Louis T.

McFadden's Speech
In the House of Representatives
10 June 1932
It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking
and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution
before tomorrow morning. -- Henry Ford

Mr. Chairman, at the present session of Congress we have been dealing with emergency
situations. We have been dealing with the effect of things rather than with the cause of
things. In this particular discussion I shall deal with some of the causes that lead up to
these proposals. There are underlying principles which are responsible for conditions
such as we have at the present time and I shall deal with one of these in particular which
is tremendously important in the consideration that you are now giving to this bill.
Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the
world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve
Banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of
the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the
national debt. The depredations and iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board has cost this
country enough money to pay the national debt several times over. This evil institution
has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States, has bankrupted itself, and
has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the defects of the
law under which it operates, through the maladministration of that law by the Federal
Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.
Some people think the Federal Reserve banks are United States Government
institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies
which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their
foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and
predatory money lenders. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would
cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into
States to buy votes to control our legislation; and there are those who maintain
international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and of wheedling us into the
granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and
set again in motion their gigantic train of crime.
These twelve private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon
this country by the bankers who came here from Europe and repaid us for our hospitality
by undermining our American institutions. Those bankers took money out of this country
to finance Japan in a war against Russia. They created a reign of terror in Russia with our
money in order to help that war along. They instigated the separate peace between
Germany and Russia and thus drove a wedge between the Allies in the World War. They
financed Trotsky's passage from New York to Russia so that he might assist in the
destruction of the Russian Empire. They fomented and instigated the Russian revolution
and they placed a large fund of American dollars at Trotsky's disposal in one of their
branch banks in Sweden so that through him Russian homes might be thoroughly broken
up and Russian children flung far and wide from their natural protectors. They have since
begun the breaking up of American homes and the dispersal of American children.
It has been said that President Wilson was deceived by the attentions of these
bankers and by the philanthropic poses they assumed. It has been said that when he
discovered the manner in which he had been misled by Colonel House, he turned against
that busybody, that "holy monk" of the financial empire, and showed him the door. He
had the grace to do that, and in my opinion he deserves great credit for it.
President Wilson died a victim of deception. When he came to the Presidency, he
had certain qualities of mind and heart which entitled him to a high place in the councils
of this Nation; but there was one thing he was not and which he never aspired to be; he
was not a banker. He said that he knew very little about banking. It was, therefore, on the
advice of others that the iniquitous Federal Reserve act, the death warrant of American
liberty, became law in his administration.
Mr. Chairman, there should be no partisanship in matters concerning the banking
and currency affairs of this country, and I do not speak with any.
In 1912 the National Monetary Association, under the chairmanship of the late
Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, made a report and presented a vicious bill called the National
Reserve Association bill. This bill is usually spoken of as the Aldrich bill. Senator
Aldrich did not write the Aldrich bill. He was the tool, but not the accomplice, of the
European-born bankers who for nearly twenty years had been scheming to set up a
central bank in this country and who in 1912 had spent and were continuing to spend vast
sums of money to accomplish their purpose.
The Aldrich bill was condemned in the platform upon which Theodore Roosevelt
was nominated in the year 1912, and in that same year, when Woodrow Wilson was
nominated, the Democratic platform, as adopted at the Baltimore convention, expressly
stated: "We are opposed to the Aldrich plan for a central bank." This was plain language.
The men who ruled the Democratic Party then promised the people that if they were
returned to power there would be no central bank established here while they held the
reigns of government. Thirteen months later that promise was broken, and the Wilson
administration, under the tutelage of those sinister Wall Street figures who stood behind
Colonel House, established here in our free country the worm-eaten monarchical
institution of the "king's bank" to control us from the top downward, and to shackle us
from the cradle to the grave. The Federal Reserve act destroyed our old and characteristic
way of doing business; it discriminated against our one-name commercial paper, the
finest in the world; it set up the antiquated two-name paper, which is the present curse of
this country, and which wrecked every country which has ever given it scope; it fastened
down upon this country the very tyranny from which the framers of the Constitution
sought to save us.
One of the greatest battles for the preservation of this Republic was fought out here
in Jackson's day, when the Second Bank of the United States, which was founded upon
the same false principles as those which are here exemplified in the Federal Reserve act,
was hurled out of existence. After the downfall of the Second Bank of the United States
in 1837, the country was warned against the dangers that might ensue if the predatory
interests, after being cast out, should come back in disguise and unite themselves to the
Executive, and through him acquire control of the Government. That is what the
predatory interests did when they came back in the livery of hypocrisy and under false
pretenses obtained the passage of the Federal Reserve act.
The danger that the country was warned against came upon us and is shown in the
long train of horrors attendant upon the affairs of the traitorous and dishonest Federal
Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks are fully liable. This is an era of financed
crime and in the financing of crime, the Federal Reserve Board does not play the part of a
disinterested spectator.
It has been said that the draughtsman who was employed to write the text of the
Federal Reserve bill used a text of the Aldrich bill for his purpose. It has been said that
the language of the Aldrich bill was used because the Aldrich bill had been drawn up by
expert lawyers and seemed to be appropriate. It was indeed drawn up by lawyers. The
Aldrich bill was created by acceptance bankers of European origin in New York City. It
was a copy and in general a translation of the statutes of the Reichsbank and other
European central banks.
Half a million dollars was spent one part of the propaganda organized by those
same European bankers for the purpose of misleading public opinion in regard to it, and
for the purpose of giving Congress the impression that there was an overwhelming
popular demand for that kind of banking legislation and the kind of currency that goes
with it, namely, an asset currency based on human debts and obligations instead of an
honest currency based on gold and silver values. Dr. H. Parker Willis had been employed
by the Wall Street bankers and propagandists and when the Aldrich measure came to
naught and he obtained employment with Carter Glass to assist in drawing a banking bill
for the Wilson administration, he appropriated the text of the Aldrich bill for his purpose.
There is no secret about it. The text of the Federal Reserve act was tainted from the
beginning.
