany was issuing fifty-million-mark banknotes and postage stamps with a face value of fifty billion marks survive. The hyperinflation under the Chinese Nationalists from 1939-1945 is a classic example of government printing money to pay civil war costs. By the end, currency was flown in over the Himalayas, and then old currency was flown out to be. The highest value banknote issued by the Weimar government's Reichsbank had a face value of 100 Billionen marks (100,000,000,000,000 or One Hundred Trillion US/UK)   One of the firms printing these notes submitted an invoice for the work to the Reichsbank for 32,776,899,763,734,490,417.05 Marks.

The largest denomination banknote ever officially issued for circulation was in 1946 by the Hungarian National Bank for the amount of 100 Million Billion Pengo (100,000,000,000,000,000,000). The Post-WWII hyperinflation of Hungary holds the record for the most extreme monthly inflation rate ever - 41,900,000,000,000,000% for July 1946.”

Pengo was a Hungarian term for the currency then in use.  Below, German woman in 1923 using worthless fiat paper currency to fuel her kitchen stove---

This unnerving scene assuredly would have never occurred had those notes been warehouse receipts for precious metals!  We defy any “economist” at the Brookings Institution to contradict it! Does the American Bankers Association care to comment?  How about the American Economic Association or the National Bureau for Economic Research?

Edwards Pierrepont, in his excellent article we examined above, “Shall We Banish Silver Coin?” (North American Review, February 1889), remarked with uncanny insightfulness, on page 241---

“Paper credits, unprotected by money, are always pernicious; when distrust comes---as come it will---these credits shrivel like a scroll in a furnace, bringing panic and disaster in consequence.”

The German hyperinflation of 1923 was so severe that the expression “money to burn” was fulfilled.  However, the meaning wasn’t due to extreme prosperity, but because of paper currency becoming worthless.  In the earlier stages of that inflation the purchasing power of the fiat currency was in so accelerated a deterioration, that as soon as people got the currency, they wanted to get rid of it, as prices were rising literally by the hour.  In its end stages fiat currency is like a virulently contagious disease, at last recognized by the public, which no one wants to accept.  This is a consequence which is NOT POSSIBLE in a gold and silver based system!  In “The Silver Question Geologically Considered” pages 628-629 we find---

“The attentive student of the earth, seeing that only these two metals are fit for the peculiar uses of currency, may be permitted to doubt the policy of excluding either of them from the current use to which common sense has dedicated both from immemorial time.  Commerce has had two good and faithful servants in these two precious metals.  It does seem better to try to keep them both, despite the fact that they do not always pull together, rather than take the risks of putting all the work upon either one, especially when it is clear that either is liable to great variations in its power to perform its allotted functions.  If they can be kept in use together, the variations in supply of the one are likely to counteract the variations of the other.”

The Century Magazine, February 1884, page 630 printed one letter not in sympathy with its anti-silver stance.  The media sometimes makes a pretense of fairplay.  John A. Grier wrote---

“In 1878 this rash financial mistake was rectified, and the silver dollar was again ordered to be coined.  The legislation of our country and of Germany against silver was the most potent cause in decreasing the demand for this metal, and consequently decreasing its intrinsic value.  Whoever contends for the perfect honesty of this silver dollar strives for the honor of his nation just as effectually as if fighting her battles in a just cause at sea or on land.  A legal debt is a contract or promise to pay at some future day a certain, definite quantity of the commodities, gold and silver, coined into full legal tender money; or if the promise is settled by paper, it becomes a title to real money.  Bankruptcy will not likely disturb us simply because our vaults are filled with real money and our pockets with its well-secured paper representatives.”

There is no gold or silver representation made by the Federal Reserve note.  At the end stage of depreciation of fiat currencies---what awaits?  Monetary chaos, and an offer of “stability,” in a universal “created” currency, probably all-electronic.  This can’t happen if we make law stand up against it; therefore another reason for the legislative lobby I called for last month.  The Century Magazine printed an attempted rebuttal to Mr. Grier by one Horace White who among other rubbish declared---

“The silver dollar and the counterfeit dollar are dishonest and misleading.”

White was griping about government seigniorage in the silver dollar, but to compare real silver with counterfeit paper requires a lunatic’s perspective.  The North American Review, October 1896 ran an article by William Jennings Bryan, the most famous political leader of the silver movement in U.S. history, entitled, “Has The Election Settled The Money Question?”  From pages 703-704---

“For twenty years the financiers have succeeded in writing the financial plank for the conventions of the two leading parties and then have controlled the Presidential nominations.  The platforms have generally been sufficiently ambiguous to bear a double construction, and the candidates have usually been known as “safe men,” according to the definition given to that phrase.  The moneyed interests have looked after our financial policy.  The Republican party met in convention last June and attempted to again give the tariff question preeminence, but when the Democratic, Populist, and Silver parties agreed in declaring for the free and unlimited coinage of gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the consent of any other nation, the Republicans found it impossible to confine discussion to the tariff issue.  In fact, the silver question soon absorbed public attention to such an extent that it became practically the sole political topic considered throughout the country.”

