The Michael Journal is a  journal of Catholic patriots for the Social Credit monetary reform.  

See https://www.michaeljournal.org .  It is a great source to understand an important movement for monetary reform. Here is the excerpt of Chapter 49 on The History of Banking Control in the United States by Alan Pilote from the Michael Journal that is pertinent to our thesis.  See https://www.michaeljournal.org/articles/social-credit/item/the-history-of-banking-control-in-the-united-states.

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In This Age Of Plenty - Chapter 49

The dictatorship of the bankers and their debt-money system are not limited to one country, but exist in every country in the world. They are working to keep their control tight, since one country freeing itself from this dictatorship and issuing its own interest- and debt-free currency, setting the example of what an honest system could be, would be enough to bring about the worldwide collapse of the bankers’ swindling debt-money system.

This fight of the International Financiers to install their fraudulent debt-money system has been particularly vicious in the United States of America since its very foundation, and historical facts show that several American statesmen were well aware of the dishonest money system the Financiers wanted to impose upon America and of all of its harmful effects. These statesmen were real patriots, who did all that they possibly could to maintain for the USA an honest money system, free from the control of the Financiers. The Financiers did everything in their power to keep in the dark this facet of the history of the United States, for fear that the example of these patriots might still be followed today. Here are some facts that the Financiers would like the population not to know:

 

The Happiest Population  

We Are In 1750. The United States of America does not yet exist; it is the 13 Colonies of the American continent, forming "New England", a possession of the motherland, England. Benjamin Franklin wrote about the population of that time: "Impossible to find a happier and more prosperous population on all the surface of the globe." Going over to England to represent the interests of the Colonies, Franklin was asked how he accounted for the prosperous conditions prevailing in the Colonies, while poverty was rife in the motherland:

"That is simple," Franklin replied. "In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay to no one."

The English bankers, being informed of that, had a law passed by the British Parliament prohibiting the Colonies from issuing their own money, and ordering them to use only the gold or silver debt-money that was provided in insufficient quantity by the English bankers. The circulating medium of exchange was thus reduced by half.

"In one year," Franklin stated, "the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed."

Then the Revolutionary War was launched against England, and was followed by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. History textbooks erroneously teach that it was the tax on tea that triggered the American Revolution. But Franklin clearly stated:

"The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters, had it not been the poverty caused by the bad influence of the English bankers on the Parliament: which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England, and the Revolutionary War."

The Founding Fathers of the United States, bearing all these facts in mind, and to protect themselves against the exploitation of the International Bankers, took good care to expressly declare, in the American Constitution, signed at Philadelphia in 1787, Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 5:

"Congress shall have the power to coin money and to regulate the value thereof."

 

The Bank Of The Bankers:  

But the bankers did not give up. Their agent, Alexander Hamilton, was named Secretary of Treasury in George Washington’s cabinet, and advocated the establishment of a federal bank to be owned by private interests, and the creation of debt-money with false arguments like: "A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing... The wisdom of the Government will be shown in never trusting itself with the use of so seducing and dangerous an expedient as issuing its own money." Hamilton also made them believe that only the debt-money issued by private banks would be accepted in dealing abroad.

Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, was strongly opposed to that project, but President Washington was finally won over by Hamilton’s arguments. A federal bank was thus created in 1791, the "Bank of the United States", with a 20 years’ charter. Although it was termed "Bank of the United States", it was actually the "bank of the bankers", since it was not owned by the nation, but by individuals holding the bank’s stocks, the private bankers. This name of "Bank of the United States" was purposely chosen to deceive the American population and to make them believe that they were the owners of the bank, which was not the case. The charter for the Bank of the United States ran out in 1811, and Congress voted against its renewal, thanks to the influence of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson:

“If Congress," Jackson said, "has a right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use by themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations."

Thus ended the history of the first Bank of the United States. But the bankers did not play their last card.

 

The Bankers Launch The War

Nathan Rothschild, of the Bank of England, issued an ultimatum: "Either the application for the renewal of the charter is granted, or the United States will find itself involved in a most disastrous war." Jackson and the American patriots did not believe the power of the international moneylenders could extend so far. "You are a den of thieves-vipers," Jackson told them. "I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out!" Nathan Rothschild issued orders: "Teach these impudent Americans a lesson. Bring them back to Colonial status."

The British Government launched the War of 1812 against the United States. Rothschild’s plan was to impoverish the United States through this war to such an extent that the legislators would have to seek financial aid... which, of course, would be forthcoming only in return for the renewal of the charter for the Bank of the United States. Thousands were killed, but what does that matter to Rothschild? He had achieved his objective; the U.S. Congress granted the renewal of the Charter in 1816.

