Monetary reform

Monetary reform describes any movement or theory that proposes a different system of supplying money and financing the economy than the current system.

Quotes

 * All the perplexities, confusions, and distresses in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
 * John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson (Aug 25, 1787) The Works of John Adams Vol. VIII, p. 447.


 * We say in our platform that we believe that the right to coin and issue money is a function of government. We believe it. We believe that it is a part of sovereignty, and can no more with safety be delegated to private individuals than we could afford to delegate to private individuals the power to make penal statutes or levy taxes…Those who are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of paper money is a function of the bank, and that the government ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with Jefferson rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, that the issue of money is a function of government, and that the banks ought to go out of the governing business… When we have restored the money of the Constitution, all other reform will be possible, but until this is done there is no other reform that can be accomplished.
 * William Jennings Bryan, Cross of Gold Speech, 1896.


 * Experience, more prevalent than all the logic in the world, has fully convinced us all, that it (paper money issued directly by government) has been, and is now of the greatest advantages to the country.
 * Benjamin Franklin, Busybody #8, March 24, 1729.


 * After President Jackson vetoed Congress’ re-charter the 2nd Bank of the US and paid-off the national debt, President Van Buren was confident the goal of defending the US from a privately-owned central bank was won: "The practice of funding the public debt…has long been discontinued…A National Bank has become a completely ‘obsolete idea’ among us, as thoroughly condemned in public opinion as a national debt."
 * Ralph C. H. Catterall, The Second Bank of the United States 1902, p. 431.


 * The bankers will favor a course of special legislation to increase their power…They will never cease to ask for more, …so long as there is more that can be wrung from the toiling masses of the American People…The struggle with this money power has been going on from the beginning of the history of this country.
 * , open letter to President Ulysses S. Grant, June 1, 1877.


 * The depression was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World Money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market....The One World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank.
 * Curtis Dall, Franklin Roosevelt, My Exploited Father-in-Law, 1968.


 * As you know, I am entirely sympathetic with the objectives of your Monetary Reform Act…You deserve a great deal of credit for carrying through so thoroughly on your own conception…I am impressed by your persistence and attention to detail.
 * Milton Friedman to the authors of The Money Masters.


 * The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation. Like the octopus of real life, it operates under cover of a self created screen....At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both political parties.
 * , 1922.


 * I have no hesitation to say if they can re-charter the bank (2nd Bank of the US – a privately-owned central bank) with this hydra of corruption they will rule the nation and its charter will be perpetual and its corrupting influence destroy the liberty of our country. When I came into this administration…I had a majority of 75. since then it is now believed it (the bank) has bought over by loans, discounts, etc until…there were 2/3 for re-chartering it.”
 * Andrew Jackson, April 7, 1833 letter to R. H. M. Cryer. Ralph Catterall, The 2nd Bank of the U.S., (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1902.


 * This institution (privately-owned central banks) is one of the most deadly hostility against the principles of our Constitution…suppose a series of emergencies should occur…an institution like this…in a critical moment might overthrow the government.
 * Thomas Jefferson, December 1803 letter to.


 * The treasury, lacking confidence in the country, delivered itself bound hand and foot to bold and bankrupt adventurers and bankers pretending to have money, whom it could have crushed at any moment…These jugglers were at the feet of government. For it was not, any confidence in their frothy bubbles, but the lack of all other money, which induced…people to take their paper…We are now without any common measure of value of property, and private fortunes are up or down at the will of the worst of our citizens…As little seems to be known of the principles of political economy as if nothing had ever been written or practiced on the subject.
 * Thomas Jefferson, October 1815 letter to Gallatin. Letters and Addresses, edit. William Parker, (New York: 1905).


 * The supporters of Monetary Reform, of which I... am a more convinced adherent than before, as the most important and significant measure Great Britain can take to increase economic welfare, must expound their arguments more fully... before they can overwhelm the forces of old custom and general ignorance... [F]luctuations of trade and employment... the greatest and the most remediable of the economic diseases of modern society... are mainly diseases of our credit and banking system...
 * John Maynard Keynes, "The Return Towards Gold" The New Republic (Mar 18, 1925) Vol. XLII, No. 537, pp. 92-93.

For 20 of those years, he introduced legislation to repeal the Federal Reserve Banking Act of 1913.
 * When our Federal Government, that has the exclusive power to create money, creates that money and then goes into the open market and borrows it and pays interest for the use of its own money, it occurs to me that that is going too far. I have never yet had anyone who could, through the use of logic and reason, justify the Federal Government borrowing the use of its own money... The Constitution of the United States does not give the banks the power to create money. The Constitution says that Congress shall have the power to create money, but now, under our system, we will sell bonds to commercial banks and obtain credit from those banks. I believe the time will come when people will demand that this be changed. I believe the time will come in this country when they will actually blame you and me and everyone else connected with this Congress for sitting idly by and permitting such an idiotic system to continue. I make that statement after years of study.
 * , September 29, 1941, Congressional Record of the House of Representatives pp. 775827777777-777777777483777777


 * The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson — and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W.W. (Woodrow Wilson). The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis.
 * Franklin Roosevelt, letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933); as quoted in F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945, edited by Elliott Roosevelt (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1950), pg. 373.


 * Why then should we go into Wall Street, State Street, Chestnut Street, or any other street, begging for money? Their money (private bank’s) is not as secure as Government money…I am unwilling that this government should be left in the hands of any class of men, bankers or moneylenders, however respectable or patriotic they may be. The Government is much stronger than any of them.
 * Elbridge G. Spaulding, 1862 speech to Congress in favor of issuing Greenbacks to pay for the Civil War rather than government borrowing. E. G. Spaulding, A Resource of War, (repr. CN: Greenwood, 1971), p. 37.