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nydus/The Legalized Crime of BankingPublic

Silas Walter Adams critiques the Federal Reserve Banking System, arguing that its monetary policies have significantly inflated the costs of war and national debt. The book examines the historical impact of private banking practices on the American economy and proposes a constitutional alternative for the management of the nation's money supply.

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Table of Contents

Chapter IV The Legalized Crime Of Banking

before, the Ways and Means Committee of the House, February 13, 1943: "I am opposed to the U.S. Government, which has the sovereign and exclusive power of creating money, paying private bankers for the use of its money. The private banking corporations do not hire their own money to the Government; they hire only the Government's money, credit, to the Government, and collect an interest annually." It is now approximately $10 billion annually. They got $250 billion U.S. Bonds gratis. The people must pay the bonds, too! Congressman Jerry Voorhis said: "Banks should lend money, not create it. The Government should create money, but not lend it." The Constitution says: "The Congress shall have the power to coin money, regulate the value thereof." But it nowhere empowers Congress to re-delegate this power to private corporations. There is a solution of this problem. It requires no revolutionary change - just a change of control and of management. The present system is dangerous. Utterly fails to give us a sound stable money. Invites wild speculation and ill-advised and wasteful investments. Corporations water their stock as much as 168 times their physical values (See the Borah Committee Report). It is unconstitutional. Our proposed change is just following the simple, plain mandate of the Constitution, eliminating the wrongs of banking, and giving us a sound, nonfluctuating-in-buying-power-and-volume dollar. It does no man a wrong. It gives no man an unfair advantage over another, no man a special privilege. It stimulates legitimate businesses, places a premium on honest labour and industry, protects the weak against the strong, and cuts the shackles of economic bondage from the masses and saves them from trillions in debt and billions in interest payments. It is Constitutional Admittedly so. Had we made change in 1933, and the Treasury had taken credit for $250 billion, we would not owe the $279,764,369,348 (as of February 28, 1956) bonds with the $10 billion annual interest payments. Banks would not hold gratis $1,750 billion in bank credit. We would have just the $279 billion new, and excess deposits which the $10 billion interest we now pay would cancel out in 25 years.

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