 

Abraham Lincoln Is Assassinated

Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860, under the promise of abolishing the slavery of the blacks. Eleven southern States, favorable to the human slavery of the black race, then decided to secede from the Union, to withdraw from the United States of America: that was the beginning of the Civil War (1861-1865). Lincoln, being short of money to finance the North’s war effort, went to the bankers of New York, who agreed to lend him money at interest rates varying from 24 to 36 percent. Lincoln refused, knowing perfectly well that this was usury and that it would lead the United States to ruin. But his money problem was still not settled!

 

His friend in Chicago, Colonel Dick Taylor, came to his rescue and put the solution to him: "Just get Congress to pass a bill authorizing the printing of full legal tender treasury notes, and pay your soldiers with them, and go ahead and win your war with them also."

This is what Lincoln did, and he won the war: between 1862 and 1863, in full conformity with the provisions of the U.S. Constitution, Lincoln caused $450 million of debt-free Greenbacks to be issued, to conduct the Civil War. (These Treasury notes were called "Greenbacks" by the people because they were printed with green ink on the back.)

 

Lincoln said: "Government, possessing the power to create and issue currency and credit as money, and enjoying the right to withdraw both currency and credit from circulation by taxation and otherwise, need not and should not borrow capital at interest as the means of financing governmental work and public enterprise… The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of Government, but it is the Government’s greatest creative opportunity."

Lincoln called the Greenbacks "the greatest blessing the American people have ever had." A blessing for all, except for the bankers, since it was putting an end to their racket, to the theft of the nation’s credit and issuing interest-bearing money. So they did everything possible to destroy these Greenbacks and sabotage Lincoln’s work. Lord Goschen, spokesman of the Financiers, wrote in the London Times (Quote taken from Who Rules America by C. K. Howe, and reproduced in Lincoln Money Martyred by Dr. R. E. Search):

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"If this mischievous financial policy, which has its origin in North America, shall become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a 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. That Government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe." (The monarchy of the money lenders.)

First, in order to cast discredit on the Greenbacks, the bankers persuaded Congress to vote, in February of 1862, the "Exception Clause", which said that the Greenbacks could not be used to pay the interest on the national debt, nor to pay taxes, excises, or import duties. Then, in 1863, having financed the election of enough Senators and Representatives, the bankers got the Congress to revoke the Greenback Law in 1863, and enact in its place the National Banking Act. (Money was then to be issued interest-bearing by privately-owned banks.)

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This Act also provided that the Greenbacks should be retired from circulation as soon as they came back to the Treasury in payment of taxes. Lincoln heatedly protested, but his most urgent objective was to win the war and save the Union, which obliged him to put off till after the war the veto he was planning against this Act and the action he was to take against the bankers. Lincoln nevertheless declared:

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"I have two great enemies, the Southern army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. And of the two, the bankers are my greatest foe."

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Lincoln was re-elected President in 1864, and he made it quite clear that he would attack the power of the bankers, once the war was over. The war ended on April 9, 1865, but Lincoln was assassinated five days later, on April 14. A tremendous restriction of credit followed, organized by the banks: the currency in circulation in the country, which was, in 1866, $1,907 million, representing $50.46 for each American citizen, had been reduced to $605 million in 1876, representing $14.60 per capita. The result: in ten years, 56,446 business failures, representing a loss of $2 billion. And as if this was not enough, the bankers reduced the per capita currency in circulation to $6.67 in 1887!

 

William Jennings Bryan

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“The banks ought to get out of the governing business”

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Lincoln’s example nevertheless remained in several minds, as far along as 1896. That year, the Presidential candidate for the Democrats was William Jennings Bryan, and once again, history textbooks tell us that it was a good thing that he did not succeed in his bid for the Presidency, since he was against the bankers’ "sound money", the money issued as a debt, and against the gold standard. Bryan said:

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"We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin and issue money is a function of Government. We believe it. Those who are opposed to it tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank, and that the Government ought to get out of the banking business. I tell them that the issue of money is a function of Government, and that the banks ought to get out of the Government business... When we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other necessary reforms will be possible, but until this is done, there is no other reform that can be accomplished."

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The Fed: The Most Gigantic Trust

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Finally, on December 23, 1913, the U.S. Congress voted in the Federal Reserve Act, which took away from Congress the power to create money, and which handed over this power to the Federal Reserve Corporation. One of the rare Congressmen who had understood all the issue at stake in this Act, Representative Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. (Rep-Minnesota), father of the famous aviator, said:

"This Act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Wilson) signs this bill, the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalized... The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency bill."

