All language subtitles for The Money Masters CD1.ENG

What's going on in America today?

Why are we over our heads in debt?

Why can't the politicians bring debt under control?

Why are so many people - often both parents now

working at low-paying, dead-end jobs
and still making do with less?

What's the future of the American economy
and way of life?

Why does the government tell us inflation is low
when the buying power of our paychecks

is declining at an alarming rate?

Only a generation ago, bread was a quarter
and you could get a new car for $1,995!

The problem is that since 1864 we�ve had
a debt-based banking system.

All our money is based on government debt.

We cannot extinguish government debt
without extinguishing our money supply.

That�s why talk of paying off the national debt,

without reforming our banking system,
is an impossibility.

That�s why the solution does not lie in
discussing the size of the national debt

rather it lies in reforming our banking system.

This is the Federal Reserve headquarters
in Washington, D.C.

It sits on a very impressive address

right on Constitution Avenue,
right across from the Lincoln Memorial.

But is it "Federal"?

Is it really part of the United States government?

Well, what we are about to show you

is that there is nothing federal
about the Federal Reserve,

and there are no reserves.

The name is a deception

created back before the
Federal Reserve Act
was passed in 1913

to make Americans think that
America's new central bank

operates in the public interest.

The truth is that the
Federal Reserve is a private bank,

owned by private stockholders,

and run purely for their private profit.

"That's exactly correct,

the Fed is a privately-owned, for-profit
corporation which has no reserves,

at least no reserve to back up
the Federal Reserve notes

which is our common currency.

Well, absolutely. The Fed is neither federal
and has doubtful reserves.

It� a private bank that is owned by member banks

and it was chartered under the guise of
deceit by an act of congress in 1913.

If there's still any doubt whether the
Federal Reserve is a part of the U.S. government,

check your local telephone book.

In most cities, it's not listed
in the blue "government pages."

It is listed in the "business" white pages,

right next to Federal Express,
another private company.

But more directly, U.S. Courts
have ruled time and time again

that the Fed is a private corporation.

Why can't Congress do something about the Fed?

Most members of Congress just
don't understand the system,

and the few who do are afraid to speak up.

For example, initially a
veteran Congressman from Chicago

asked us if he could be
interviewed for this video.

However, both times our camera crew
arrived at his office to do the interview,

this was all we were able to film.

The Congressman never appeared,

and eventually he decided he
no longer wanted to participate.

But a few others in Congress
have been bolder over the years.

Here are three quick examples.

In 1923, Representative Charles A. Lindbergh,
a Republican from Minnesota,

the father of famed aviator,
"Lucky" Lindy, put it this way:

One of the most outspoken
critics in Congress of the Fed

was the former Chairman of the
House Banking and Currency Committee

during the Great Depression years,
Louis T. McFadden said in 1932:

Senator Barry Goldwater was
a frequent critic of the Fed:

"The Fed really, even though it�s
not part of the federal government,

is more powerful than the federal government.

It is more powerful than the
President, Congress and the courts.

A lot of people challenge me on that.
Let me prove my case.

The Fed determines what the average person's
car payment is going to be

what their house payment is going to be

and whether they have a job or not.

And I submit to you - that is total control.

The Federal Reserve is the largest
single creditor of the U.S. government.

What does Proverbs tell us?
The borrower is servant to the lender.

What one has to understand is that,
from the day the Constitution was adopted,

right up to today, the folks who
profit from privately owned central banks,

as President Madison called them,
the "Money Changers",

have fought a running battle for control over
who gets to print America's money.

Why is who prints the money so important?

Think of money as just another commodity.

If you have a monopoly on a commodity
that everyone needs, everyone wants,

and nobody has enough of,
there are lots of ways to make a profit

and also exert tremendous political influence.

That's what this battle is all about.

Throughout the history of the United States,

the money power has gone
back and forth between Congress

and some sort of privately-owned central bank.

The founding fathers knew the
evils of a privately-owned central bank.

First of all, they had seen how
the privately owned British central bank,

the Bank of England, had
run up the British national debt

to such an extent that
Parliament had been forced

to place unfair taxes
on the American colonies.

In fact, as we'll see later,
Ben Franklin claimed

that this was the real cause
of the American Revolution.

Most of the founding fathers realized
the potential dangers of banking,

and feared bankers' accumulation
of wealth and power.

Jefferson put it this way:

That succinct statement of Jefferson is, in fact,

the solution to all our
economic problems today.

It bears repeating: the issuing power
should be taken from the banks

and restored to the people
to whom it properly belongs.

James Madison, the main author
of the Constitution, agreed.

Interestingly, he called those
behind the central bank scheme "Money Changers".

Madison strongly criticized their actions:

The battle over who gets to issue our money

has been the pivotal issue through
the history of the United States.

Wars are fought over it.

Depressions are caused to acquire it.

Yet after World War I,
this battle was rarely mentioned

in newspapers or history books.

Why?

By World War I, the Money Changers
with their dominant wealth,

had seized control of
most of the nation's press.

Throughout U.S. history,

this battle over who gets the power
to issue our money has raged.

In fact it has changed hands
back and forth eight times since 1764.

Yet, this fact has virtually vanished
from public view for over three generations

behind a smoke screen emitted by
Fed 'cheerleaders' in the media.

Until we stop talking about
"deficits" and "government spending"

and start talking about
who controls how much money we have,

it's all just a big shell game -
A complete and utter deception.

It won't matter if we pass an iron-clad
amendment to the Constitution

mandating a balanced budget.

Our situation is only going to get worse
until we root out the cause at its source.

What�s the solution for our national problem?

First of all, education.

This is what this presentation is all about.

But secondly, we must act,

we must take back the power
to issue our own money.

Issuing our own money
is not a radical solution.

It's the same solution proposed
at different points in U.S. history

by men like Benjamin Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson,

Martin Van Buren and Abraham Lincoln

So, to sum it up: in 1913,
Congress gave an independent central bank,

deceptively named the Federal Reserve,

a monopoly over issuing America's money,

and the debt generated by this
quasi-private corporation

is what is killing the American economy.

