The 1930s,
Congressional Expose
excerpted from the book
The Secrets of the Federal Reserve
by Eustace Mullins
Bankers Research Institute, 1983,
paperback
(originally published in 1952
as "Mullins on the Federal Reserve")
p153
During this tragic period [the Depression], chairman Louis McFadden
of the House Banking and Currency Committee continued his lone
crusade against the "London Connection" which had wrecked
the nation. On June 10, 1932, McFadden addressed the House of
Representatives:
"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. The Federal Reserve banks are the
agents of the foreign central banks. Henry Ford has said, 'The
one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of
inextinguishable debts.' The truth is the Federal Reserve Board
has usurped the Government of the United States by the arrogant
credit monopoly which operates the Federal Reserve Board and the
Federal Reserve Banks."
On January 13, 1932, McFadden had introduced
a resolution indicting the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
for "Criminal Conspiracy".
"Whereas I charge them, jointly
and severally, with the crime of having treasonably conspired
and acted against the peace and security of the United States
and having treasonably conspired to destroy constitutional government
in the United States. Resolved, that the Committee on the Judiciary
is authorized and directed as a whole or by subcommittee to investigate
the official conduct of the Federal Reserve Board and agents to
determine whether, in the opinion of the said committee, they
have been guilty of any high crime or misdemeanor which in the
contemplation of the Constitution requires the interposition of
the Constitutional powers of the House."
No action was taken on this Resolution.
McFadden came back on December 13, 1932 with a motion to impeach
President Herbert Hoover. Only five Congressmen stood with him
on this, and the resolution failed. The Republican majority leader
of the House remarked, "Louis T. McFadden is now politically
dead."
On May 23, 1933, McFadden introduced House
Resolution No. 158, Articles of Impeachment against the Secretary
of the Treasury, two Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury, the
Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and officers and directors
of the Federal Reserve Banks for their guilt and collusion in
causing the Great Depression. "I charge them with having
unlawfully taken over 80 billion dollars from the United States
Government in the year 1928, the said unlawful taking consisting
of the unlawful recreation of claims against the United States
Treasury to the extent of over 80 billion dollars in the year
1928, and in each year subsequent, and by having robbed the United
States Government and the people of the United States by their
theft and sale of the gold reserve of the United States."
The Resolution never reached the floor.
A whispering campaign that McFadden was insane swept Washington,
and in the next Congressional elections, he was overwhelmingly
defeated by thousands of dollars poured into his home district
of Canton, Pennsylvania.
p155
[Franklin] Roosevelt owed his political career to a fortuitous
circumstance. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World
War 1, because of old school ties, he had intervened to prevent
prosecution of a large ring of homosexuals in the Navy which included
several Groton and Harvard chums. This brought him to the favorable
attention of a wealthy international homosexual set which travelled
back and forth between New York and Paris, and which was presided
over by Bessie Marbury, of a very old and prominent New York family.
Bessie's "wife", who lived with her for a number of
years, was Elsie de Wolfe, later Lady Mendell in a "manage
de convenance' the arbiter of the international set. They recruited
J.P. Morgan's youngest daughter, Anne Morgan, into their circle,
and used her fortune to restore the Villa Trianon in Paris, which
became their headquarters. During World War I, it was used as
a hospital. Bessie Marbury expected to be awarded the Legion of
Honor by the French Government as a reward, but J.P. Morgan, Jr.,
who despised her for corrupting his youngest sister, requested
the French Government to withhold the award, which they did. Smarting
from this rebuff, Bessie Marbury threw herself into politics,
and became a power in the Democratic National Party. She had also
recruited Eleanor Roosevelt into her circle, and, during a visit
to Hyde Park, Eleanor confided that she was desperate to find
something for "poor Franklin" to do, as he was confined
to a wheelchair, and was very depressed.
"I know what well do," exclaimed
Bessie. "We'll run him for Governor of New York!" Because
of her power, she succeeded in this goal, and Roosevelt later
became President.
p155
Franklin D. Roosevelt himself was an international banker of ill
repute, having floated large issues of foreign bonds in this country
in the 1920s. These bonds defaulted, and our citizens lost millions
of dollars, but they still wanted Mr. Roosevelt as President.