 

The Education Of The People

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What allowed the bankers to finally obtain the complete monopoly of the control of credit in the United States? The ignorance among the population of the money question. John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson, in 1787:

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation."

Lincoln’s Secretary of Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, stated publicly, shortly after the passage of the National Banking Act, in 1863:

"My agency in promoting the passage of the National Banking Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life. It has built up a monopoly which affects every interest in the country. It should be repealed, but before that can be accomplished, the people will be arrayed on one side, and the banks on the other, in a contest such as we have never seen before in this country."

Automobile manufacturer Henry Ford said:

"If the people of the nation understood our banking and monetary system, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

The education of the people, that’s the solution! It is precisely the method advocated by the "Michael" Journal: to build a force in the people through education, so that the sovereign government of each nation will have the courage to stand up to the bankers and issue its own money, as President Lincoln did. If only all those in favour of an honest money system understood their responsibilities for spreading the "Michael" Journal! Social Credit, which would establish an economy where everything is organized to serve the human person, is precisely aiming to develop personal responsibility, to create responsible people. Each mind won over to Social Credit is an advance. Each person formed by Social Credit is a force, and each force acquired is a step towards the victory. And for the last seventy years, how many forces have been acquired!… If all of them were active, it is really before tomorrow morning that we would obtain the implementation of the Social Credit proposals!

As Louis Even wrote in 1960: "The obstacle is neither the financier, nor the politician, nor any avowed enemy. The obstacle lies in the passivity of too many Social Crediters who hope for the coming of the triumph of the Cause, but who leave it up to others to promote it."

In short, it is our refusal to take on our responsibilities that delays the implementation of Social Credit, of an honest money system. "Much will be asked of the man to whom much has been given" (Luke 12:48). Examine your consciences, dear Social Creditors; personal conversion, one more step, let us take on our responsibilities: the victory has never been so close! Our responsibility is to make Social Credit known to others, by having them subscribe to the "Michael" Journal, the only publication that makes this brilliant solution known.

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Social Credit Bill Passed By The Us Congress In 1932

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It is the education of the people that is necessary. Once the pressure from the public is strong enough, all the parties will agree with it. A fine example of this can be found in the Goldsborough bill of 1932, which was described by an author as a "Social Credit bill" and "the closest near-miss monetary reform for the establishment of a real sound money system in the United States":

"An overwhelming majority of the U.S. Congress (289 to 60) favored it as early as 1932, and in one form or another it has persisted since. Only the futile hope that a confident new President (Roosevelt) could restore prosperity without abandoning the credit-money system America had inherited kept Social Credit from becoming the law of the land. By 1936, when the New Deal (Roosevelt’s solution) had proved incapable of dealing effectively with the Depression, the proponents of Social Credit were back again in strength. The last significant effort to gain its adoption came in 1938." (W.E. Turner, Stable Money, p. 167.)

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Even the dividend and the compensated discount, two essential parts of Social Credit, were mentioned in this bill, which was the "Goldsborough bill", after the Democratic Representative of Maryland, T. Allan Goldsborough, who presented it in the House for the first time on May 2, 1932.

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Two persons who supported the bill especially hold our attention: Robert L. Owen, Senator of Oklahoma from 1907 to 1925 (a national bank director for 46 years), and Charles G. Binderup, Representative of Nebraska. Owen published an article, in March of 1936, in J. J. Harpell’s publication, "The Instructor", of which Louis Even was the assistant editor. As for Binderup, he gave several speeches on radio in the USA during the Depression, explaining the damaging effects of the control of credit by private interests.

Robert Owen testified in the House, April 28, 1936: "...the bill which he (Goldsborough) then presented, with the approval of the Committee on Banking and Currency of the House — and I believe it was practically a unanimous report. It was debated for two days in the House, a very simple bill, declaring it to be the policy of the United States to restore and maintain the value of money, and directing the Secretary of the Treasury, the officers of the Federal Reserve Board, and the Reserve banks to make effective that policy. That was all, but enough, and it passed, not by a partisan vote. There were 117 Republicans who voted for that bill (which was presented by a Democrat) and it passed by 289 to 60, and of the 60 who voted against it, only 12, by the will of the people, remain in the Congress.

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"It was defeated by the Senate, because it was not really understood. There had not been sufficient discussion of it in public. There was not an organized public opinion in support of it."

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Once again, education is the main issue: Republicans and Democrats alike supported it, so there was no need for a third party or any sort of "Social Credit" party. Moreover, Owen admitted that the only thing that was lacking was the education of the population, a force among the people. That confirms the method used by the "Michael" Journal, advocated by Clifford Hugh Douglas and Louis Even.