Not all of the Democratic Members of the Sixty-third Congress voted for this great
deception. Some of them remembered the teachings of Jefferson; and, through the years,
there had been no criticisms of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks
so honest, so out-spoken, and so unsparingly as those which have been voiced here by
Democrats. Again, although a number of Republicans voted for the Federal Reserve act,
the wisest and most conservative members of the Republican Party would have nothing
to do with it and voted against it. A few days before the bill came to a vote, Senator
Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, wrote to Senator John W. Weeks as follows:

New York City, December 17, 1913

My Dear Senator Weeks:

Throughout my public life I have supported all measures designed to

take the Government out of the banking business.... This bill puts the
Government into the banking business as never before in our history and
makes, as I understand it, all notes Government notes when they should
be bank notes.
The powers vested in the Federal Reserve Board seem to me
highly dangerous, especially where there is political control of the
Board. I should be sorry to hold stock in a bank subject to such
domination. The bill as it stands seems to me to open the way to a vast
inflation of the currency. There is no necessity of dwelling upon this
point after the remarkable and most powerful argument of the senior
Senator from New York. I can be content here to follow the example of
the English candidate for Parliament who thought it enough "to say
ditto to Mr. Burke." I will merely add that I do not like to think that
any law can be passed which will make it possible to submerge the gold
standard in a flood of irredeemable paper currency.
I had hoped to support this bill, but I can not vote for it as
it stands, because it seems to me to contain features and to rest upon
principles in the highest degree menacing to our prosperity, to
stability in business, and to the general welfare of the people of the
United States.

Very sincerely yours,

Henry Cabot Lodge
In eighteen years that have passed since Senator Lodge wrote that letter of warning all of
his predictions have come true. The Government is in the banking business as never
before. Against its will it has been made the backer of horsethieves and card sharps,
bootleggers, smugglers, speculators, and swindlers in all parts of the world. Through the
Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks the riffraff of every country is
operating on the public credit of this United States Government. Meanwhile, and on
account of it, we ourselves are in the midst of the greatest depression we have ever
known. Thus the menace to our prosperity, so feared by Senator Lodge, has indeed struck
home. From the Atlantic to the Pacific our country has been ravaged and laid waste by
the evil practices of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks and the
interests which control them. At no time in our history has the general welfare of the
people of the United States been at a lower level or the mind of the people so filled with
despair.
Recently in one of our States 60,000 dwelling houses and farms were brought under
the hammer in a single day. According to the Rev. Father Charles E. Coughlin, who has
lately testified before a committee of this House, 71,000 houses and farms in Oakland
County, Michigan, have been sold and their erstwhile owners dispossessed. Similar
occurrences have probably taken place in every county in the United States. The people
who have thus been driven out are the wastage of the Federal Reserve act. They are the
victims of the dishonest and unscrupulous Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve
banks. Their children are the new slaves of the auction blocks in the revival here of the
institution of human slavery.
In 1913, before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, Mr. Alexander
Lassen made the following statement:
But the whole scheme of the Federal Reserve bank with its commercial-
paper basis is an impractical, cumbersome machinery, is simply a cover,
to find a way to secure the privilege of issuing money and to evade
payment of as much tax upon circulation as possible, and then control
the issue and maintain, instead of reduce, interest rates. It is a
system that, if inaugurated, will prove to the advantage of the few and
the detriment of the people of the United States. It will mean
continued shortage of actual money and further extension of credits;
for when there is a lack of real money people have to borrow credit to
their cost.
A few days before the Federal Reserve act was passed Senator Elihu Root denounced the
Federal Reserve bill as an outrage on our liberties and made the following prediction:
"Long before we wake up from our dreams of prosperity through an inflated currency,
our gold, which alone could have kept us from catastrophe, will have vanished and no
rate of interest will tempt it to return."
 If ever a prophecy came true, that one did. It was impossible, however, for those
luminous and instructed thinkers to control the course of events. On December 23, 1913,
the Federal Reserve bill became law, and that night Colonel House wrote to his hidden
master in Wall Street as follows:
I want to say a word of appreciation to you for the silent but no doubt
effective work you have done in the interest of currency legislation
and to congratulate you that the measure has finally been enacted into
law. We all know that an entirely perfect bill, satisfactory to
everybody, would have been an impossibility, and I feel quite certain
that unless the President had stood as firm as he did we should likely
have had no legislation at all. The bill is a good one in many
respects; anyhow good enough to start with and to let experience teach
us in what direction it needs perfection, which in due time we shall
then get. In any event you have personally good reason to feel
gratified with what has been accomplished.
The words "unless the President had stood as firm as he did we should likely have had no
legislation at all," were a gentle reminder that it was Colonel House himself, the "holy
monk," who had kept the President firm.
The foregoing letter affords striking evidence of the manner in which the predatory
interests then sought to control the Government of the United States by surrounding the
Executive with the personality and the influence of a financial Judas. Left to itself and to
the conduct of its own legislative functions without pressure from the Executive, the
Congress would not have passed the Federal Reserve act. According to Colonel House,
and since this was his report to his master, we may believe it to be true, the Federal
Reserve act was passed because Wilson stood firm; in other words because Wilson was
under the guidance and control of the most ferocious usurers in New York through their
hireling, House. The Federal Reserve act became law the day before Christmas Eve in the
year 1913, and shortly afterwards the German international bankers, Kuhn, Loeb and Co.,
sent one of their partners here to run it.
In 1913, when the Federal Reserve bill was submitted to the Democratic caucus,
there was a discussion in regard to the form the proposed paper currency should take. The
proponents of the Federal Reserve act, in their determination to create a new kind of
paper money, had not needed to go outside of the Aldrich bill for a model. By the terms
of the Aldrich bill, bank notes were to be issued by the National Reserve Association and
were to be secured partly by gold or lawful money and partly by circulating evidences of
debt. The first draft of the Federal Reserve bill presented the same general plan, that is,
for bank notes as opposed to Government notes, but with certain differences of
regulation.