Though the Federal Reserve is now the

most powerful central bank in the world,
it was not the first.

So where did this idea come from?

To really understand the
magnitude of the problem,

we have to travel back to Europe.

Just who are these "Money Changers"
James Madison spoke of?

The Bible tells us that
two thousand years ago,

Jesus Christ drove the Money Changers
from the Temple.

It was the only times Jesus
used force during his ministry.

What were Money Changers
doing in the Temple?

When Jews came to Jerusalem
to pay their Temple tax,

they could only pay it with a special coin,
the half shekel of the sanctuary.

This was a half-ounce of pure silver,
about the size of a quarter.

It was the only coin around at that time

which was pure silver and of assured weight,

without the image of a pagan Emperor.

Therefore, to Jews the half-shekel
was the only coin acceptable to God.

But these coins were not plentiful.

The Money Changers had
cornered the market on them.

Then, they raised the price of them -
just like any other commodity

to whatever the market would bear.

In other words,
the Money Changers were making

exorbitant profits because they
held a virtual monopoly on money.

The Jews had to pay whatever they demanded.

To Jesus, this totally
violated the sanctity of God's house.

But the money changing scam
did not originate in Jesus' day.

Two hundred years before Christ,

Rome was having trouble with Money Changers.

Two early Roman emperors had tried to
diminish the power of the Money Changers

by reforming usury laws and
limiting land ownership to 500 acres.

They both were assassinated.

In 48 B.C., Julius Caesar took back the
power to coin money from the Money Changers

and minted coins for the benefit of all.

With this new, plentiful supply of money,

he built great public works projects.

By making money plentiful,
Caesar won the love of the common man.

But the Money Changers hated him.

Some believe this was an important
factor in Caesar's assassination.

One thing is for sure:
with the death of Caesar

came the demise of plentiful money in Rome.

Taxes increased, as did corruption.

Just as in the case of America today,
usury and debased coin became the rule.

Eventually, the Roman money supply
was reduced by 90%.

As a result, the common people
lost their lands and homes

just as is about to happen soon in America.

With the demise of plentiful money,

the masses lost confidence in Roman
government and refused to support it.

Rome plunged into
the gloom of the Dark Ages.

A thousand years after the death of Christ,

Money Changers - those who loan, exchange,
create and manipulate the quantity of money

were active in medieval England.

In fact, they were so active
that, acting together,

they could manipulate
the entire English economy.

These were not bankers, per se.

The Money Changers generally
were the goldsmiths.

They were the first bankers
because they started

keeping other people's gold
for safekeeping in their vaults.

The first paper money in Western Europe

was merely a receipt for
gold left at the goldsmiths.

Paper money caught on because
it was more convenient

than carrying around a lot of
heavy gold and silver coins.

Eventually goldsmiths noticed that
only a small fraction of the depositors

ever came in and demanded
their gold at any one time.

Goldsmiths started cheating on the system.

They discovered that they could
print more money than they had gold

and usually no one would be the wiser.

Then, they could loan out this extra
paper money and collect interest on it.

This was the birth of
fractional reserve banking - that is,

loaning out many times more money
than you have assets on deposit.

So, for example, if $1,000 in gold
were deposited with them,

they could loan out about $10,000
in paper money and charge interest on it,

and no one would discover the deception.

By this means, goldsmiths gradually
accumulated more and more wealth

and used this wealth to
accumulate more and more gold.

Today, this practice of loaning out
more money than there are reserves

is known as fractional reserve banking.

Every bank in the U.S.
is allowed to loan out at least

ten times more money they actually have.

That's why they get rich on charging
let's say 8% interest.

It's not really 8% per year,
which is their income. It's 80%.

That's why bank buildings
are always the largest in town.

But does that mean that all interest
or all banking should be illegal?

No. In the Middle Ages, Canon law,
the law of the Catholic Church,

forbade charging interest on loans.

This concept followed
the teachings of Aristotle

and Saint Thomas Aquinas.

They taught that the purpose of money
was to serve the members of society

to facilitate the exchange of
goods needed to lead a virtuous life.

Interest, in their belief,
hindered this purpose

by putting an unnecessary
burden on the use of money.

In other words, interest was
contrary to reason and justice.

Reflecting Church Law in the Middle Ages,

Europe forbade charging interest on loans
and made it a crime called usury.

As commerce grew and therefore
opportunities for investment

arose in the late Middle Ages,

it came to be recognized that
to loan money had a cost to the lender

both in risk and in lost opportunity.

So, some charges were allowed,
but not interest per se.

But all moralists,
no matter what religion, condemn fraud,

oppression of the poor and
injustice as clearly immoral.

As we will see, fractional reserve
lending is rooted in a fraud,

results in widespread poverty

and reduces the value of everyone else's money.

The ancient goldsmiths discovered
that extra profits could be made

by "rowing" the economy between
easy money and tight money.

When they made money easier to borrow,

then the amount of money in circulation expanded.

Money was plentiful.

People took out more loans
to expand their businesses.

But then the money changers
would tighten the money supply.

They would make loans more difficult to get.

What would happen?

Just what happens today.

A certain percentage of people
could not repay their previous loans,

and could not take out
new loans to repay the old ones.

Therefore they went bankrupt,
and had to sell their assets to the goldsmiths

for pennies on the dollar.

The same thing is still going on today,

only today we call this rowing of the economy,
up and down, the "Business Cycle".

Like Caesar, Henri I of England finally resolved

to take the money power
away from the goldsmiths, about 1,100 A.D.

Henri could have used anything as money,
seashells, feathers, or even yak dung

as is often done in remote Tibetan provinces.

But he invented one of the most
unusual money systems in history.

It was called the �tally stick� system.

Here I have one of the few surviving
examples of this form of British money

which lasted 726 years, until 1826

a tally stick.

This system was adopted to avoid the
monetary manipulation of the goldsmiths.

Tally sticks were money fabricated
out of a stick of polished wood.

Notches were cut along one edge of
the stick to indicate the denomination.