The New York Directory of Directors lists Mr. Roosevelt as President
and Director of United European Investors, Ltd., in 1923 and 1924,
which floated many millions of German marks in this country, all
of which defaulted. Poor's Directory of Directors lists him as
a director of The International Germanic Trust Company in 1928.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was also an advisor to the Federal International
Banking Corporation, an Anglo-American outfit dealing in foreign
securities in the United States.
Roosevelt's law firm of Roosevelt and
O'Connor during the 1920s represented many international corporations.
His law partner, Basil O'Connor, was a director in the following
corporations:
Cuban-American Manganese Corporation,
Venezuela-Mexican Oil Corporation, Honduras Timber Corporation,
Federal International Corporation, West Indies Sugar Corporation,
American Reserve Insurance Corporation, Warm Springs Foundation.
He was director in other corporations, and later head of the American
Red Cross.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt took office
as President of the United States, he appointed as Director of
the Budget James Paul Warburg, son of Paul Warburg, and Vice President
of the International Acceptance Bank and other corporations. Roosevelt
appointed as Secretary of the Treasury W.H. Woodin, one of the
biggest industrialists in the country, Director of the American
Car and Foundry Company and numerous other locomotive works, Remington
Arms, The Cuba Company, Consolidated Cuba Railroads, and other
big corporations. Woodin was later replaced by Henry Morgenthau,
Jr., son of the Harlem real estate operator who had helped put
Woodrow Wilson in the White House. With such a crew as this, Roosevelt's
promises of radical social changes showed little likelihood of
fulfillment. One of the first things he did was to declare a bankers'
moratorium, to help the bankers get their records in order.
World's Work says:
"Congress has left Charles G. Dawes
and Eugene Meyer, Jr. free to appraise, by their own methods,
the security which prospective borrowers of the two billion dollar
capital may offer".
Roosevelt also set up the Securities Exchange
Commission, to see to it that no new faces got into the Wall Street
gang...
p157
Senator Robert L. Owen, testifying before the House Committee
on Banking and Currency in 1938 said:
"I wrote into the bill which was
introduced by me in the Senate on June 26, 1913, a provision that
the powers of the System should be employed to promote a stable
price level, which meant a dollar of stable purchasing, debt-paying
power. It was stricken out. The powerful money interests got control
of the Federal Reserve Board through Mr. Paul Warburg, Mr. Albert
Strauss, and Mr. Adolph C. Miller and they were able to have that
secret meeting of May 18, 1920, and bring about a contraction
of credit so violent it threw five million people out of employment.
In 1920 that Reserve Board deliberately caused the Panic of 1921.
The same people, unrestrained in the stock market, expanding credit
to a great excess between 1926 and 1929, raised the price of stocks
to a fantastic point where they could not possibly earn dividends,
and when the people realized this, they tried to get out, resulting
in the Crash of October 24, 1929".
Senator Owen did not go into the question
of whether the Federal Reserve Board could be held responsible
to the public. Actually, they cannot. They are public officials
who are appointed by the President, but their salaries are paid
by the private stockholders of the Federal Reserve Banks.
Governor W.P.G. Harding of the Federal
Reserve Board testified in 1921 that:
"The Federal Reserve Bank is an
institution owned by the stockholding member banks. The Government
has not a dollar's worth of stock in it".
However, the Government does give the
Federal Reserve System the use of its billions of dollars of credit,
and this gives the Federal Reserve its characteristic of a central
bank, the power to issue currency on the Government's credit.
We do not have Federal Government notes or gold certificates as
currency. We have Federal Reserve Bank notes, issued by the Federal
Reserve Banks, and every dollar they print is a dollar in their
pocket.
W. Randolph Burgess, of the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York, stated before the Academy of Political Science
in 1930 that:
"In its major principles of operation
the Federal Reserve System is no different from other banks of
issue, such as the Bank of England, the Bank of France, or the
Reichsbank".
p159
The Banking Act of 1935 repealed the clause of the Glass-Steagall
Banking Act of 1933, which had provided that a banking house could
not be on the Stock Exchange and also be involved in investment
banking.
