http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi2gOhvpOHg (The Money Masters – part 9 of 22)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyaj30n8kZY (The Money Masters – part 10 of 22)
The following excerpts from
The Money Masters can be viewed in the two youtube clips above.
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A truly incredible editorial in the London Times explained the central bankers' attitude towards Lincoln's
Greenbacks:
"If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become endurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous without precedent in the history of the world. The brains, and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That country must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." -- Times of London
[...]
Allegations that international bankers were responsible for Lincoln's assassination surfaced in Canada 70 years later in 1934. Gerald G. McGeer, a popular and well-respected Canadian attorney, revealed this stunning charge in a five hour speech before the Canadian House of Commons blasting Canada's debt-based money system. Remember: it was 1934, the height of the Great Depression, which was ravaging Canada as well. McGeer had obtained evidence -- deleted from the public record -- provided to him by Secret Service agents at the trial of John Wilks Booth, after Booth's death. McGeer said it showed that Booth was a mercenary working for the international bankers. According to an article in the Vancouver Sun of May 2, 1934:
"Abraham Lincoln, the martyred Emancipator of the Slaves, was assassinated through the machinations of a group representative of the international bankers who feared the United States President's national credit ambitions....
"'There was only one group in the world at that time who...had any reason to desire the death of Lincoln.
"'They were the men opposed to his national currency program, and who had fought him throughout the whole of the Civil War on his policy of greenback currency.'"
Interestingly, McGeer claimed that Lincoln was assassinated not only because international bankers wanted to reestablish a central bank in America, but because they also wanted to base America's currency on gold -- gold
they controlled. In other words: put America on a
gold standard. Lincoln had done just the opposite by issuing U.S. notes -- Greenbacks -- which were based purely on the good faith and credit of the United States. The article quoted McGeer as saying:
"'They were the men interested in the establishment of the Gold Standard...and the right of the bankers to manage the currency and credit of every nation in the world.
"'With Lincoln out of the way they were able to proceed with that plan, and did proceed with it in the United States. Within eight years after Lincoln's assassination silver was demonetized and the Gold Standard money system set up in the United States.'"
Not since Lincoln has the U.S. issued debt-free United States notes.
[...]
With Lincoln out of the way, the money changers' next objective was to gain complete control over America's money. This was no easy task. With the opening of the American west, silver had been discovered in huge quantities. On top of that, Lincoln's Greenbacks were generally popular. Despite the European central bankers' deliberate attacks on Greenbacks, they continued to circulate in the United States -- in fact until a few years ago. According to historian W. Cleon Skousen:
"Right after the Civil War there was considerable talk about reviving Lincoln's brief experiment with the Constitutional monetary system. Had not the European money-trust intervened, it would have no doubt become an established institution." -- W. Cleon Skousen
It is clear that the concept of America printing her own debt-free money sent shock waves throughout the European central banking elite. They watched with horror as Americans clamored for more Greenbacks. They may have killed Lincoln, but support for his monetary ideas grew.
On April 12, 1866, nearly one year to the day of Lincoln's assassination, Congress went to work at the bidding of the European central banking interests. It passed the Contraction Act, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to begin to retire some of the Greenbacks in circulation, and thereby contract the money supply. Authors Theodore R. Thoren and Richard F. Warner explained the results of the money contraction in their classic book on the subject,
The Truth In Money Book:
"The hard times which occurred after the Civil War could have been avoided if the Greenback legislation had continued as President Lincoln had intended. Instead, there were a series of money panics -- what we call 'recessions' -- which put pressure on Congress to enact legislation to place the banking system under centralized control. Eventually, the Federal Reserve Act was passed on December 23, 1913."
In other words, the money changers wanted two things: (1) the reinstitution of a central bank under their exclusive control, and (2) an American currency backed by gold. Their strategy was two-fold.
First of all, cause a series of panics to try to convince the American people that only centralized control of the money supply could provide economic stability.
And secondly, remove so much money from the system, that most Americans would be so desperately poor that they either wouldn't care or would be too weak to oppose the bankers.
In 1866, there was $1.8 billion in currency in circulation in the United States -- about $50.46 per capita. In 1867 alone, half a billion dollars...was removed from the U.S. money supply. Ten years later, in 1876, America's money supply was reduced to only $600 million. In other words, 2/3 of America's money had been called in by the bankers. Only $14.60 per capita remained in circulation. Ten years later [in 1886], the money supply had been reduced to only $400 million, even though the population had boomed. The result was that only $6.67 per capita remained in circulation -- a 760% loss in buying power over 20 years.
Today, economists try to sell the idea that recessions and depressions are a natural part of something they call the "business cycle." The truth is, our money supply is manipulated now just as it was before and after the Civil War.
How did this happen? How did money become so scarce? Simple. Bank loans were called in, and no new ones were given. In addition, silver coins were melted down. In 1872, a man named Ernest Seyd was given a hundred thousand pounds -- about $500 thousand -- by the Bank of England and sent to America to bribe necessary Congressmen to get silver demonetized. He was told that if that was not sufficient, to draw an additional hundred thousand pounds, or as much more as was necessary.
The next year Congress passed the Coinage Act of 1873, and the minting of silver dollars abruptly stopped. In fact, Representative Samuel Hooper, who introduced the bill in the House, acknowledged that Mr. Seyd actually drafted the legislation. But it gets even worse than that. In 1874, Seyd himself admitted who was behind the scheme:
"I went to America in the winter of 1872-73, authorized to secure, if I could, the passage of a bill demonetizing silver. It was in the interest of those I represented -- the governors of the Bank of England -- to have it done. By 1873, gold coins were the only form of coin money." -- Ernest Seyd
But the contest over control of America's money was not yet over. Only three years later, in 1876, with one-third of America's workforce unemployed, the population was growing restless. People were clamoring for a return to the Greenback money system of President Lincoln, or a return to silver money -- anything that would make money more plentiful. That year, Congress created the United States Silver Commission to study the problem. Their report clearly blamed the monetary contraction on the national bankers. The report is interesting, because it compares the deliberate money contraction by the national bankers after the Civil War to the fall of the Roman Empire:
"The disaster of the Dark Ages was caused by decreasing money and falling prices.... Without money, civilization could not have had a beginning, and with a diminishing supply, it must languish and unless relieved, finally perish.
"At the Christian era the metallic money of the Roman Empire amounted to $1,800,000,000. By the end of the Fifteenth century it had shrunk to less than $200,000,000.... History records no other such disastrous transition as that from the Roman Empire to the Dark Ages." -- United States Silver Commission
Despite this report by the Silver Commission, Congress took no action. The next year, 1877, riots broke out from Pittsburgh to Chicago. The torches of starving vandals lit up the sky. The bankers huddled to decide what to do. They decided to hang on. Now that they were back in control (to a certain extent), they were not about to give it up.
At the meeting of the American Bankers Association that year, they urged their membership to do everything in their power to put down the notion of a return to Greenbacks. The ABA secretary, James Buel, authored a letter to the members which blatantly called on the banks to subvert not only Congress but the press:
"It is advisable to do all in your power to sustain such prominent daily and weekly newspapers, especially the Agricultural and Religious Press, as will oppose the Greenback issue of paper money and that you will also withhold patronage from all applicants who are not willing to oppose the government issue of money.
"....To repeal the Act creating bank notes, or to restore to circulation the government issue of money will be to provide the people with money and will therefore seriously affect our individual profits as bankers and lenders.
"See your Congressman at once and engage him to support our interests that we may control legislation." -- James Buel, American Bankers Association
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