Then the stick was split
lengthwise through the notches

so that both pieces still
had a record of the notches.

The king kept one half
to protect against counterfeiting.

Then he would �spend�
the other half into the economy

and they would circulate as money.

This particular Tally Stick
is huge and represented �25,000.

One of the original stockholders
in the Bank of England

purchased his original shares with this stick.

In other words, he bought
shares in the world's richest

and most powerful corporation,
with a stick of wood.

It's ironic that after its formation in 1694

the Bank of England
attacked the Tally Stick system

because it was money issued
outside the control of the Money Changers

just as king Henri had wanted it to be.

Why would people accept
sticks of wood for money?

That's a great question.

Throughout history,
people have traded anything

they thought had value
and used that for money.

You see, the secret is that money is only
what people agree on to use as money.

What's our paper money today?

It's really just paper.

But here's the trick:
King Henry ordered that Tally Sticks

had to be used to pay the king�s taxes.

This built in demand
for tally sticks

and immediately made them
circulate and be accepted as money.

And they worked well.

In fact, no other money worked so well
and for so long as tally sticks.

Keep in mind: the British empire
was built under the tally stick system.

The tally stick system
succeeded despite the fact

that the money changers
constantly attacked it

by offering the metal
coin system as competition.

In other words, metal coins
never went completely out of circulation

but tally sticks hung on because they
were good for the payment of taxes.

Finally, in the 1500's,

King Henry VIII relaxed
the laws concerning usury

and the Money Changers wasted
no time reasserting themselves.

They quickly made their gold and silver
money plentiful for a few decades.

But when Queen Mary took the throne
and tightened the usury laws again

the Money Changers renewed
the hoarding of gold and silver coin,

forcing the economy to plummet.

When Queen Mary's half-sister,
Queen Elizabeth I, took the throne

she was determined to regain
control over English money.

Her solution was to issue gold and
silver coins from the public treasury

and thus take the control over the
money supply, away from the Money Changers.

Although control over money was not the
only cause of the English Revolution in 1642

- religious differences fuelled the conflict �

monetary policy played a major role.

Financed by the Money Changers

Oliver Cromwell finally
overthrew King Charles

purged Parliament,
and put the King to death.

The Money Changers were immediately allowed
to consolidate their financial power.

The result was that
for the next fifty years

the Money Changers plunged Great Britain
into a series of costly wars.

They took over a square mile
of property in the centre of London

known as The City of London.

This area today is still known

as one of the three predominant
financial centres of the world.

Conflicts with the Stuart kings
led the Money Changers in England

to combine with those in the Netherlands

to finance the invasion
of William of Orange

who overthrew the Stuarts in 1688
and took the English throne.

By the end of the 1600s,
England was in financial ruin.

Fifty years of more or less continuous wars
with France and Holland had exhausted her.

Frantic government officials
met with the Money Changers

to beg for the loans necessary
to pursue their political purposes.

The price was high:

a government-sanctioned,
privately-owned bank

which could issue money
created out of nothing.

It was to be the modern world's
first privately owned, central bank

the Bank of England.

Although it was deceptively
called the Bank of England

to make the population think
it was part of the government

it was not.

Like any other private corporation

the Bank of England
sold shares to get started.

The investors,
whose names were never revealed,

were supposed to put up one and
a quarter million pounds in gold coin

to buy their shares in the Bank.

But only �750,000 pounds
was ever received.

Despite that, the Bank of England
was duly chartered in 1694

and started out in the business of
loaning out several times

the money it supposedly had in
reserves, all at interest.

In exchange, the new bank
would loan British politicians

as much as they wanted

as long as they secured the debt by
direct taxation of the British people.

So, legalization of the Bank of England
amounted to nothing less

than legal counterfeiting of
a national currency for private gain.

Unfortunately, nearly every nation now

has a privately controlled central bank

using the Bank of England as the basic model.

Such is the power of these central banks

that they soon take total
control over a nation's economy.

It soon amounts to nothing but
a plutocracy ruled by the rich.

It would be is like putting
control of the army

in the hands of the mafia.

The danger of tyranny would be extreme.

Yes, we need central banks

No, we do not need them in private hands!

The central bank scam
is really a hidden tax.

The nation sells bonds to the central bank

to pay for things for which
the government does not have

the political will to
raise taxes to pay for.

But the bonds are purchased with money
the central bank creates out of nothing.

More money in circulation
makes your money worth less.

The government get as much money as it needs

and the people pay for it in inflation.

The beauty of the plan is that not
one person in a thousand can figure it out

because it's usually hidden behind
complex-sounding economics gibberish.

With the formation of the Bank of England,

the nation was soon awash in money.

Prices throughout the country doubled.

Massive loans were granted for
just about any wild scheme.

One venture proposed draining
the Red Sea to recover gold

supposedly lost when
the Egyptian army drowned

pursuing Moses and the Israelites.

By 1698, government debt grew
from the initial 1-1/4 million pounds

to 16 million.

Naturally, taxes were increased and
then increased again to pay for all this.

With the British money
supply firmly in their grip,

the British economy began a wild roller-coaster
series of booms and depressions,

exactly the sort of thing a central bank
claims it is determined to prevent.

"There are two things which are intrinsic

not just to the Bank of England,
but to central banking generally.

The first is an involvement in
the formulation of monetary policy

with the specific objective of
achieving monetary stability."

However, since the Bank of England took control,

the British pound has rarely been stable.

Now, let�s take a look at
the role of the Rothschilds family,

believed the wealthiest in the world.

This is Frankfurt, Germany.

Fifty years after the Bank of England
opened its doors,

a goldsmith named Amschel Moses Bauer

opened a coin shop -
a counting house - in 1743,

and over the door he placed a sign
depicting a Roman eagle on a red shield.

The shop became known as
the Red Shield firm,

or, in German, Rothschild.

When his son, Amschel Meyer Bauer,
inherited the business,

he decided to change his name to Rothschild.

Meyer soon learned that loaning
money to governments and kings

was more profitable than
loaning to private individuals.