... When the provision that banks could
not be involved in investment banking and operate on the Stock
Exchange was repealed in 1935, Carter Glass, originator of that
provision, was asked by reporters:
"Does that mean that J.P. Morgan
can go back into investment banking?"
"Well, why not?" replied Senator
Glass. "There has been an outcry all over the country that
the banks will not make loans. Now the Morgans can go back to
underwriting."
Because that provision was unfavorable
to them, the bankers had simply clamped down on making loans until
it was repealed.
p161
Senator Robert L Owen [at the Gold Reserve hearings of 1934]
"The people did not know the Federal
Reserve Banks were organized for profit-making. They were intended
to stabilize the credit and currency supply of the country. That
end has not been accomplished... The Federal Reserve men are chosen
by the big banks, through discreet little campaigns, and they
naturally follow the ideals which are portrayed to them as the
soundest from a financial point of view."
p162
Governor Marriner Eccles, before the House Banking and Currency
Committee on June 24, 1941
said:
"Money is created out of the right
to issue credit-money."
Turning over the Government's credit to
private bankers in 1913 gave them unlimited opportunities to create
money.
The Federal Reserve System could also
destroy money in large quantities through open market operations.
Eccles said, at the Silver Hearings of 1939:
p162
Governor Marriner Eccles, before the House Banking and Currency
Committee on September 30, 1940
"If there were no debts in our money
system, there would be no money."
p164
Governor Marriner Eccles testimony [before the House Banking and
Currency Committee] exposed the heart of the money machine which
Paul Warburg revealed to his incredulous fellow bankers at Jekyll
Island in 1910. Most Americans comment that they cannot understand
how the Federal Reserve System operates. It remains beyond understanding,
not because it is complex, but because it is so simple. If a confidence
man comes up to you and offers to demonstrate his marvelous money
machine, you watch while he puts in a blank piece of paper, and
cranks out a $100 bill. That is the Federal Reserve System. You
then offer to buy this marvelous money machine, but you cannot.
It is owned by the private stockholders of the Federal Reserve
Banks, whose identities can be traced partially, but not completely,
to "the London Connection."
... the most incredible part of the Federal
Reserve operation and one which is difficult for anyone to understand
[is] how can any American citizen grasp the concept that there
are people in this country who have the power to make an entry
in a ledger that the government of the United States now owes
them one billion dollars, and to collect the principal and interest
on this "loan".
p164
Congressman Wright Patman about the Federal Reserve, in "The
Primer of Money"
"The cash, in truth, does not exist
and has never existed. What we call 'cash reserves' are simply
bookkeeping credits entered upon ledgers of the Federal Reserve
Banks. The credits are created by the Federal Reserve Banks and
then passed along through the banking system."
p165
Congressman Wright Patman about the Federal Reserve, (Money Facts,
House Banking and Currency Committee, 1964)
"The dollar represents a one dollar
debt to the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Banks
create money out of thin air to buy Government bonds from the
United States Treasury, lending money into circulation at interest,
by bookkeeping entries of checkbook credit to the United States
Treasury. The Treasury writes up an interest bearing bond for
one billion dollars. The Federal Reserve gives the Treasury a
one billion dollar credit for the bond, and has created out of
nothing a one billion dollar debt which the American people are
obligated to pay with interest."
... "Where does the Federal Reserve
system get the money with which to create Bank Reserves? Answer.
It doesn't get the money, it creates it. When the Federal Reserve
writes a check, it is creating money. The Federal Reserve is a
total moneymaking machine. It can issue money or checks."
p166
Milton Friedman, Newsweek, May 2, 1983
"The Federal Reserve's major function
is to determine the ) money supply. It has the power to increase
or decrease the money supply at any rate it chooses."
p167
Senate Document No 23, presented on January 24, 1939
"The Government should create, issue
and circulate currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending
power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. The
privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme
prerogative of Government, but it is the Government's greatest
creative opportunity."
p167
Governor Marriner Eccles at Hearings before the House Committee
on Banking a Currency on June 24, 1941
"The banks create money when they
make loans and investments."
p167
Governor Marriner Eccles at Hearings before the House Committee
on Banking a Currency on June 24, 1941
"If there were no debts in our money
system, there wouldn't be any money."
p168
Governor Marriner Eccles at Hearings before the House Committee
on Banking a Currency on June 24, 1941
"[Monetization of the public debt
[means the Federal Reserve] bank creating money by the purchase
of Government securities. All money is created by debt-either
private or public debt."
p168
Secretary of the Treasury Anderson, at the Hearings before the
House Committee on Banking a Currency on June 24, 1941
"Banks are different from other
lending institutions. When a savings association, an insurance
company, or a credit union makes a loan, it lends the very dollar
that its customers have previously paid in. But when a bank makes
a loan, it simply adds to the borrower's deposit account in the
bank by the amount of the loan. The money is not taken from anyone.