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The Goldsborough bill was titled: "A bill to restore to Congress its Constitutional power to issue money and regulate the value thereof, to provide monetary income to the people of the United States at a fixed and equitable purchasing power of the dollar, ample at all times to enable the people to buy wanted goods and services at full capacity of the industries and commercial facilities of the United States... The present system of issuing money through private initiative for profit, resulting in recurrent disastrous inflations and deflations, shall cease."

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The bill also made provision for a discount on prices to be compensated to the retailer, and for a national dividend to be issued, beginning at $5 a month (in 1932) to every citizen of the nation. Several groups testified in support of the bill, stressing the bill provided the means of controlling inflation.

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Ignorance Among The Population

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The most ardent opponent in the Senate was Carter Glass, a fierce partisan of the Federal Reserve (private control of money) and a former Secretary of the Treasury. Besides, Henry Morgenthau, then Roosevelt’s Secretary of Treasury, who was strongly opposed to any monetary reform, said that Roosevelt’s New Deal should be given a trial first.

What mostly helped the opponents to the bill was the near ignorance of the money question among the population... and even in the Senate.

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Some Senators, knowing nothing about the creation of money (credit) by banks, exclaimed: "The Government cannot create money like that! That will cause runaway inflation!" And others, while admitting the necessity for debt-free money, questioned the necessity for a dividend, or the compensated discount. But all these objections actually disappear after a serious study of Social Credit.

 

Quotes On Money

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"Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes its laws." — Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founding father of international finance.

 

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance." — US President James Madison.

"The money power denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes." — William Jennings Bryan.

"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce." — US President James A. Garfield.

"Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create money and control credit, and with the flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from the bankers and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a better and happier world to live in. But if you want to continue the slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and to control credit." — Sir Josiah Stamp, Director, Bank of England, 1940.

"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled." — John K. Galbraith, in "Money: Whence it came, where it went", p. 29.

"The banks do create money. They have been doing it for a long time, but they didn’t quite realise it, and they did not admit it. Very few did. You will find it in all sorts of documents, financial textbooks, etc. But in the intervening years, and we must all be perfectly frank about these things, there has been a development of thought, until today I doubt very much whether you would get many prominent bankers to attempt to deny that banks create credit."

 — H. W. White, Chairman of the Associated Banks of New Zealand, to the New Zealand Monetary Commission, 1955.

 

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford

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Let us bring an end to this lesson with the quotations of two great American citizens, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison: 

"Throughout our history some of America’s greatest men have sought to break the Hamiltonian imprint (Alexander Hamilton’s debt-money policy) on our monetary policy in order to substitute a stable money supply measured to the nation’s physical requirements. Lack of public and official understanding, combined with the power of banking interests who have imagined a vested interest in the present chaotic system, have so far thwarted every effort.

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"Don’t allow them to confuse you with the cry of `paper money.’ The danger of paper money is precisely the danger of gold — if you get too much it is no good. There is just one rule for money and that is to have enough to carry on all the legitimate trade that is waiting to move. Too little and too much are both bad. But enough to move trade, enough to prevent stagnation, on the one hand, not enough to permit speculation, on the other hand, is the proper ratio…

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"If the United States will adopt this policy of increasing its national wealth without contributing to the interest collector — for the whole national debt is made up of interest charges — then you will see an era of progress and prosperity in this country such as could never have come otherwise."

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And a call from Henry Ford: "The youth who can resolve the money question will do more for the world than all the professional soldiers of history."

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The Doctrine of Discovery  

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From World History.org https://www.worldhistory.org/Doctrine_of_Discovery/ 

The Doctrine of Discovery is a policy enacted initially by the 15th-century Catholic Church proclaiming the right of Christian nations to take possession of the lands of non-Christians in the interest of saving their souls. Non-Christians were not recognized as legitimate landowners, and any lands 'discovered' by Christian explorers were claimed as the property of the discoverers' nation.

The Doctrine of Discovery (also known as the Discovery Doctrine) is articulated, first, by a papal bull issued in 1452, another in 1455, and the best-known in 1493, shortly after the 1492 expedition of Christopher Columbus and his 'discovery' of the so-called New World. The 1493 papal bull made clear the duty of Christian explorers to seize the lands of non-Christians for the purpose of Christianizing the inhabitants and bringing them within the folds of European Christian civilization.  

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The Doctrine of Discovery was used to legitimize genocide against the American Indians.