Not only were the loans bigger

but they were secured by the nation's taxes.

Meyer Rothschild had five sons.

He trained them all in the
skills of money creation,

then sent them to the major capitals of Europe

to open branch offices of
the family banking business.

His first son, Amschel, stayed in Frankfurt
to mind the hometown bank.

His second son, Salomon, was sent to Vienna.

His third son, Nathan, was clearly the most clever.

He was sent to London at age 21 in 1798,
a hundred years after the founding

of the Bank of England.

His fourth son, Karl, went to Naples.

His fifth son, Jakob, went to Paris.

In 1785, Meyer Amschel moved his
entire family to this larger house,

a five story dwelling he
shared with the Schiff family.

This house was known as the "Green Shield" house.

The Rothschilds and the Schiffs
would play a central role

in the rest of European financial history

and in that of the United States.

The Rothschilds broke into dealings with
European royalty here at Wilhelmshohe,

the palace of the wealthiest man in Germany

in fact, the wealthiest monarch
in all of Europe,

prince William of Hesse-Kassel.

At first, the Rothschilds were only helping
William speculate in precious coins.

But when Napoleon chased Prince William
into exile, he sent �550,000

- a gigantic sum at that time �

to Nathan Rothschild in London

with instructions from
him to buy 'Consols' -

British government bonds
also called government stock.

But Rothschild used the
money for his own purposes.

With Napoleon on the loose

the opportunities of wartime
investments were nearly limitless.

William returned here, sometime prior
to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

He summoned Rothschilds
and demanded his money back.

The Rothschilds returned William's money,

with the 8% interest the
British Consols would have paid him

had the investment actually been made.

But the Rothschilds kept all the past profits
they had made using William's money.

Nathan Rothschild later bragged that

in the seventeen years he had been in England,

he had increased his original
�20,000 stake given to him by his father

by 2,500 times.

By cooperating within the family, the
Rothschilds soon grew unbelievably wealthy.

By the mid-1800s, they
dominated all European banking,

and were certainly the
wealthiest family in the world.

They financed Cecil Rhodes,

making it possible for him
to establish a monopoly

over the diamond and gold
fields of South Africa.

In America, they financed
the Herrimans in railroads,

the Van Der Bilts
in railroads and the press,

the Carnegies in the steel industry,

among many others.

In fact, during WWI, J.P. Morgan was
thought to be the richest man in America.

But after his death, it was discovered

that he was actually only a
lieutenant of the Rothschilds.

Once Morgan�s will became public,
it was discovered

that he owned only 19%
of J.P. Morgan�s companies.

By 1850, James Rothschild, the heir
of the French branch of the family,

was said to be worth 600 million
French francs 150 million more

than all the other bankers
in France put together.

He built this mansion, called Ferri�res,
19 miles northeast of Paris.

Wilhelm I, on seeing it exclaimed

"Kings couldn't afford this.
It could only belong to a Rothschild."

Another 19 century French
commentator put it this way;

"There is but one power in Europe
and that is Rothschild."

There is no evidence that
their predominant standing

in European or world finance has changed.

Now let's take a look at the results

the Bank of England produced
on the British economy

and how that later was the root
cause of the American Revolution.

By the mid-1700s

the British Empire was nearing its
height of power around the world.

But, Britain had fought four costly
wars in Europe since the creation

of its privately-owned central bank,
the Bank of England.

The cost had been high.

To finance these wars, the British Parliament
had borrowed heavily from the Bank.

By the mid-1700s, the government's
debt was �140,000,000

a staggering sum for those days.

Consequently, the British government
embarked on a program

of trying to raise revenues
from their American colonies

in order to make their
interest payments to the Bank.

But in America, it was a different story.

The scourge of a privately-owned
central bank had not yet hit.

This is Independence Hall in Philadelphia

where the Declaration of Independence
and Constitution were signed.

In the mid-1700s, pre-Revolutionary America
was still relatively poor.

There was a severe shortage of
precious metal coins to trade for goods,

so the early colonists were forced to experiment

with printing their own home-grown paper money.

Some of these experiments were successful.

Franklin was a big supporter of the
colonies printing their own paper money.

In 1757, Franklin was sent to London.

He ended up staying for the next 18 years,

nearly until the start
of the American Revolution.

During this period, the American
colonies began to issue their own money.

Called Colonial Scrip,
the endeavour was very successful.

It provided a reliable medium of exchange

and it also helped to provide a
feeling of unity between the colonies.

Remember, Colonial Scrip
was just paper money

- debt-free money �

printed in the public interest
and not backed by gold or silver coin.

In other words, it was
a totally 'fiat' currency.

One day, officials of the Bank of England

asked Franklin how he would account for
the new-found prosperity of the colonies.

Without hesitation he replied:

This was just common sense to Franklin

but you can imagine the impact
it had on the Bank of England.

America had learned the secret of money

and that genie had to be returned
to its bottle as soon as possible.

As a result, Parliament hurriedly
passed the Currency Act of 1764.

This prohibited colonial officials
from issuing their own money

and ordered them to pay all future
taxes in gold or silver coins.

In other words, it forced the colonies
on a gold or silver standard.

For those who still believe that
a gold standard is the answer

for America's current monetary problems,

look what happened to America after that.

Writing in his autobiography, Franklin said:

Franklin claims that this was even the
basic cause for the American Revolution.

As Franklin put it in his autobiography:

By the time the first shots were fired

in Lexington, Massachusetts
on April 19, 1775

the colonies had been drained of gold
and silver coin by British taxation.

As result, the Continental
government had no choice

but to print its own paper
money to finance the war.

At the start of the Revolution,
the U.S. money supply stood at $12 million.

By the end of the war,
it was nearly $500 million.

As a result, the currency
was virtually worthless.

Shoes sold for $5,000 a pair.

Colonial scrip had worked because
just enough was issued to facilitate trade.

As George Washington lamented,
a wagonload of money

will scarcely purchase
a wagonload of provisions.

Today, those who support
a gold-backed currency

point to this period during the Revolution

to demonstrate the evils of a fiat currency.