It is new money, recreated by the bank, for the use of the borrower."
p171
a well-known economist about Paul Volker's appointment as chairman
of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
"Volcker's selection has been by
far the worst. Carter has put Dracula in charge of the blood bank.
To us, it means a crash and depression in the 80s is more certain
than ever."
p172
Who was [Paul] Volcker, that his appointment could have such an
effect on the stock market and the value of the dollar in foreign
exchange? He represented the most powerful houses of "the
London Connection:' Brown Brothers Harriman, and the London houses
which directed the Rockefeller empire. On July 29, 1979, The Times
had said of Volcker, "New Man Will Chart His Own Course".
Volcker's background shows that this was
nonsense. His course has always been charted for him by his masters
in London. He attended Princeton, obtained an M.A. at Harvard,
and went to the London School of Economics 1951-52, the banker's
graduate school. He then came to the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York as an economist from 1952-57, economist at Chase Manhattan
Bank, 1957-61, with Treasury Department 1961-65, as deputy under
secretary for monetary affairs, 1963-65, and under secretary for
monetary affairs, 1969-74. He then became President of the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York from 1975-79, when Carter, at the behest
of Robert Roosa and David Rockefeller, appointed him Chairman
of the Federal Reserve Board of Governor. He was succeeded as
President of Federal Reserve Bank of New York by Anthony Solomon...
... Behind Volcker and Solomon stands
Robert Roosa, Secretary of the Treasury in Carter's shadow cabinet,
and representing Brown Brothers Harriman, the Trilateral Commission,
the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderbergers, and the Royal
Economic Institute. He is a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation",
and a director of Texaco and American Express companies. Dr. Martin
Larson points out that "The international consortium of financiers
known as the Bilderbergers, who meet annually in profound secrecy
to determine the destiny of the western world, is a creature of
the Rockefeller-Rothschild alliance... Larson also states that
"The Rockefeller interests work in close alliance with the
Rothschilds and other central banks."
p173
In reality, [Paul] Volker is more of a
politician than an economist. After attending the London School
of Economics, and finding out who issues the orders of the international
financial community, Volcker has ever since played the game. Not
once has he failed to carry out the orders of the "London
Connection".
Can it really be possible that "The
London Connection" exists, and that men like Volcker and
Solomon receive their instructions, in however devious or indirect
a manner, from foreign bankers.
p174
The direct line which leads from the participants in the Jekyll
Island Conference of 1910 to the present day is illustrated by
a passage from "A Primer on Money ", Committee on Banking
and Currency, U.S. House of Representatives, 88th congress, 2nd
session, August 5, 1964, p. 75
"The practical effect of requiring
all purchases to be made through the open market is to take money
from the taxpayer and give it to the dealers. It forces the Government
to pay a toll for borrowing money. There are six 'bank' dealers:
First National City Bank of New York; Chemical Corp. Exchange
Bank, New York, Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., New York, Bankers Trust
of New York, First National Bank of Chicago, and Continental Illinois
Bank of Chicago."
Thus the banks which receive a "toll"
on all money borrowed by the Government of the United States are
the same banks which planned the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
p175
What of "the London Connection"? Does it still exist,
and is it still dictating the economic destiny of the United States?
The Washington Post, May 19, 1983, carried a story datelined Nairobi,
Kenya, noting the meeting of the African Development Bank. "The
British merchant bank, Morgan Grenfell and a syndicate of the
United States, Kuhn Loeb, Lehman Brothers International, the French
Lazard Freres and Britain's Warburg are discreetly acting as financial
advisors to about ten debt-plagued African states."