Excerpt from The Lost Science of Money , page 210

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PAPAL BULLS CONDONED GENOCIDE

Pope Nicholas V had made it clear enough in 1450: "We after scrupulous reflection, are granting by our Bull full and entire freedom to King Alphonso to conquer, to besiege, to fight, and to submit all the Saracens, Pagans, and other enemies of Christ, wherever they may be; and to seize the Kingdoms the Dukedoms, the Princedoms, the Lordships, personal properties, landed properties, and all the wealth they withhold and possess; and to submit these persons to a perpetual slavery; to appropriate these Kingdoms, Duchies, Principalities, Counties, lordships, properties and wealth; to transmit them to their suc­cessors; to take advantage and make use of them personally and with their offspring."

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The Lords of Trade

from The Lost Science of Money, page 377

THE MONETARY CAUSE OF THE REVOLUTION

More than anything else it was The Lords of Trade's monetary suppressions that led to the Revolution:  

"There can be little doubt that the acts of 1751 and 1764, which suppressed further issues of bills of credit, contributed not a little to the final breach with the Mother country,' admitted Bullock, " .. .In 1776 when he was examined before the House of Commons, Franklin gave it as his deliberate opinion that one reason for the impatience and disrespect which the colonies were manifesting toward Parliamentary authority was 'the prohibition of making paper money.' Too little attention has been given to this fact by most American historians," Bullock recognized, and noted that:  

"In colony after colony, party lines came to be drawn upon this sole issue.”  

"There can be no doubt that the bitterness engendered by this conflict was one great cause of the Revolution," wrote Sumner, another commodity money advocate.  

Del Mar was more to the point: "But the narrow minded and selfish London merchants and bankers, who influenced the government at this period, would not permit the colonies to have their own monetary system ... accordingly orders were sent to America to put down the colonial money and enforce the falsely named "national," but really private [English] money .. .it was the enforcement of this policy that brought on the Revolution ... ," wrote Del Mar, and led to establishing an order of society that had been "forgotten for 18 centuries"- a republic.  

By 1773 London reconsidered, and allowed colonial legislatures more leeway in issuing various forms of paper money. But it was too little, too late; the colonists "rejected any parliamentary interference with their control over money," wrote Emst.

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Colonial Scrip  

Read this amazing historical story our teachers never taught us....

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http://www.algaoaktree.com/Franklin.htm is where I got this story, maybe 20 years ago.  It is no longer there. 

This same story is also in the Michael Journal: https://www.michaeljournal.org/articles/social-credit/item/united-states-once-used-their-social-credit.  I did find this book:  Lightning Over the Treasury Building , Chapter 4, by John R Elsom online and this link takes us to substantially the same story.  https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4420775&seq=34&q1=Colonial+Scrip 

which is more detailed and damning than Binderup’s version and is well worth reading.

(Much of the following historical material is taken from a radio address given a half century ago by the late Congressman Charles G. Binderup, of Nebraska, and compiled by Mrs. Lucie Boulrice, 1133 Liberty, Springfield, MA 01104. For more information, you may write or call her at (413) 737-3080. 

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How America created its own money in 1750 

Benjamin Franklin tells what made New England prosperous 

Colonies were more prosperous than the home country 

Before the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the war that followed, the colonized part of what is today the United States of America was a Crown possession of England. It was called New England, and was made up of 13 colonies, which became the original states of the great Republic.

In 1750, this New England was very prosperous. Benjamin Franklin wrote:  "There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace reigned on every border. It was difficult, even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort prevailed in every home. The people, in general, kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread."

When Franklin went over to England to represent the interests of the Colonies, he saw a completely different situation; the working population of the home country was gnawed by hunger and plagued by inescapable poverty. "The streets are covered with beggars and tramps," he wrote. He asked his English friends how England, with all its wealth, could have so much poverty among its working classes. His friends replied that England was prey to a terrible condition; it had too many workers! The rich said they were already overburdened with taxes, and could not pay more to relieve the needs and poverty of this great mass of workers. Several rich Englishmen of that time actually believed what economist Thomas Malthus later wrote, that wars and epidemic disease were necessary to rid the country from "manpower surpluses."

People in London asked Franklin how the American Colonies managed to collect enough money to support their poorhouses, and how they could overcome this plague of unemployment and pauperism.  

Thanks to debt-free money issued by the colonial governments Franklin replied; "We have no poorhouses in the Colonies, and if we had some, there would be no one to put in them, since in the Colonies there is not a single unemployed person, not a beggar nor a tramp."