When the provision for the issuance of Federal Reserve notes was placed before
President Wilson he approved of it, but other Democrats were more mindful of
Democratic principles and a great protest greeted the plan. Foremost amongst those who
denounced it was William Jennings Bryan, the Secretary of State. Bryan wished to have
the Federal Reserve notes issued as Government obligations. President Wilson had an
interview with him and found him adamant. At the conclusion of the interview Bryan left
with the understanding that he would resign if the notes were made bank notes. The
President then sent for his Secretary and explained the matter to him. Mr. Tumulty went
to see Bryan and Bryan took from his library shelves a book containing all the
Democratic platforms and read extracts from them bearing on the matter of the public
currency. Returning to the President, Mr. Tumulty told him what had happened and
ventured the opinion that Mr. Bryan was right and that Mr. Wilson was wrong. The
President then asked Mr. Tumulty to show him where the Democratic Party in its national
platforms had ever taken the view indicated by Bryan. Mr. Tumulty gave him the book,
which he had brought from Bryan's house, and the President read very carefully plank
after plank on the currency. He then said, "I am convinced there is a great deal in what
Mr. Bryan says," and thereupon it was arranged that Mr. Tumulty should see the
proponents of the Federal Reserve bill in an effort to bring about an adjustment of the
matter.
The remainder of this story may be told in the words of Senator Glass. Concerning
Bryan's opposition to the plan of allowing the proposed Federal Reserve notes to take the
form of bank notes and the manner in which President Wilson and the proponents of the
Federal Reserve bill yielded to Bryan in return for his support of the measure, Senator
Glass makes the following statement:
The only other feature of the currency bill around which a conflict
raged at this time was the note-issue provision. Long before I knew it,
the President was desperately worried over it. His economic good sense
told him the notes should be issued by the banks and not by the
Government; but some of his advisers told him Mr. Bryan could not be
induced to give his support to any bill that did not provide for a
"Government note." There was in the Senate and House a large Bryan
following which, united with a naturally adversary party vote, could
prevent legislation. Certain overconfident gentlemen proffered their
services in the task of "managing Bryan." They did not budge him....
When a decision could no longer be postponed the President summoned me
to the White House to say he wanted Federal Reserve notes to "be
obligations of the United States." I was for an instant speechless.
With all the earnestness of my being I remonstrated, pointing out the
unscientific nature of such a thing, as well as the evident
inconsistency of it.
"There is not, in truth, any Government obligation here, Mr.
President," I exclaimed. "It would be a pretense on its face. Was there
ever a Government note based primarily on the property of banking
institutions? Was there ever a Government issue not one dollar of which
could be put out except by demand of a bank? The suggested Government
obligation is so remote it could never be discerned," I concluded, out
of breath.
"Exactly so, Glass," earnestly said the President. "Every word
you say is true; the Government liability is a mere thought. And so, if
we can hold to the substance of the thing and give the other fellow the
shadow, why not do it, if thereby we may save our bill?"
Shadow and substance! One can see from this how little President Wilson knew about
banking. Unknowingly, he gave the substance to the international banker and the shadow
to the common man. Thus was Bryan circumvented in his efforts to uphold the
Democratic doctrine of the rights of the people. Thus the "unscientific blur" upon the bill
was perpetrated. The "unscientific blur," however, was not the fact that the United States
Government, by the terms of Bryan's edict, was obliged to assume as an obligation
whatever currency was issued. Mr. Bryan was right when he insisted that the United
States should preserve its sovereignty over the public currency. The "unscientific blur"
was the nature of the currency itself, a nature which makes it unfit to be assumed as an
obligation of the United States Government. It is the worst currency and the most
dangerous this country has ever known. When the proponents of the act saw that the
Democratic doctrine would not permit them to let the proposed banks issue the new
currency as bank notes, they should have stopped at that. They should not have foisted
that kind of currency, namely, an asset currency, on the United States Government. They
should not have made the Government liable on the private debts of individuals and
corporations and, least of all, on the private debts of foreigners.
The Federal Reserve note is essentially unsound. As Kemmerer says: "The Federal
Reserve notes, therefore, in form have some of the qualities of Government paper money,
but, in substance, are almost a pure asset currency possessing a Government guaranty
against which contingency the Government has made no provision whatever." Hon. E.J.
Hill, a former Member of the House, said, and truly: "They are obligations of the
Government for which the United States has received nothing and for the payment of
which at any time it assumes the responsibility looking to the Federal Reserve to recoup
itself."
If the United States Government is to redeem the Federal Reserve notes when the
general public finds out what it costs to deliver this flood of paper money to the twelve
Federal Reserve banks, and if the Government has made no provision for redeeming
them, the first element of unsoundness is not far to seek.
Before the Banking and Currency Committee, when the Federal Reserve bill was
under discussion, Mr. Crozier, of Cincinnati, said:
In other words, the imperial power of elasticity of the public currency
is wielded exclusively by these central corporations owned by the
banks. This is a life and death power over all local banks and all
business. It can be used to create or destroy prosperity, to ward off
or cause stringencies and panics. By making money artificially scarce,
interest rates throughout the country can be arbitrarily raised and the
bank tax on all business and cost of living increased for the profit of
the banks owning these regional central banks, and without the
slightest benefit to the people. These twelve corporations together
cover the whole country and monopolize and use for private gain every
dollar of the public currency and all public revenue of the United
States. Not a dollar can be put into circulation among the people by
their Government without the consent of and on terms fixed by these
twelve private money trusts.
In defiance of this and all other warnings, the proponents of the Federal Reserve act
created the twelve private credit corporations and gave them an absolute monopoly of the
currency of the United States, not of the Federal Reserve notes alone, but of all the
currency, the Federal Reserve act providing ways by means of which the gold and
general currency in the hands of the American people could be obtained by the Federal
Reserve banks in exchange for Federal Reserve notes, which are not money, but merely
promises to pay money. Since the evil day when this was done the initial monopoly has
been extended by vicious amendments to the Federal Reserve act and by the unlawful and
treasonable practices of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks.
Mr. Chairman, when a Chinese merchant sells human hair to a Paris wigmaker and
bills him in dollars, the Federal Reserve banks can buy his bill against the wigmaker and
then use that bill as collateral for the Federal Reserve notes. The United States
Government thus pays the Chinese merchant the debt of the wigmaker and gets nothing
in return except a shady title to the Chinese hair.