There are the same names we encountered
in 1914, still managing the finances of the world, with profits
for themselves but with disastrous results for everyone else.
p176
The Nation magazine, December 11, 1982, commenting on economic
problems
"The blame for all this lies at
the door of the Federal Reserve System working as usual on behalf
of the international banking system."
p177
Federal Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence
[ from the House of Representatives Committee on Banking, Currency
and Housing, August 1976 ... details public policy functions of
the Federal Reserve District Banks, how directors are selected,
who, is selected, the public relations lobbying factor, bank domination
and bank examination, and corporate interlocks with Reserve banks.
in the Foreword to the study, Chairman
Henry S. Reuss, (D-Wis) wrote:
"This Committee has observed for
many years the influence of private interests over the essentially
public responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.
As the study makes clear, it is difficult
to imagine a more narrowly-based board of directors for a public
agency than has been gathered together for the twelve banks of
the Federal Reserve System.
Only two segments of American society-banking
and big business have any substantial representation on the boards,
and often even these become merged through interlocking directorates...
... The big business and banking dominance
of the Federal Reserve System cited in this report can be traced,
in part, to the original Federal Reserve Act which gave member
commercial banks the right to select two-thirds of the directors
of each district bank. But the Board of Governors in Washington
must share the responsibility for this imbalance. They appoint
the so-called "public" members of the boards of each
district bank, appointments which have largely reflected the same
narrow interests of the bank-elected members... Until we have
basic reforms, the Federal Reserve System will be handicapped
in carrying out its public responsibilities as an economic stabilization
and bank regulatory agency. The System's mandate is too essential
to the nation's welfare to leave so much of the machinery under
the control of narrow private interests. Concentration of economic
and financial power in the United States has gone too far."
p178
The Federal Reserve directors are apparently representatives of
a small elite group which dominates much of the economic life
of his nation.
[Based on the congressional study "Federal
Reserve Directors: A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence
[ from the House of Representatives Committee on Banking, Currency
and Housing, August 1976" which details the public policy
functions of the Federal Reserve District Banks, how directors
are selected, who, is selected, the public relations lobbying
factor, bank domination and bank examination, and corporate interlocks
with Reserve banks.]
p183
The Federal Reserve "created" money is not used only
for financial matters; this money is also used to maintain the
bankers' control of every aspect of political, economic and social
life. It is used to bankroll the enormous expenditures of political
candidates, the swollen budgets of universities, the huge outlays
required to start newspapers or magazines, and a vast array of
foundations, "think-tanks" and other instruments of
mind control.
p184
During World War II, the Tavistock Institute [of London] combined
with the medical sciences division of the Rockefeller Foundation
for esoteric experiments with mind-altering drugs. The present
drug culture of the United States is traced in its entirety to
this Institute, which supervised the Central Intelligence Agency's
training programs. The "LSD counter culture" originated
when Sandoz A.G., a Swiss pharmaceutical house owned by S.C. Warburg
& Co., developed a new drug from lycergic acid, called LSD.
James Paul Warburg (son of Paul Warburg who had written the Federal
Reserve Act in 1910), financed a subsidiary of the Tavistock Institute
in the United States called the Institute for Policy Studies,
whose director, Marcus Raskin, was appointed to the National Security
Council James Paul Warburg set up a CIA program to experiment
with LSD on CIA agents, some of whom later committed suicide.
This program, MK-Ultra, supervised by Dr. Gottlieb, resulted in
huge lawsuits against the United States Government by the families
of the victims.
The Institute for Policy Studies set up
a campus subsidiary, Students for Democratic Society (SDS), devoted
to drugs and revolution. Rather than finance SDS himself, Warburg
used CIA funds, some twenty million dollars, to promote the campus
riots of the 1960s.
The English Tavistock Institute has not
restricted its activities to leftwing groups, but has also directed
the programs of such supposedly "conservative" American
think tanks as the Herbert Hoover Institute at Stanford University,
Heritage Foundation, Wharton, Hudson, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and Rand. The "sensitivity training" and
"sexual encounter" programs of the most radical California
groups such as Esalen Institute and its many imitators were all
developed and implemented by Tavistock Institute psychologists.
Secrets
of the Federal Reserve
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