But remember, the same currency
had worked so well

twenty years earlier during times of peace

that the Bank of England
had Parliament outlaw it.

Towards the end of the Revolution,
the Continental Congress

meeting at Independence Hall,
grew desperate for money.

In 1781, they allowed Robert Morris,
their Financial Superintendent

to open a privately-owned central bank.

Incidentally, Morris was a wealthy man

who had grown wealthier during the Revolution

by trading in war materials.

Called the Bank of North America,
the new bank was closely modelled

after the Bank of England.

It was allowed to practice
fractional reserve banking

- that is, it could lend out
money it didn't have

then charge interest on it.

If you or I were to do that, we
would be charged with fraud, a felony.

The Bank's charter called for private investors

to put up $400,000 worth of initial capital.

But when Morris was unable to raise the money

he brazenly used his political influence
to have gold deposited in the bank

which had been loaned to America by France.

He then loaned this money
to himself and his friends

to reinvest in shares of the bank.

And, like the Bank of England, the bank was
given a monopoly over the national currency.

Soon, the dangers became clear.

The value of American currency
continued to plummet

so, four years later, in 1785

the Bank's charter was not renewed.

The leader of the successful
effort to kill the Bank

William Findley, of Pennsylvania

explained the problem this way:

The men behind the Bank of North America

- Alexander Hamilton, Robert Morris,
and the Bank's President, Thomas Willing

did not give up.

Only six years later, Hamilton
- then Secretary of the Treasury

and his mentor, Morris

rammed a new privately-owned
central bank through the new Congress.

Called the First Bank of the United States

Thomas Willing again served
as the Bank's President.

The players were the same,
only the name of the Bank was changed.

In 1787, colonial leaders
assembled in Philadelphia

to replace the ailing
Articles of Confederation.

As we saw earlier, both
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison

were unalterably opposed to
a privately-owned central bank.

They had seen the problems
caused by the Bank of England.

They wanted nothing of it.

As Jefferson later put it:

During the debate over
the future monetary system,

another one of the founding fathers,
Gouverneur Morris,

castigated the motivations of the
owners of the Bank of North America.

Gouverneur Morris headed
the committee that wrote

the final draft of the Constitution.

Morris knew the
motivations of the bank well.

Along with his old boss, Robert Morris,

Gouverneur Morris and
Alexander Hamilton were the ones

who had presented the original
plan for the Bank of North America

to the Continental Congress
in the last year of the Revolution.

In a letter he wrote to James Madison
on July 2, 1787

Gouverneur Morris revealed
what was really going on:

Despite the defection of Gouverneur Morris
from the ranks of the Bank

Hamilton, Robert Morris, Thomas Willing,
and their European backers

were not about to give up.

They convinced the bulk of the delegates
to the Constitutional Convention

to not give Congress the
power to issue paper money.

Most of the delegates were still reeling

from the wild inflation of the
paper currency during the Revolution.

They had forgotten how well
Colonial Scrip had worked before the War.

But the Bank of England had not.

The Money Changers could not stand

to have America printing
her own money again.

The Constitution is silent on this point.

This grievous defect left the door
wide open for the Money Changers

just as they had planned.

In 1790, less than three years after
the Constitution had been signed

the Money Changers struck again.

The newly-appointed first Secretary
of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton

proposed a bill to the Congress

calling for a new privately-owned central bank.

Coincidentally, that was the
very year that Amschel Rothschild

made his pronouncement from
his flagship bank in Frankfurt:

"Let me issue and control a nation's money
and I care not who writes its laws."

Alexander Hamilton was a
tool of the international bankers.

He wanted to create the Bank
of the United States, and did so.

Interestingly, one of Hamilton's first jobs
after graduating from law school in 1782

was as an aide to Robert Morris,
the head of the Bank of North America.

In fact, the year before, Hamilton
had written Morris a letter, saying:

"A national debt, if it is not excessive,
will be to us a national blessing".

A blessing to whom?

After a year of intense debate, in 1791

Congress passed the bill
and gave it a 20-year charter.

The new bank was to be called the
First Bank of the United States, or BUS.

Here we are in front of the first
Bank of the United States in Philadelphia.

The Bank was given a
monopoly on printing U.S. currency

even though 80% of its stock
would be held by private investors.

The other 20% would be
purchased by the U.S. Government

but the reason was not to give
the government a piece of the action,

it was to provide the capital
for the other 80% owners.

As with the old bank of North America
and the Bank of England before that,

the stockholders never paid
the full amount for their shares.

The U.S. government put up
their initial $2,000,000 in cash,

then the Bank through the old
magic of fractional reserve lending,

made loans to its charter investors
so they could come up

with the remaining $8,000,000 in capital

needed for this risk-free investment.

Like the Bank of England

the name of the Bank of the United States
was deliberately chosen

to hide the fact that
it was privately controlled.

And like the Bank of England,
the names of the investors in the Bank

were never revealed.

Many years later it was a common saying

that the Rothschilds were the
power behind the old Bank of the U.S.

The Bank was sold to Congress
as a way to bring stability

to the banking system and
to eliminate inflation.

So what happened?

Over the first five years, the
U.S. government borrowed $8.2 million

from the Bank of the United States.

In the same 5 year period,
prices rose by 72%.

Jefferson, as the new Secretary of State,

watched the borrowing
with sadness and frustration,

unable to stop it.

Millions of Americans feel the same way today.

They watch in helpless frustration
as the Federal government

borrows the American economy into oblivion.

So, although it was called
the First Bank of the U.S.,

it was not the first attempt at a
privately-owned central bank in this country.

As with the Bank of North America,

the government put up most of the
cash to get this private bank going,

then the bankers loaned
that money to each other

to buy the remaining stock in the bank.

It was a scam, plain and simple.

And they wouldn't be able to
get away with it for long,

but first we have to
travel back to Europe to see

how a single man was able to
manipulate the entire British economy

by obtaining the first news of
Napoleon's final defeat.