Mr. Chairman, if a Scottish distiller wishes to send a cargo of Scotch whiskey to the
United States, he can draw his bill against the purchasing bootlegger in dollars; and after
the bootlegger has accepted it by writing his name across the face of it, the Scotch
distiller can send that bill to the nefarious open discount market in New York City, where
the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks will buy it and use it as
collateral for a new issue of Federal Reserve notes. Thus the Government of the United
States pays the Scotch distiller for the whiskey before it is shipped; and if it is lost on the
way, or if the Coast Guard seizes it and destroys it, the Federal Reserve banks simply
write off the loss and the Government never recovers the money that was paid to the
Scotch distiller. While we are attempting to enforce prohibition here, the Federal Reserve
Board and the Federal Reserve banks are financing the distillery business in Europe and
paying bootleggers' bills with the public credit of the United States Government.
Mr. Chairman, if a German brewer ships beer to this country or anywhere else in
the world and draws his bill for it in dollars, the Federal Reserve banks will buy that bill
and use it as collateral for Federal Reserve notes. Thus, they compel our Government to
pay the German brewer for his beer. Why should the Federal Reserve Board and the
Federal Reserve banks be permitted to finance the brewing industry in Germany, either in
this way or as they do by compelling small and fearful United States banks to take stock
in the Isenbeck brewery and in the German bank for brewing industries?
Mr. Chairman, if Dynamit Nobel of Germany wishes to sell dynamite to Japan to
use in Manchuria or elsewhere, it can draw its bill against the Japanese customers in
dollars and send that bill to the nefarious open discount market in New York City, where
the Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve banks will buy it and use it as collateral
for a new issue of Federal Reserve notes, while at the same time the Federal Reserve
Board will be helping Dynamit Nobel by stuffing its stock into the United States banking
system. Why should we send our representatives to the disarmament conference at
Geneva while the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks are making our
Government pay Japanese debts to German munition makers?
Mr. Chairman, if a bean grower of Chile wishes to raise a crop of beans and sell
them to a Japanese customer, he can draw a bill against his prospective Japanese
customer in dollars and have it purchased by the Federal Reserve Board and Federal
Reserve banks and get the money out of this country at the expense of the American
people before he has even planted the beans in the ground.
Mr. Chairman, if a German in Germany wishes to export goods to South America
or anywhere else, he can draw his bill against his customer and send it to the United
States and get the money out of this country before he ships or even manufactures the
goods.
Mr. Chairman, why should the currency of the United States be issued on the
strength of Chinese human hair? Why should it be issued on the trade whims of a
wigmaker? Why should it be issued on the strength of German beer? Why should it be
issued on the crop of unplanted beans to be grown in Chile for Japanese consumption?
Why should the Government of the United States be compelled to issue many billions of
dollars every year to pay the debts of one foreigner to another foreigner? Was it for this
that our national-bank depositors had their money taken out of our banks and shipped
abroad? Was it for this that they had to lose it? Why should the public credit of the
United States Government and likewise money belonging to our national-bank depositors
be used to support foreign brewers, narcotic drug vendors, whiskey distillers, wigmakers,
human-hair merchants, Chilean bean growers, and the like? Why should our national-
bank depositors and our Government be forced to finance the munition factories of
Germany and Soviet Russia?
Mr. Chairman, if a German in Germany, wishes to sell wheelbarrows to another
German, he can draw a bill in dollars and get the money out of the Federal Reserve banks
before an American farmer could explain his request for a loan to move his crop to
market. In Germany, when credit instruments are being given, the creditors say, "See
you, it must be of a kind that I can cash at the reserve." Other foreigners feel the same
way. The reserve to which these gentry refer is our reserve, which, as you know, is
entirely made up of money belonging to American bank depositors. I think foreigners
should cash their own trade paper and not send it over here to bankers who use it to fish
cash out of the pockets of the American people.
Mr. Chairman, there is nothing like the Federal Reserve pool of confiscated bank
deposits in the world. It is a public trough of American wealth in which foreigners claim
rights equal to or greater than those of Americans. The Federal Reserve banks are agents
of the foreign central banks. They use our bank depositors' money for the benefit of their
foreign principals. They barter the public credit of the United States Government and hire
it out to foreigners at a profit to themselves.
All this is done at the expense of the United States Government, and at a sickening
loss to the American people. Only our great wealth enabled us to stand the drain of it as
long as we did.
I believe that the nations of the world would have settled down after the World War
more peacefully if we had not had this standing temptation here -- this pool of our bank
depositors' money given to private interests and used by them in connection with
illimitable drafts upon the public credit of the United States Government. The Federal
Reserve Board invited the world to come in and to carry away cash, credit, goods, and
everything else of value that was movable. Values amounting to many billions of dollars
have been taken out of this country by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal
Reserve banks for the benefit of their foreign principals. The United States has been
ransacked and pillaged. Our structures have been gutted and only the walls are left
standing. While this crime was being perpetrated everything the world could rake up to
sell us was brought in here at our own expense by the Federal Reserve Board and the
Federal Reserve banks until our markets were swamped with unneeded and unwanted
imported goods priced far above their value and made to equal the dollar volume of our
honest exports and to kill or reduce our favorable balance of trade. As agents of the
foreign central banks, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks try by
every means within their power to reduce our favorable balance of trade. They act for
their foreign principals and they accept fees from foreigners for acting against the best
interests of the United States. Naturally there has been great competition among
foreigners for the favors of the Federal Reserve Board.
What we need to do is to send the reserves of our national banks home to the people
who earned and produced them and who still own them and to the banks which were
compelled to surrender them to predatory interests. We need to destroy the Federal
Reserve pool, wherein our national-bank reserves are impounded for the benefit of the
foreigners. We need to make it very difficult for outlanders to draw money away from us.
We need to save America for Americans.
 Mr. Chairman, when you hold a $10 Federal Reserve note in your hand you are
holding a piece of paper which sooner or later is going to cost the United States
Government $10 in gold, unless the Government is obliged to give up the gold standard.