His friends could not believe their ears, or understand how this could be. They knew when the English poorhouses and jails became too cluttered, England shipped the wretched inmates like cattle, to be dumped on the quays of the Colonies if they survived the filth and privations of the sea voyage. (In those days English debtors went to jail if they could not pay their debts, and few escaped, since in jail they could not earn money.) 

Franklin's acquaintances, in view of all this, asked him how he could explain the remarkable prosperity of the New England Colonies.  Franklin told them: "Why, that is simple! In the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. It's called 'Colonial Scrip.' We issue it to pay the government's approved expenses and charities. We make sure it's issued in proper proportion to make the goods pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In other words, we make sure there is always adequate money in circulation for the needs of the economy. 

"In this manner, by creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay, to anyone. You see, a legitimate government can both spend and lend money into circulation, while banks can only lend significant amounts of their promissory bank notes, for they can neither give away nor spend but a tiny fraction of the money the people need. Thus, when our bankers here in England place money in circulation, there is always a debt principal to be returned and usury to be paid. The result is that we have always too little credit in circulation to give the workers full employment. We do not have too many workers, we have too little money in circulation, and that which circulates, all bears the endless burden of unpayable debt and usury."

English Bankers impose poverty on the Colonies.

Franklin should not have been so free with his advice, which soon came to the attention of the powerful English Bankers. They quickly used their influence to have the British Parliament pass a law that prohibited the Colonies from using their Colonial Scrip money. The new law ordered them to use only credit redeemable in gold and silver coins that were provided in insufficient quantity by the banks of England.

And so began in America the plague of debt-based money, which has ever since brought as many hardships to the American people, as it has to Europeans.

The first law regulating Colonial money was passed by the British Parliament 1751, then expanded by a more restrictive law in 1763. Franklin reported that only one year after implementation of the prohibition on Colonial Scrip, the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed and beggars, just like those he had seen in England, because there was not enough money to pay for their goods and work. The English Banker's new laws had reduced the circulating medium by half.  

Franklin added that this was "the original and true cause of the American Revolution;" and not the tax on tea or the Stamp Act, as has been taught our children for generations in "history" books. The Financiers (bankers) of every generation manage to have removed from school books any information that can throw light on their own schemes and fraudulent actions that protect their power over the people.

Franklin, one of the chief architects of American independence, put it clearly: "The Colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been for the poverty created by the bad influence of the English Bankers on the Parliament, which has caused in the Colonies hatred of England and the Revolutionary War." 

Other great statesmen of that era, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Jackson confirmed this point of view held by Franklin; and later by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy both issued sovereign money, James Garfield tried, and all three died in office.

A remarkably honest English historian, John Twells, speaking of the money of the Colonies, their Colonial Scrip, wrote: "It was the monetary system under which America's Colonies flourished to such an extent that Edmund Burke was able to write about them: 'Nothing in the history of the world resembles their progress. It was a sound and beneficial system, and its effects led to the happiness of the people.' "

John Twells added: "In a bad hour, the British Parliament took away from America its own scrip money, forbade any further issue of such bills of credit, these bills ceasing to be legal tender, and ordered that all taxes should be paid in British coins. Consider now the consequences: this restriction of the medium of exchange paralyzed all the industrial energies of the people. Ruin took place in these once flourishing Colonies; most rigorous distress visited every family and every business, discontent became desperation, and reached a point, to use the words of Dr. Johnson, when human nature rises up and asserts its rights."

Another historical writer, Peter Cooper, expressed himself along the same lines. After saying how Franklin had explained to members of Parliament the reason for the prosperity of the Colonies, Cooper wrote:  "After Franklin gave explanations on the true cause of the prosperity of the Colonies, the Parliament enacted laws forbidding the use of this money in the payment of taxes. This decree, clearly in the interest of the British bankers who stood behind the Crown, brought so many drawbacks and so much poverty to the people that it was the main cause of the Revolution. The suppression of the Colonial money was a much more important reason for the general uprising than the Tea and Stamp Acts."

DANGER! The Scrip of the Bankers has Taken over America.

Today, in America as well as in Europe, we are under the regime of the Scrip of the Bankers instead of the scrip of the sovereign nations. Hence the enormous public debts, everlasting interest (usury) charges, taxes that plunder purchasing power and rob the production of the people, with the result being more and more consolidation of the financial dictatorship. 

Where shall we start to correct the fraud of the bankers? 

The first step in the monetary reform being advocated by more and more action groups of educated and intelligent people is precisely the replacement of the banks' debt money by debt-free money issued by the Constitutionally mandated sovereign government of the nation, the United States Congress, and elsewhere, the British Parliament, and similar governments. It is the duty of those governments to serve and protect their people, not allow financial robber barons to destroy them. 