Here in Paris, the Bank of France
was organized in 1800

just like the Bank of England.

But, Napoleon decided France
had to break free of debt

and he never trusted the Bank of France.

He declared that when a government
is dependent upon bankers for money,

the bankers, not the leaders
of the government, are in control:

Back in America, unexpected help
was about to arrive.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson
narrowly defeated John Adams

to become the third
President of the United States.

By 1803, Jefferson and
Napoleon had struck a deal.

The U.S. would give Napoleon
$3,000,000 in gold

in exchange for a huge chunk of
territory west of the Mississippi River

- the Louisiana Purchase.

With that three million dollars,
Napoleon quickly forged an army

and set off across Europe,
conquering everything in his path.

But the Bank of England
quickly rose to oppose him.

They financed every nation in his path,
reaping the enormous profits of war.

Prussia, Austria, and finally Russia

all went heavily into debt in
a futile attempt to stop Napoleon.

Four years later, with
the main French Army in Russia,

30-year-old Nathan Rothschild

- the head of the London office
of the Rothschild family �

personally took charge of a bold plan

to smuggle a much-needed shipment
of gold right through France

to finance an attack by the
Duke of Wellington from Spain.

Nathan later bragged
at a dinner party in London

that it was the best business he�d ever done.

Little did he know that he would do
much better business in the near future.

Wellington's attacks from the south,
and other defeats,

eventually forced Napoleon to abdicate,

and Louis XVIII was crowned King.

Napoleon was exiled to Elba,
a tiny island off the coast of Italy,

supposedly exiled from France forever.

While Napoleon was in exile on Elba,

temporarily defeated by England with
the financial help of the Rothschilds

America was trying to break
free of its central bank as well.

In 1811, a bill was
put before Congress to renew

the charter of the
Bank of the United States.

The debate grew very heated

and the legislatures of
both Pennsylvania and Virginia

passed resolutions asking
Congress to kill the Bank.

The press corps of the day
attacked the Bank openly,

calling it "a great swindle",
a "vulture", a "viper", and a "cobra".

Oh, to have an independent press
once again in America!

A Congressman named P.B. Porter

attacked the bank from the floor of Congress,

saying that if the bank's
charter was renewed,

Congress "will have planted in the
bosom of this Constitution a viper,

which one day or another will
sting the liberties of this country to the heart."

Prospects didn't look good for the Bank.

Writers have claimed that
Nathan Rothschild warned

that the United States would find itself
involved in a most disastrous war

if the Bank's charter were not renewed.

But it wasn't enough.

When the smoke had cleared,

the renewal bill was defeated
by a single vote in the House

and was deadlocked in the Senate.

By now, America's fourth President,
James Madison, was in the White House.

Remember, Madison was a
staunch opponent of the Bank.

His Vice President, George Clinton,
broke a tie in the Senate

and sent the Bank into oblivion.

Within 5 months England attacked the U.S.

and the War of 1812 was on.

But the British were
still busy fighting Napoleon,

and so the war of 1812
ended in a draw in 1814.

Though the Money Changers were
temporarily down, they were far from out.

it would take them only another
two years to bring back their bank

- bigger and stronger than ever.

But now let's return to Napoleon.

Because nothing else in
history more aptly demonstrates

the cunning of the Rothschild family
than their control

of the British stock market after Waterloo.

In 1815, a year after the end
of the War of 1812 in America,

Napoleon escaped his exile
and returned to Paris.

French troops were sent out to capture him,

but such was his charisma that the
soldiers rallied around their old leader

and hailed him as their Emperor once again.

In March of 1815 Napoleon equipped an army

which Britain's Duke of Wellington defeated

less than 90 days later at Waterloo.

Some writers claim Napoleon
borrowed 5 million pounds

from the Bank of England to rearm.

But it appears these funds actually came
from the Ouvrard banking house in Paris.

Nevertheless, from about this point on,

it was not unusual for
privately-controlled central banks

to finance both sides in a war.

Why would a central bank
finance opposing sides in a war?

Because war is the biggest
debt-generator of them all.

A nation will borrow any amount for victory.

The ultimate loser is loaned just enough

to hold out the vain hope of victory,

and the ultimate winner
is given enough to win.

Besides, such loans are usually
conditioned upon the guarantee

that the victor will honour
the debts of the vanquished.

This is the Waterloo battlefield
about 200 miles northeast of Paris,

in what today is Belgium.

Here, Napoleon suffered his final defeat,

but not before thousands
of French and English men

gave their lives on a steamy
summer day in June of 1815.

Right over there, on June 18, 1815,

74,000 French troops met 67,000 troops

from Britain, and other European nations.

The outcome was certainly in doubt.

In fact, had Napoleon
attacked a few hours earlier,

he would probably have won the battle.

But no matter who won or lost,
back in London,

Nathan Rothschild planned to
use the opportunity to try to seize control

over the British stock and bond market,

and possibly even the Bank of England.

Rothschild stationed a trusted agent,
a man named Rothworth,

on the north side of the battlefield
- closer to the English Channel.

Once the battle had been decided,
Rothworth took off for the Channel.

He delivered the news to
Nathan Rothschild a full 24 hours

before Wellington's own courier.

Rothschild hurried to the Stock Market
and took up his usual position

in front of an ancient pillar.

All eyes were on him.

The Rothschilds had a legendary
communications network.

If Wellington had been defeated and
Napoleon was loose on the Continent again,

Britain's financial situation
would become grave indeed.

Rothschild looked saddened.

He stood there motionless, eyes downcast.

Then suddenly, he began selling.

Other nervous investors saw
that Rothschild was selling.

It could only mean one thing. Napoleon
must have won. Wellington must have lost.

The market plummeted.

Soon, everyone was selling their Consols
- their British government bonds

and prices dropped sharply.

But then Rothschild started
secretly buying up the Consols

through his agents at a fraction
of their worth hours before.

Myths, legends, you say?

One hundred years later,
the New York Times ran a story

which said that Nathan's grandson had attempted

to secure a court order to suppress a
book with this stock market story in it.