It is protected by a reserve of 40 per cent. or $4 in gold. It is based on Limburger cheese,
reputed to be in foreign warehouses; or on cans purported to contain peas but which may
contain salt water instead; or on horse meat; illicit drugs; bootleggers' fancies; rags and
bones from Soviet Russia of which the United States imported over a million dollars'
worth last year; on wines, whiskey, natural gas, on goat or dog fur, garlic on the string, or
Bombay ducks. If you like to have paper money which is secured by such commodities,
you have it in the Federal Reserve note. If you desire to obtain the thing of value upon
which this paper currency is based -- that is, the Limburger cheese, the whiskey, the illicit
drugs, or any of the other staples -- you will have a very hard time finding them. Many of
these worshipful commodities are in foreign countries. Are you going to Germany to
inspect her warehouses to see if the specified things of value are there? I think not. And
what is more, I do not think you would find them there if you did go.
Immense sums belonging to our national-bank depositors have been given to
Germany on no collateral security whatever. The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal
Reserve banks have issued United States currency on mere finance drafts drawn by
Germans. Billions upon billions of our money has been pumped into Germany and
money is still being pumped into Germany by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal
Reserve banks. Her worthless paper is still being negotiated here and renewed here on the
public credit of the United States Government and at the expense of the American people.
On April 27, 1932, the Federal Reserve outfit sent $750,000, belonging to American bank
depositors, in gold to Germany. A week later, another $300,000 in gold was shipped to
Germany in the same way. About the middle of May $12,000,000 in gold was shipped to
Germany by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. Almost every
week there is a shipment of gold to Germany. These shipments are not made for profit on
the exchange since the German marks are below parity with the dollar.
Mr. Chairman, I believe that the national-bank depositors of the United States are
entitled to know what the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks are
doing with their money. There are millions of national-bank depositors in this country
who do not know that a percentage of every dollar they deposit in a member bank of the
Federal Reserve system goes automatically to American agents of the foreign banks and
that all their deposits can be paid away to foreigners without their knowledge or consent
by the crooked machinery of the Federal Reserve act and the questionable practices of the
Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. Mr. Chairman, the American
people should be told the truth by their servants in office.
In 1930 we had over half a billion dollars outstanding daily to finance foreign goods
stored in or shipped between countries. In its yearly total, this item amounts to several
billion dollars. What goods are those on which the Federal Reserve banks yearly pledge
several billions of dollars of the public credit of the United States? What goods are those
which are hidden in European and Asiatic storehouses and which have never been seen
by any officer of this Government, but which are being financed on the public credit of
the United States Government? What goods are those upon which the United States
Government is being obligated by the Federal Reserve banks to issue Federal Reserve
notes to the extent of several billions of dollars a year?
 The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks have been international
bankers from the beginning, with the United States Government as their enforced banker
and supplier of currency. But it is none the less extraordinary to see those twelve private
credit monopolies buying the debts of foreigners against foreigners in all parts of the
world and asking the Government of the United States for new issues of Federal Reserve
notes in exchange for them.
I see no reason why the American taxpayers should be hewers of wood and drawers
of water for the European and Asiatic customers of the Federal Reserve banks. I see no
reason why a worthless acceptance drawn by a foreign swindler as a means of getting
gold out of this country should receive the lowest and choicest rate from the Federal
Reserve Board and be treated as better security than the note of an American farmer
living on American land.
The magnitude of the acceptance racket, as it has been developed by the Federal
Reserve banks, their foreign correspondents, and the predatory European-born bankers
who set up the Federal Reserve institution here and taught our own brand of pirates how
to loot the people -- I say the magnitude of this racket is estimated to be in the
neighborhood of $9,000,000,000 a year. In the past ten years it is said to have amounted
to $90,000,000,000. In my opinion, it has amounted to several times as much. Coupled
with this you have, to the extent of billions of dollars, the gambling in the United States
securities, which takes place in the same open discount market -- a gambling upon which
the Federal Reserve Board is now spending $100,000,000 per week.
Federal Reserve notes are taken from the United States Government in unlimited
quantities. Is it strange that the burden of supplying these immense sums of money to the
gambling fraternity has at last proved too heavy for the American people to endure?
Would it not be a national calamity if the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve
banks should again bind this burden down on the backs of the American people and, by
means of the long rawhide whips of the credit masters, compel them to enter another
seventeen years of slavery? They are trying to do that now. They are taking $100,000,000
of the public credit of the United States Government every week in addition to all their
other seizures, and they are spending that money in the nefarious open market in New
York City in a desperate gamble to reestablish their graft as a going concern.
They are putting the United States Government in debt to the extent of
$100,000,000 a week, and with the money they are buying up our Government securities
for themselves and their foreign principals. Our people are disgusted with the
experiments of the Federal Reserve Board. The Federal Reserve Board is not producing a
loaf of bread, a yard of cloth, a bushel of corn, or a pile of cordwood by its check-kiting
operations in the money market.
A fortnight or so ago great aid and comfort was given to Japan by the firm of A.
Gerli & Sons, of New York, an importing firm, which bought $16,000,000 worth of raw
silk from the Japanese Government. Federal Reserve notes will be issued to pay that
amount to the Japanese Government, and these notes will be secured by money belonging
to our national-bank depositors.
Why should United States currency be issued on this debt? Why should United
States currency be issued to pay the debt of Gerli & Sons to the Japanese Government?
The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks think more of the silkworms
of Japan than they do of American citizens. We do not need $16,000,000 work of silk in
this country at the present time, not even to furnish work to dyers and finishers. We need
to wear home-grown and American-made clothes and to use our own money for our own
goods and staples. We could spend $16,000,000 in the United States of America on
American children and that would be a better investment for us than Japanese silk
purchased on the public credit of the United States Government.
