Famous quotes

★ "This Act [Federal Reserve Act] establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President signs this bill the invisible government by the Money Power, proven to exist by the Money Trust investigation, will be legalized…This is the Aldrich Bill in disguise…The people may not know it immediately, but the day of reckoning is only a few years removed. The trusts will soon realize that they have gone too far even for their own good. The people must make a declaration of independence to relieve themselves from the Monetary Power. This they will be able to do by taking control of Congress. Wall Streeters could not cheat us if you Senators and Representatives did not make a humbug of Congress… If we had a people's Congress, there would be stability.”
“The greatest crime of Congress is its currency system. The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking bill. The caucus and the party bosses have again operated and prevented the people from getting the benefit of their own government.”
“The banks have been granted the special privilege of distributing the money, and they charge as much as they wish. The President’s new bill gives the bankers even greater powers than they had under the old laws….Property shall be preserved as having greater potential force than the human family.
“No human being can compete with [the potential power of compounding interest on a dollar]. Nothing can compete with the dollar except $2…and so on up, the greater the sum the greater the cinch. The bankers control it.
“To cause high prices, all the Federal Reserve Board will do will be to lower the rediscount rate... producing an expansion of credit and a rising stock market; then when... business men are adjusted to these conditions, it can check... prosperity in mid-career by arbitrarily raising the rate of interest. It can cause the pendulum of a rising and falling market to swing gently back and forth by slight changes in the discount rate, or cause violent fluctuations by a greater rate variation, and in either case possess inside information as to financial conditions and advance knowledge of the coming change, either up or down. This is the strangest, most dangerous advantage ever placed in the hands of a special privilege class by any Government that ever existed. The system is private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people's money. They know in advance when to create panics to their advantage. They also know when to stop panic. Inflation or deflation work equally well for them when they control finance...
“The cost of living will keep going up as long as the laws of nature are violated by uneconomic practices. We must pay the penalty.
“There should be no legal tender other than that issued by the government…If such were the case the problem of interest (as a disturbing factor) would cease, and a new era would dawn upon the world…there will be no choking up of the system by the arbitrary acts of the financial kings, for they are but a product of the arbitrary and unnatural practices that the people have fallen into the habit of using as a means of conducting their business.
We are under obligations to the banks for teaching us this economy in the use of money and credit. But…the credit is supported and maintained by the resources of the People and the daily application of their energy. The banks have simply filled the office of making it current and merchantable. We do not owe that tribute to the bankers…We should profit by the example of the banks in copying somewhat after some parts of the system they have used for making exchanges, but as a Government we ought to furnish the advantage to all of the people on equality and with the least expense practicable.
“The People are the Government. Therefore the Government should, as the Constitution provides, regulate the value of money. There is no other real sovereign power, because all authority emanates from the People. Money is the means of exchange among ALL people. Its regulation is absolutely a governmental function. Congress is not justified in issuing an Act that does not do complete justice to all. Merely to improve a false old system, but still leave it in operation, to continually force a sacrifice of the People’s very life energies, is criminal.