The Rothschild family claimed
the story was untrue and libellous.

But the court denied the Rothschilds' request

and ordered the family to pay all court costs.

What's even more interesting about this story

is that some authors claim that
the day after the Battle of Waterloo,

in a matter of hours, Nathan Rothschild
came to dominate not only the bond market,

but the Bank of England as well.

Whether or not the Rothschild family
seized control of the Bank of England

- the first privately-owned central bank
in a major European nation, and the wealthiest

one thing is certain

by the mid-1800s, the Rothschilds were
the richest family in the world, bar none.

They dominated the new
government bond markets

and branched into other
banks and industrial concerns.

In fact, the rest of the 19th century
was known as the "Age of the Rothschilds".

Despite this overwhelming wealth,

the family has generally
cultivated an aura of invisibility.

Although the family controls scores
of industrial, commercial, mining

and tourist corporations, only
a handful bear the Rothschild name.

By the end of the 19th century,
one expert estimated

that the Rothschild family controlled
half the wealth of the world.

Whatever the extent of their vast wealth,

it is reasonable to assume that
their percentage of the world's wealth

has increased since then.

But since the turn of the century,
the Rothschilds have cultivated the notion

that their power has somehow waned,
even as their wealth increases.

Meanwhile, back in Washington in 1816,
just one year after Waterloo and Rothschilds'
alleged takeover of the Bank of England,

the American Congress passed a bill

permitting yet another
privately-owned central bank.

This bank was called the
Second Bank of the United States.

The new Bank's charter was a
copy of the previous Bank's.

The U.S. government would own
20% of the shares of the bank.

Of course, the Federal share was paid by the
Treasury up front, into the Bank's coffers.

Then, through the magic of
fractional reserve lending,

it was transformed into
loans to private investors

who then bought the remaining 80% of the shares.

Just as before, the primary
stockholders remained a secret.

But it is known that the largest block
of shares - about one-third of the total

was sold to foreigners.

As one observer put it:

"It is certainly no exaggeration to say
that the Second Bank of the United States

was rooted as deeply in Britain
as it was in America."

So by 1816, some authors
claim the Rothschilds

had taken control over the Bank of England

and backed the new privately-owned
central bank in America as well.

After 12 years of
manipulations of the U.S. economy

on the part of the 2nd bank of the U.S.,

the American people,
had had just about enough.

Opponents of the Bank nominated a dignified
senator from Tennessee, Andrew Jackson

the hero of the Battle of New Orleans,
to run for president.

This is his home, "The Hermitage".

No one gave Jackson a chance initially.

The Bank had long ago learned how the
political process could be controlled with money.

To the surprise and dismay of the Money Changers,

Jackson was swept into office in 1828.

Jackson was determined to kill the Bank
at the first opportunity,

and wasted no time in trying to do so.

But the Bank's 20 year charter
didn't come up for renewal until 1836,

the last year of his second term
- if he could survive that long.

During his first term, Jackson contented himself

with rooting out the Bank's
many minions from government service.

He fired 2,000 of the 11,000
employees of the federal government.

In 1832, with his re-election approaching,
the Bank struck an early blow,

hoping Jackson would not want
to stir up controversy.

They asked Congress to pass
a renewal bill four years early.

Congress complied, and sent it
to the President for signing.

But Jackson weighed in with both feet.

"Old Hickory," never a coward,
vetoed the bill.

His veto message is one of
the great American documents.

It clearly lays out the
responsibility of the American government

towards its citizens - rich and poor.

Later that year, in July 1832, Congress
was unable to override Jackson's veto.

Now Jackson had to stand for re-election.

Jackson took his argument
directly to the people.

For the first time in U.S. history,

Jackson took his presidential
campaign on the road.

Before then, presidential candidates
stayed at home and looked presidential.

His campaign slogan was "Jackson and no Bank!"

The National Republican Party
ran Senator Henry Clay against Jackson.

Despite the fact that the bankers poured
in over $3,000,000 into Clay's campaign,

Jackson was re-elected
by a landslide in November of 1832.

Despite his presidential victory,
Jackson knew the battle was only beginning:

"The hydra of corruption is
only scotched, not dead,"

said the newly-elected President.

Jackson ordered his new
Secretary of the Treasury, Louis McLane,

to start removing the government's
deposits from the Second Bank

and to start placing them in state banks.

McLane refused to do so.

Jackson fired him and
appointed William J. Duane

as the new Secretary of the Treasury.

Duane also refused to comply
with the President's requests,

and so Jackson fired him as well,

and then appointed
Roger B. Taney to the office.

Taney did withdraw government funds from
the bank, starting on October 1st, 1833.

Jackson was jubilant:

"I have it chained. I am ready with screws
to draw every tooth and then the stumps"

But the Bank was yet done fighting.

Its head, Nicholas Biddle,

used his influence to get
the Senate to reject Taney's nomination.

Then, in a rare show of arrogance,
Biddle threatened

to cause a depression if
the Bank was not re-chartered.

Next, in an unbelievable fit
of honesty for a central banker,

Biddle admitted that the bank
was going to make money scarce

to force Congress to restore the Bank:

What a stunning revelation!

Here was the pure truth,
revealed with shocking clarity.

Biddle intended to use the
money contraction power of the Bank

to cause a massive depression
until America gave in.

Unfortunately, this has happened time
and time again throughout U.S. history,

and is about to happen
again in today�s world.

Nicholas Biddle made good on his threat.

The Bank sharply contracted the money supply

by calling in old loans and
refusing to extend new ones.

A financial panic ensued,
followed by a deep depression.

Naturally, Biddle blamed Jackson
for the crash, saying that it was caused

by the withdrawal of
federal funds from the Bank.

Unfortunately, his plan worked well.

Wages and prices sagged.

Unemployment soared
along with business bankruptcies.

The nation quickly went into an uproar.

Newspaper editors blasted Jackson in editorials.

The Bank threatened to withhold payment

which then could be made directly
to key politicians for their support.