Mr. Speaker, on the 13th of January of this year I addressed the House on the
subject of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. In the course of my remarks I made
the following statement:
In 1928 the member banks of the Federal Reserve system borrowed
$60,598,690,000 from the Federal Reserve banks on their fifteen-day
promissory notes. Think of it! Sixty billion dollars payable upon
demand in gold in the course of one single year. The actual payment of
such obligations calls for six times as much monetary gold as there is
in the entire world. Such transactions represent a grant in the course
of one single year of about $7,000,000 to every member bank of the
Federal Reserve system. Is it any wonder that there is a depression in
this country? Is it any wonder that American labor, which ultimately
pays the cost of all banking operations of this country, has at last
proved unequal to the task of supplying this huge total of cash and
credit for the benefit of the stock-market manipulators and foreign
swindlers?
Mr. Chairman, some of my colleagues have asked for more specific information
concerning this stupendous graft, this frightful burden which has been placed on the wage
earners and taxpayers of the United States for the benefit of the Federal Reserve Board
and the Federal Reserve banks. They were surprised to learn that member banks of the
Federal Reserve system had received the enormous sum of $60,598,690,000 from the
Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks on their promissory notes in the
course of one single year, namely, 1928. Another Member of this House, Mr. Beedy, the
honorable gentleman from Maine, has questioned the accuracy of my statement and has
informed me that the Federal Reserve Board denies absolutely that these figures are
correct. This Member has said to me that the thing is unthinkable, that it can not be, that
it is beyond all reason to think that the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve
banks should have so subsidized and endowed their favorite banks of the Federal Reserve
system. This Member is horrified at the thought of a graft so great, a bounty so
detrimental to the public welfare as sixty and a half billion dollars a year and more
shoveled out to favored banks of the Federal Reserve system.
In 1930, while the speculating banks were getting out of the stock market at the
expense of the general public, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks
advanced them $13,022,782,000. This shows that when the banks were gambling on the
public credit of the United States Government as represented by the Federal Reserve
currency, they were subsidized to any amount they required by the Federal Reserve
Board and the Federal Reserve banks. When the swindle began to fall, the bankers knew
it in advance and withdrew from the market. They got out with whole skins and left the
people of the United States to pay the piper.
On November 2, 1931, I addressed a letter to the Federal Reserve Board asking for
the aggregate total of member bank borrowing in the years 1928, 1929, 1930. In due
course, I received a reply from the Federal Reserve Board, dated November 9, 1931, the
pertinent part of which reads as follows:
My Dear Congressman:
In reply to your letter of November 2, you are advised that the
aggregate amount of fifteen-day promissory notes of member banks during
each of the past three calender years has been as follows:

1928 . . . . . . . . . . . . . $60,598,690,000
1929 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58,046,697,000
1930 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13,022,782,000
This will show the gentleman from Maine the accuracy of my statement. As for the denial
of these facts made to him by the Federal Reserve Board, I can only say that it must have
been prompted by fright, since hanging is too good for a Government board which
permitted such a misuse of Government funds and credit.
My friend from Kansas, Mr. McGugin, has stated that he thought the Federal
Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks lent money by rediscounting. So they do,
but they lend comparatively little that way. The real rediscounting that they do has been
called a mere penny in the slot business. It is too slow for genuine high flyers. They
discourage it. They prefer to subsidize their favorite banks by making these
$60,000,000,000 advances, and they prefer to acquire acceptances in the notorious open
discount market in New York, where they can use them to control the prices of stocks
and bonds on the exchanges. For every dollar they advanced on rediscounts in 1928 they
lent $33 to their favorite banks for gambling purposes. In other words, their rediscounts
in 1928 amounted to $1,814,271,000, while their loans to member banks amounted to
$60,598,690,000. As for their open-market operations, these are on a stupendous scale,
and no tax is paid on the acceptances they handle; and their foreign principals, for whom
they do a business of several billion dollars every year, pay no income tax on their profits
to the United States Government.
This is the John Law swindle all over again. The theft of Teapot Dome was trifling
compared to it. What king ever robbed his subjects to such an extent as the Federal
Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks have robbed us? Is it any wonder that there
have lately been ninety cases of starvation in one of the New York hospitals? Is there any
wonder that the children of this country are being dispersed and abandoned?
The Government and the people of the United States have been swindled by
swindlers deluxe to whom the acquisition of American gold or a parcel of Federal
Reserve notes presented no more difficulty than the drawing up of a worthless acceptance
in a country not subject to the laws of the United States, by sharpers not subject to the
jurisdiction of the United States courts, sharpers with a strong banking "fence" on this
side of the water -- a "fence" acting as a receiver of the worthless paper coming from
abroad, endorsing it and getting the currency out of the Federal Reserve banks for it as
quickly as possible, exchanging that currency for gold, and in turn transmitting the gold
to its foreign confederates.
Such were the exploits of Ivar Kreuger, Mr. Hoover's friend, and his hidden Wall
Street backers. Every dollar of the billions Kreuger and his gang drew out of this country
on acceptances was drawn from the Government and the people of the United States
through the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. The credit of the
United States Government was peddled to him by the Federal Reserve Board and the
Federal Reserve banks for their own private gain. That is what the Federal Reserve Board
and the Federal Reserve banks have been doing for many years. They have been peddling
the credit of this Government and the signature of this Government to the swindlers and
speculators of all nations. That is what happens when a country forsakes its Constitution
and gives its sovereignty over the public currency to private interests. Give them the flag
and they will sell it.
The nature of Kreuger's organized swindle and the bankrupt condition of Kreuger's
combine was known here last June when Hoover sought to exempt Kreuger's loan to
Germany of $125,000,000 from the operation of the Hoover moratorium. The bankrupt
condition of Kreuger's swindle was known here last summer when $30,000,000 was
taken from the American taxpayers by certain bankers in New York for the ostensible
purpose of permitting Kreuger to make a loan to Colombia. Colombia never saw that
money. The nature of Kreuger's swindle and the bankrupt condition of Kreuger was
known here in January when he visited his friend, Mr. Hoover, at the White House. It was
known here in March before he went to Paris and committed suicide there.
Mr. Chairman, I think the people of the United States are entitled to know how
many billions of dollars were placed at the disposal of Kreuger and his gigantic combine
by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks and to know how much of
our Government currency was issued and lost in the financing of that great swindle in the
years during which the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks took care
of Kreuger's requirements.