Need a reason to become politically active?  The paper money mob and the silver users are politically active---that’s the most urgent reason possible.  Bryan continued (page 704)---

“People discussed the present legal status of the silver dollar, the various laws affecting silver, the amount of production, the cost of production, etc.  To the world at large this nation presented the interesting and inspiring sight of seventy millions of people thinking out their own salvation.  We witnessed such activity of mind and stirring of heart as this nation has not witnessed for thirty years.  It is probable that the money question has been studied within the last four months by more people than ever before in all the history of the world.  What was the result of that study?  Temporary defeat, but permanent gain for the cause of bimetallism.  It is a significant fact that the silver sentiment was strongest where the question had been longest considered.  In the West and South, where people had been actively engaged in the discussion of bimetallism for several years, the majority favored the restoration of the money of the Constitution.”  Bryan (below) giving his famous “Cross of Gold” speech on July 8, 1896 at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago---

To read the speech, go to www.odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1876-1900/reform/bryan.htm

Bryan continued (page 704)---

“In the Eastern states where, until recently, there was practically no general consideration of the money question, the gold sentiment was strongest.  There the people had, up to the opening of this campaign, heard only one side.  In those States both parties were against free coinage; all the leading newspapers were against it; the banking interests were against it; the corporations were against it; and it was also opposed by those influential members of society who live under the influence of the financial and corporate interests.”

Reading on (page 705)---

“It must be remembered further that we fought against great odds in the Middle States also.  The Democratic Party in Wisconsin and Minnesota declared against silver in the conventions which sent delegates to Chicago.  In Michigan the convention was nearly equally divided on the money question, and there was a bitter contest within the party in Iowa, Indiana and Ohio.  In Illinois we were at a great disadvantage because the influence of the Chicago press was thrown entirely against free coinage, and this influence pervaded nearly all the states of the Upper Mississippi Valley.”

“Throughout the entire Union the trusts, corporations and banking interests were organized against silver, and these interests could act in concert on a moment’s notice, while prompt cooperation was difficult, if not impossible, among the masses.  The campaign did not afford sufficient time to bring clearly before the people an important truth which investigation must reveal, namely, that on the money question the interests of the money-owning classes are not identical with the interests of the wealth-producing classes.  A dollar which increases in purchasing power is an advantage to those who trade in money and to those who hold fixed investments, but it is an injury to those who owe money and must purchase it with the proceeds of toil.  It must be evident, therefore, that the people familiarly known as financiers cannot be trusted to frame a financial policy for the whole people unless they are entirely free from the selfishness which is generally supposed to be a well-nigh universal trait of mankind.”

The dollar that increased in purchasing power was the gold, not the paper, dollar, and it was due to attacks on silver as money.  Notice his amazing comments (page 706)---

“The advocates of free coinage have asserted that the gold standard is a conspiracy organized by the great financiers of the world to lessen the volume of the world’s standard money for the double purpose, first, of raising the purchasing power of a given quantity of money, and second, of making it easier to corner the supply of standard money.  The advocates of free coinage believed the charge when they made it, and they believe it still.  Inspired by the conviction that they are laboring in behalf of a large majority of the people, not only here, but throughout the world, they will continue their fight, confident that four more years of experience will convince many who have thus far resisted argument.”

The great financiers of the world running an organized conspiracy!  Exactly what I’ve been detailing since December 2004.  We’ve seen the money system of this country undergo severe deterioration since 1896.  Silver coinage was maintained until the mid-1960’s only due to the united efforts of the so-called Congressional Silver Bloc, receiving support from the old “Farm Bloc” in return for support received from silverites for agricultural matters.  No real silver advocate is opposed to gold as such; we recognize the necessity of both money metals.  But silver is necessary as a subsidiary to gold, and a nation like Mexico would benefit more from a silver coinage issue than gold.  On the other hand, an extreme readjustment in the relative values of gold and silver must arrive, due to the demands on the silver supply.  A discussion of rationale would require a separate essay; but I believe silver could see values exceeding gold.  That is certainly no guarantee it will happen.  The author of the 1998 book “Money,” already referenced, agrees with the outlook (page 140).  On the subject of political conventions, if in our time we attempted to have them consider precious metals in their platform, we’d be looked at like a drunk in delirium tremens.  It appears a catastrophe is necessary to prove the long-term unsuitability of fiat currency.