 

Pujo Committee “MoneyTrust”

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Pujo Committee “Money Trust” Wall Street Banking Cartel Investigation 1912-1913  

In 1912, Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, Arsene P. Pujo convened a special subcommittee to investigate the “money trust”.  The “money trust" refers to a small group of Wall Street bankers who wielded a powerful control over the nation’s finances. 

Excerpts from the Introduction from the public intelligence website: https://publicintelligence.net/pujo-committee-money-trust-wall-street-banking-cartel-investigation-1912-1913/

For those who wish to understand the true nature of our current financial system, the Pujo Committee’s 1912-1913 investigation of the “Money Trust” is instructive.  The Committee identified a concentrated group of Wall Street bankers who operated a sophisticated financial network unified by 341 interlocking directorships held in 112 corporations valued at more than $22 billion in resources and capitalization exerting significant control and influence over the U.S. economy and monetary system.  The companies and individuals comprising this network were primarily agents of the Morgan and Rockefeller banking empires which dominated U.S. finance following the “Industrial Revolution”.  The Committee names a number of prominent banking institutions as participating in this system including J.P. Morgan & Co., First National Bank of New York, Kuhn Loeb & Co. and individuals such as Paul Warburg, Jacob H. Schiff, Felix M. Warburg, Frank E. Peabody, William Rockefeller and Benjamin Strong, Jr.  Understanding this system of overlapping financial networks and how those networks were used to dominate utilities, railroads, banking and the U.S. financial infrastructure throughout much of the twentieth century is key to the proper analysis of our current economic situation and the influence that the “Money Power” wields over global politics.

…The committee’s majority report concluded that a group of financial leaders had abused the public trust to consolidate control over many industries. The Pujo Committee report created a climate of public opinion that lead to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914.

….The hearings were conducted between May 16, 1912 and February 26, 1913. The transcript of the hearings was published in three volumes. It is presented in the original 29 parts with the index, a table of interlocking directorates of 18 financial institutions, and the majority/minority report of the committee.

There is much more on the website.

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Here is a more interesting and truthful take on the Pujo Committee. The 'Money Trust' Hearings (1912) from https://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp?Article=FedReserve&C=3.0 

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The speeches of Senator LaFollette and Congressman Lindbergh became rallying points of opposition to the Aldrich Plan in 1912. They also aroused popular feeling against the Money Trust. Congressman Lindbergh said, on December 15, 1911

“Senator LaFollette publicly charged that a money trust of fifty men controlled the United States. George F. Baker., partner of J.P. Morgan, on being queried by reporters as to the truth of the charge, replied that it was absolutely in error. He said that he knew from personal knowledge that not more than eight men ran this country.

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The Nation Magazine replied editorially to Senator LaFollette that "If there is a Money Trust, it will not be practical to establish that it exercises its influence either for good or for bad."

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Senator LaFollette remarks in his memoirs that his speech against the Money Trust later cost him the Presidency of the United States, just as Woodrow Wilson's early support of the Aldrich Plan had brought him into consideration for that office.

Congress finally made a gesture to appease popular feeling by appointing a committee to investigate the control of money and credit in the United States. This was the Pujo Committee, a subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency Committee which conducted the famous "Money Trust" hearings in 1912, under the leadership of Congressman Arsene Pujo of Louisiana who was regarded as a spokesman for the oil interests. These hearings were deliberately dragged on for five months, and resulted in six-thousand pages of printed testimony in four volumes. Month after month, the bankers made the train trip from New York to Washington, testified before the Committee and returned to New York. The hearings were extremely dull, and no startling information turned up at these sessions. The bankers solemnly admitted that they were indeed bankers, insisted that they always operated in the public interest, and claimed that they were animated only by the highest ideals of public service, like the Congressmen before whom they were testifying.

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The paradoxical nature of the Pujo Money Trust Hearings may better be understood if we examine the man who single-handedly carried on these hearings, Samuel Untermyer. He was one of the principal contributors to Woodrow Wilson's Presidential campaign fund, and was one of the wealthiest corporation lawyers in New York. He states in his autobiography in "Who's Who" of 1926 that he once received a $775,000 fee for a single legal transaction, the successful merger of the Utah Copper Company and the Boston Consolidated and Nevada Company, a firm with a market value of one hundred million dollars. He refused to ask either Senator LaFollette or Congressman Lindbergh to testify in the investigation which they alone had forced Congress to hold. As Special Counsel for the Pujo Committee, Untermyer ran the hearings as a one-man operation. The Congressional members, including its chairman, Congressman Arsene Pujo, seemed to have been struck dumb from the commencement of the hearings to their conclusion. One of these silent servants of the public was Congressman James Byrnes, of South Carolina, representing Bernard Baruch's home district, who later achieved fame as "Baruch's man", and was placed by Baruch in charge of the Office of War Mobilization during the Second World War.