Mr. Chairman, I believe there should be a congressional investigation of the
operations of Kreuger and Toll in the United States and that Swedish Match, International
Match, the Swedish-American Investment Corporation, and all related enterprises,
including the subsidiary companies of Kreuger and Toll, should be investigated and that
the issuance of United States currency in connection with those enterprises and the use of
our national-bank depositors' money for Kreuger's benefit should be made known to the
general public. I am referring, not only to the securities which were floated and sold in
this country, but also to the commercial loans to Kreuger's enterprises and the mass
financing of Kreuger's companies by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve
banks and the predatory institutions which the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal
Reserve banks shield and harbor.
A few days ago, the President of the United States, with a white face and shaking
hands, went before the Senate on behalf of the moneyed interests and asked the Senate to
levy a tax on the people so that foreigners might know that the United States would pay
its debt to them. Most Americans thought it was the other way around. What do the
United States owe to foreigners? When and by whom was the debt incurred? It was
incurred by the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks when they peddled
the signature of this Government to foreigners for a price. It is what the United States
Government has to pay to redeem the obligations of the Federal Reserve Board and the
Federal Reserve banks. Are you going to let those thieves get off scot free? Is there one
law for the looter who drives up to the door of the United States Treasury in his
limousine and another for the United States veterans who are sleeping on the floor of a
dilapidated house on the outskirts of Washington?
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad is here asking for a large loan from the people and
the wage earners and the taxpayers of the United States. It is begging for a hand-out from
the Government. It is standing, cap in hand, at the door of the Reconstruction Finance
Corporation, where all the other jackals have gathered to the feast. It is asking for money
that was raised from the people by taxation, and wants this money of the poor for the
benefit of Kuhn, Loeb, & Co., the German international bankers. Is there one law for the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and another for the needy veterans it threw off its freight cars
the other day? Is there one law for sleek and prosperous swindlers who call themselves
bankers and another law for the soldiers who defended the United States flag?
Mr. Chairman, some people are horrified because the collateral behind Kreuger and
Toll debentures was removed and worthless collateral substituted for it. What is this but
what is being done daily by the Federal Reserve banks? When the Federal Reserve act
was passed, the Federal Reserve banks were allowed to substitute "other like collateral"
for collateral behind Federal Reserve notes but by an amendment obtained at the request
of the corrupt and dishonest Federal Reserve Board, the act was changed so that the word
"like" was stricken out. All that immense trouble was taken here in Congress so that the
law would permit the Federal Reserve banks to switch collateral. At the present time
behind the scenes in the Federal Reserve banks there is a night-and-day movement of
collateral. A visiting Englishman, leaving the United States a few weeks ago, said that
things would look better here after "they cleaned up the mess at Washington." Cleaning
up the mess consists in fooling the people and making them pay a second time for the bad
foreign investments of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. It
consists in moving that heavy load of dubious and worthless foreign paper -- the bills of
wigmakers, brewers, distillers, narcotic-drug vendors, munition makers, illegal finance
drafts, and worthless foreign securities, out of the banks and putting it on the back of
American labor. That is what the Reconstruction Finance Corporation is doing now. They
talk about loans to banks and railroads but they say very little about that other business of
theirs which consists in relieving the swindlers who promoted investment trusts in this
country and dumped worthless foreign securities into them and then resold that mess of
pottage to American investors under cover of their own corporate titles. The
Reconstruction Finance Corporation is taking over those worthless securities from those
investment trusts with United States Treasury money at the expense of the American
taxpayer and the wage earner.
It will take us twenty years to redeem our Government. Twenty years of penal
servitude to pay off the gambling debts of the traitorous Federal Reserve Board and the
Federal Reserve banks and to earn again that vast flood of American wages and savings,
bank deposits, and United States Government credit which the Federal Reserve Board
and the Federal Reserve banks exported out of this country to their foreign principals.
The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks lately conducted an anti-
hoarding campaign here. Then they took that extra money which they had persuaded the
American people to put into the banks and they sent it to Europe along with the rest. In
the last several months, they have sent $1,300,000,000 in gold to their foreign employers,
their foreign masters, and every dollar of that gold belonged to the people of the United
States and was unlawfully taken from them.
Is not it high time that we had an audit of the Federal Reserve Board and the
Federal Reserve banks and an examination of all our Government bonds and securities
and public moneys instead of allowing the corrupt and dishonest Federal Reserve Board
and the Federal Reserve banks to speculate with those securities and this cash in the
notorious open discount market of New York City?
Mr. Chairman, within the limits of the time allowed me, I can not enter into a
particularized discussion of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. I
have singled out the Federal Reserve currency for a few remarks because there has lately
been some talk here of "fiat money." What kind of money is being pumped into the open
discount market and through it into foreign channels and stock exchanges? Mr. Mills of
the Treasury has spoken here of his horror of the printing presses and his horror of
dishonest money. He has no horror of dishonest money. If he had, he would be no party
to the present gambling of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks in
the nefarious open discount market of New York, a market in which the sellers are
represented by ten great discount dealer corporations owned and organized by the very
banks which own and control the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks.
Fiat money, indeed!
After the several raids on the Treasury Mr. Mills borrows the speech of those who
protested against those raids and speaks now with pretended horror of a raid on the
Treasury. Where was Mr. Mills last October when the United States Treasury needed
$598,000,000 of the taxpayers' money which was supposed to be in the safe-keeping of
Andrew W. Mellon in the designated depositories of Treasury funds, and which was not
in those depositories when the Treasury needed it? Mr. Mills was the Assistant Secretary
of the Treasury then, and he was at Washington throughout October, with the exception
of a very significant week he spent at White Sulphur Springs closeted with international
bankers, while the Italian minister, Signor Grandi, was being entertained -- and bargained
with -- at Washington.