William Jennings Bryan, who might be regarded as the “patron saint” of the silverites, made the following remark (page 705) which sums up the appeal I made last month in “What Are We?”---

“When men’s convictions are so strong that they will face political defeat without flinching, defy financial despotism, and risk social ostracism in behalf of a cause, they do not surrender because they lose one battle.”

We’ve lost many battles since the presidential election of 1896; to the net effect that we are on a precarious full fiat currency.  In this Monetary Madhouse, those who own precious metals have an insurance policy for themselves that can’t go broke.  Here at Silver Investor we will soon post Senate document number 173, part 3, dated January 31, 1934, “Hoarders of Silver,” a document prepared by Henry Morgenthau Jr., then Treasury Secretary, in response to Senate Resolution 211, delivered to the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency.  It contained extensive lists of American citizens holding physical silver and/or futures contracts.  The Octopus wants to know what precious metals assets we are in possession of!  In 1929 Soviet Russia made it a serious crime for anyone to own gold.  Some lost their lives.  For people to be tyrannized, real money must be forbidden from use!

 In his book on the Federal Reserve (page 102) Larson commented as to the apparent suicide (?) of John Bryan Owen, grandson of William Jennings Bryan, in connection with the grandson’s investigation of Franklin D. Roosevelt conspiring with Winston Churchill to bring America into World War II.  The perceptible means for doing so was to allow the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, which many researchers, including an Admiral, said Roosevelt knew was coming!  If we cannot organize to form a political action lobby on Capitol Hill before the great financial meltdown, we must move to form one to call for rationality in the chaos that will certainly follow.  Tyranny must not be offered as an alternative to anarchy.  Americans must be made aware of the Mexican silver initiative, which is certain to succeed before we see any parellel event here.  As Murat Halstead said in “A Silver Senator Reviewed” (North American Review, June 1892, page 670)--

“BULLION IS A WEAPON, AND WE SHOULD STRIKE WITH IT BOLDLY.”

Silver ingots from the Cerro Gordo mine (discovered 1865, production declined before 1950) near Owens Lake and Lone Pine, California, awaiting shipment to Los Angeles.  Ask yourself---which would you rather have---those German fiat notes being burned for fuel; or that stack of silver ingots above?  Is there ANYONE in the entire world with the brazenness to say, he’d rather have the paper than the silver?  Aaron M. Sakolski, with an economics degree from Johns Hopkins University (see other essay, “P.I.L.G.R.I.M.S.” when it appears), was a member of the anti-silver American Economic Association (Who’s Who, 1946, page 2055) and a writer for the Commercial & Financial Chronicle, New York.  On April 27, 1944, in an article titled, “The Menace of Post-War Silver” he predicted---

“The complete elimination of silver as a monetary base in the few countries where it still feebly operates in this capacity.”

We suggest that Germans in 1923 would unanimously have preferred payment in silver to attempted payment with worthless paper currency (kindling) which “feebly operated.”  Sakolski is not on the scene to attempt a rebuttal; however, we invite any liar who sees economics the way he did, to consider the statement of the Mexican citizen who said she might leave a peso note laying in the street, but would never walk away from a silver coin (Reuters, March 13, 2005).  With its own inherent decaying rottenness leading to its destruction by implosion, and moves by Mexico, Argentina and several American states to protect their citizens with precious metals, the fiat currency system has a certain date with its executioner.

A monetary madhouse---these United States!
Gold & Silver money is what the banker hates!
Lying about money, the economist misstates!
They say, Silver money is anachronistic,
But eventually its value goes ballistic!

Why listen to economists raving for bankers?
Gold and Silver are the only real money anchors!
Irredeemable currency is what cankers!
What has always happened to fiat paper?
It flies away like elusive water vapor!

For decades on unbacked paper money,
Things are ending up not very sunny,
The economy is a wreck; it isn’t funny!
For help, don’t look to the Federal Reserve,
As dollars depreciate on an exponential curve!

Germans found out in nineteen twenty three,
Paper currency of itself is no guarantee,
Wealth can’t be created by government decree!
Paper currency was only good for burning,
The disaster left many stomachs turning!

Central banks plundering the common folk,
Funny money makes them go broke,
Life savings goes up in smoke!
Hold precious metals, you’ll be secure,
The storm arrives; you will endure! 

Bankers breaking out into a cold sweat,
Projecting a quivering silhouette,
Smoking a marijuana cigarette?
Mexico demands Silver money once more!
Having nervous breakdowns---bankers galore!

Will silver movement spread to other nations?
Reporters & economists, man your stations!
Tell world, silver causes dangerous complications!
Precious silver, true money for all time!
Moving now to end paper money crime!

I'd like to thank Charles Savoie for writing this most popular article and we wish to acknowledge Independent Living Bullion for bringing that fact to our attention.