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Although he was a specialist in such matters, Untermyer did not ask any of the bankers about the system of interlocking directorates through which they controlled industry. He did not go into international gold movements, which were known as a factor in money panics, or the international relationships between American bankers and European bankers. The international banking houses of Eugene Meyer, Lazard Freres, J. & W. Seligman, Ladenburg Thalmann, Speyer Brothers, M.M. Warburg, and the Rothschild Brothers did not arouse Samuel Untermyer's curiosity, although it was well known in the New York financial world that all of these family banking houses either had branches or controlled subsidiary houses in Wall Street. When Jacob Schiff appeared before the Pujo Committee, Mr. Untermyer's adroit questioning allowed Mr. Schiff to talk for many minutes without revealing any information about the operations of the banking house of Kuhn Loeb Company, of which he was senior partner, and which Senator Robert L. Owen had identified as the representative of the European Rothschilds in the United States.

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The aging J.P. Morgan, who had only a few more months to live, appeared before the Committee to justify his decades of international financial deals. He stated for Mr. Untermyer's edification that "Money is a commodity." This was a favorite ploy of the money creators, as they wished to make the public believe that the creation of money was a natural occurrence akin to the growing of a field of corn, although it was actually a bounty conferred upon the bankers by governments over which they had gained control.

J.P. Morgan also told the Pujo Committee that, in making a loan, he seriously considered only one factor, a man's character; even the man's ability to repay the loan, or his collateral, were of little importance. This astonishing observation startled even the blase members of the Committee.

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The farce of the Pujo Committee ended without a single well-known opponent of the money creators being allowed to appear or testify. As far as Samuel Untermyer was concerned, Senator LaFollette and Congressman Charles Augustus Lindbergh had never existed. Nevertheless, these Congressmen had managed to convince the people of the United States that the New York bankers did have a monopoly on the nation's money and credit. At the close of the hearings, the bankers and their subsidized newspapers claimed that the only way to break this monopoly was to enact the banking and currency legislation now being proposed to Congress, a bill which would be passed a year later as the Federal Reserve Act. The press seriously demanded that the New York banking monopoly be broken by turning over the administration of the new banking system to the most knowledgeable banker of them all, Paul Warburg.”

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List of grievances  

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From the Declaration of Independence

Text of the Declaration of Independence | Declaration Resources Project (harvard.edu)

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

And the paragraph about slavery that was left out.

["He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither."]

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

 

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Trumbull's famous picture of the Declaration of Independence.

 

List of Signers by State

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Fifty-six delegates eventually signed the Declaration of Independence:

President of Congress

1. John Hancock (Massachusetts Bay)

New Hampshire

2. Josiah Bartlett

3. William Whipple

4. Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts Bay

5. Samuel Adams

6. John Adams

7. Robert Treat Paine

8. Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

9. Stephen Hopkins

10. William Ellery

Connecticut

11. Roger Sherman

12. Samuel Huntington

13. William Williams

14. Oliver Wolcott

New York

15. William Floyd

16. Philip Livingston

17. Francis Lewis

18. Lewis Morris

New Jersey

19. Richard Stockton

20. John Witherspoon

21. Francis Hopkinson

22. John Hart

23. Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania

24. Robert Morris

25. Benjamin Rush

26. Benjamin Franklin

27. John Morton

28. George Clymer

29. James Smith

30. George Taylor

31. James Wilson

32. George Ross

Delaware

33. Caesar Rodney

34. George Read

35. Thomas McKean

Maryland

36. Samuel Chase

37. William Paca

38. Thomas Stone

39. Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

40. George Wythe

41. Richard Henry Lee

42. Thomas Jefferson

43. Benjamin Harrison

44. Thomas Nelson, Jr.

45. Francis Lightfoot Lee

46. Carter Braxton

North Carolina

47. William Hooper

48. Joseph Hewes

49. John Penn

South Carolina

50. Edward Rutledge

51. Thomas Heyward, Jr.

52. Thomas Lynch, Jr.

53. Arthur Middleton

Georgia

54. Button Gwinnett

55. Lyman Hall

56. George Walton

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List of Signers of the Declaration of Independence from the website:  https://www.archives.gov/files/founding-docs/declaration-signers-gallery-facts.pdf 

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