What Mr. Mills is fighting for is the preservation whole and entire of the banker's
monopoly of all the currency of the United States Government. What Mr. Patman
proposes is that the Government shall exercise its sovereignty to the extent of issuing
some currency for itself. This conflict of opinion between Mr. Mills as the spokesman of
the bankers and Mr. Patman as the spokesman of the people brings the currency situation
here into the open. Mr. Patman and the veterans are confronted by a stone wall -- the wall
that fences in the bankers with their special privileges. Thus, the issue is joined between
the host of democracy, of which the veterans are a part, and the men of the king's bank,
the would-be aristocrats, who deflated American agriculture and robbed this country for
the benefit of their foreign principals.
Mr. Chairman, last December, I introduced a resolution here asking for an
examination and an audit of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks
and all related matters. If the House sees fit to make such an investigation, the people of
the United States will obtain information of great value. This is a Government of the
people, by the people, for the people. Consequently, nothing should be concealed from
the people. The man who deceives the people is a traitor to the United States. The man
who knows or suspects that a crime has been committed and who conceals or covers up
that crime is an accessory to it. Mr. Speaker, it is a monstrous thing for this great Nation
of people to have its destinies presided over by a traitorous Government board acting in
secret concert with international usurers. Every effort has been made by the Federal
Reserve Board to conceal its power but the truth is the Federal Reserve Board has
usurped the Government of the United States. It controls everything here and it controls
all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will. No man and no body
of men is more entrenched in power than the arrogant credit monopoly which operates
the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. These evil-doers have robbed
this country of more than enough money to pay the national debt. What the National
Government has permitted the Federal Reserve Board to steal from the people should
now be restored to the people. The people have a valid claim against the Federal Reserve
Board and the Federal Reserve banks. If that claim is enforced, Americans will not need
to stand in the breadlines or to suffer and die of starvation in the streets. Homes will be
saved, families will be kept together, and American children will not be dispersed and
abandoned. The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks owe the United
States Government an immense sum of money. We ought to find out the exact amount of
the people's claim. We should know the amount of the indebtedness of the Federal
Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks to the people and we should investigate
this treacherous and disloyal conduct of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal
Reserve banks.
Here is a Federal Reserve note. Immense numbers of these notes are now held
abroad. I am told that they amount to upwards of a billion dollars. They constitute a claim
against our Government and likewise a claim against the money our people have
deposited in the member banks of the Federal Reserve system. Our people's money to the
extent of $1,300,000,000 which has within the last few months been shipped abroad to
redeem Federal Reserve notes and to pay other gambling debts of the traitorous Federal
Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. The greater part of our monetary stock has
been shipped to foreigners. Why should we promise to pay the debts of foreigners to
foreigners? Why should our Government be put into the position of supplying money to
foreigners? Why should the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks be
permitted to finance our competitors in all parts of the world? Do you know why the
tariff was raised? It was raised to shut out the flood of Federal Reserve goods pouring in
here from every quarter of the globe -- cheap goods, produced by cheaply paid foreign
labor on unlimited supplies of money and credit sent out of this country by the dishonest
and unscrupulous Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. Go out in
Washington to buy an electric light bulb and you will probably be offered one that was
made in Japan on American money. Go out to buy a pair of fabric gloves and
inconspicuously written on the inside of the gloves that will be offered to you will be
found the words "made in Germany" and that means "made on the public credit of the
United States Government paid to German firms in American gold taken from the
confiscated bank deposits of the American people."
The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks are spending
$100,000,000 a week buying Government securities in the open market and are making a
great bid for foreign business. They are trying to make rates so attractive that the human-
hair merchants and distillers and other business entities in foreign lands will come here
and hire more of the public credit of the United States Government and pay the Federal
Reserve outfit for getting it for them.
Mr. Chairman, when the Federal Reserve act was passed, the people of the United
States did not perceive that a world system was being set up here which would make the
savings of an American school-teacher available to a narcotic-drug vendor in Macao.
They did not perceive that the United States were to be lowered to the position of a coolie
country which has nothing but raw materials and heavy goods for export; that Russia was
destined to supply the man power and that this country was to supply financial power to
an international superstate -- a superstate controlled by international bankers and
international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.
The people of the United States are being greatly wronged. If they are not, then I do
not know what "wronging the people" means. They have been driven from their
employments. They have been dispossessed of their homes. They have been evicted from
their rented quarters. They have lost their children. They have been left to suffer and to
die for lack of shelter, food, clothing, and medicine.
The wealth of the United States and the working capital of the United States has
been taken away from them and has either been locked in the vaults of certain banks and
the great corporations or exported to foreign countries for the benefit of the foreign
customers of those banks and corporations. So far as the people of the United States are
concerned, the cupboard is bare. It is true that the warehouses and coal yards and grain
elevators are full, but the warehouses and coal yards and grain elevators are padlocked
and the great banks and corporations hold the keys. The sack of the United States by the
Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks is the greatest crime in history.
Mr. Chairman, a serious situation confronts the House of Representatives to-day.
We are trustees of the people and the rights of the people are being taken away from
them. Through the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks, the people are
losing the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Their property has been taken
from them without due process of law. Mr. Chairman, common decency requires us to
examine the public accounts of the Government and see what crimes against the public
welfare have and are being committed.
What is needed here is a return to the Constitution of the United States. We need to
have a complete divorce of Bank and State. The old struggle that was fought out here in
Jackson's day must be fought over again. The independent United States Treasury should
be re-established and the Government should keep its own money under lock and key in
the building the people provided for that purpose. Asset currency, the device of the
swindler, should be done away with. The Government should buy gold and issue United
States currency on it. The business of the independent bankers should be restored to
them. The State banking systems should be freed from coercion The Federal Reserve
districts should be abolished and the State boundaries should be respected. Bank reserves
should be kept within the borders of the States whose people own them, and this reserve
money of the people should be protected so that the international bankers and acceptance
bankers and discount dealers can not draw it away from them. The exchanges should be
closed while we are putting our financial affairs in order. The Federal Reserve act should
be repealed and the Federal Reserve banks, having violated their charters, should be
liquidated immediately. Faithless Government officers who have violated their oaths of
office should be impeached and brought to trial. Unless this is done by us, I predict that
the American people, outraged, robbed, pillaged, insulted, and betrayed as they are in
their own land, will rise in their wrath and send a President here who will sweep the
money changers out of the temple.