Within only months, Congress assembled
in what was called the "Panic Session"

Six months after he had
withdrawn funds from the bank,

Jackson was officially
censured by a resolution

which passed the Senate
by a vote of 26 to 20.

It was the first time a President
had ever been censured by Congress.

Jackson lashed out at the Bank.

"You are a den of vipers.
I intend to rout you out

and by the Eternal God
I will rout you out."

America's fate teetered on a knife edge.

If Congress could muster enough
votes to override Jackson's veto,

the Bank would be granted another 20-year
monopoly or more over America's money

- time enough to consolidate
its already great power.

Then, a miracle occurred.

The Governor of Pennsylvania came out
supporting President Jackson

and strongly criticized the Bank.

On top of that, Biddle had
been caught boasting in public

about the Bank's plan
to crash the economy.

Suddenly the tide shifted.

In April of 1834, the House of
Representatives voted 134 to 82

against re-chartering the Bank.

This was followed up by
an even more lopsided vote

to establish a special committee to investigate
whether the Bank had caused the crash.

When the investigating committee arrived
at the Bank's door in Philadelphia,

armed with a subpoena to examine the books,
Biddle refused to give them up.

Nor would he allow inspection
of correspondence with Congressmen

relating to their personal loans
and advances he had made to them.

Biddle also refused to testify
before the committee back in Washington.

On January 8, 1835, Jackson
paid off the final instalment

on the national debt which had been
necessitated by allowing the banks

to issue currency for government bonds,

rather than simply issuing
Treasury notes without such debt.

He was the only President
to ever pay off the debt.

A few weeks later, on January 30, 1835,

an assassin by the name of Richard Lawrence
tried to shoot President Jackson.

Both pistols misfired.

Lawrence was later found
not guilty by reason of insanity.

After his release, he bragged to friends
that powerful people in Europe

had put him up to the task and
promised to protect him if he were caught.

The following year, when its charter ran out,

the Second Bank of the United States ceased
functioning as the nation's central bank.

Biddle was later arrested
and charged with fraud.

He was tried and acquitted, but died shortly
thereafter while still tied up in civil suits.

After his second term as President,

Jackson retired to The Hermitage
outside Nashville to live out his life.

He is still remembered for his
determination to "kill the Bank".

In fact, he killed it so well that it took
the Money Changers 77 years to undo the damage.

When asked what his most important
accomplishment had been, Jackson replied.

"I killed the Bank."

Unfortunately, even Jackson failed to
grasp the entire picture and its root cause.

Although Jackson had
killed the central bank,

the most insidious weapon of the Money Changers
- fractional reserve banking

remained in use by the
numerous state-chartered banks.

This fuelled economic instability
in the years before the Civil War.

Still, the central bankers were out

and as a result America thrived
as it expanded westward.

During this time, the
principal Money Changers

struggled to regain their lost
centralized power, but to no avail.

Finally they reverted to the old
central banker's formula - finance a war,

to create debt and dependency.

If they couldn't get their
central bank any other way,

America could be brought to its knees
by plunging it into a civil war

just as they had done in 1812, after the
First Bank of the U.S. was not re-chartered.

One month after the
inauguration of Abraham Lincoln,

the first shots of the
American Civil War were fired

at Fort Sumter, South Carolina
on April 12, 1861.

Certainly slavery was a cause for
the Civil War, but not the primary cause.

Lincoln knew that the economy of
the South depended upon slavery

and so (before the Civil War)
he had no intention of eliminating it.

Lincoln had put it this way in his
inaugural address only one month earlier:

Even after the first shots
were fired at Fort Sumter,

Lincoln continued to insist that the
Civil War was not about the issue of slavery:

So what was the Civil War all about?

There were many factors at play.

Northern industrialists
had used protective tariffs

to prevent the Southern states
from buying cheaper European goods.

Europe retaliated by stopping
cotton imports from the South.

The Southern states were
in a double financial bind.

They were forced to pay more for
most of the necessities of life

while their income from cotton
exports plummeted. The South was angry.

But there were other factors at work.

The Money Changers were still stung by
America's withdrawal from their control

25 years earlier.

Since then, America's wildcat
economy had made the nation rich

- A bad example for the rest the world.

The central bankers now saw an
opportunity to split the rich new nation

- to divide and conquer by war.

Was this just some sort of
wild conspiracy theory at the time?

Well, let's look at what a well placed
observer of the scene had to say at the time.

This was Otto von Bismarck,
Chancellor of Germany,

the man who united the
German states a few years later.

Within months after the first
shots here at Fort Sumter,

the central bankers
loaned Napoleon III of France

(the nephew of the Waterloo Napoleon)

210 million francs to
seize Mexico and station troops

along the southern border of the U.S.,

taking advantage of their war
to violate the Monroe Doctrine

and return Mexico to colonial rule.

No matter what the
outcome of the Civil War,

a weakened America, heavily
indebted to the Money Changers,

would open up Central and
South America once again

to European colonization and domination

the very thing America's Monroe
Doctrine had forbade in 1823.

At the same time, Great Britain
moved 11,000 troops into Canada

and positioned them menacingly
along America's northern border.

The British fleet went on war alert should
their quick intervention be called for.

Lincoln knew he was in a double bind.

That�s why he agonized
over the fate of the Union.

There was a lot more to it than just
differences between the North and the South.

That's why his emphasis was always on "Union"
and not merely the defeat of the South.

But Lincoln needed money to win.

In 1861, Lincoln and his Secretary
of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase,

went to New York to apply
for the necessary loans.

The Money Changers,
anxious to see the Union fail,

offered loans at 24-36% interest.

Lincoln said thanks, but no thanks,
and returned to Washington.

He sent for an old friend,
Colonel Dick Taylor of Chicago,

and put him onto the
problem of financing the War.

During one meeting, Lincoln
asked Taylor what he discovered.

Taylor put it this way:

When Lincoln asked if the people of the
United States would accept the notes,

Taylor said:

So that's exactly what Lincoln did.

In 1862-63, he printed up
$432 million of the new bills.

In order to distinguish them
from other bank notes in circulation,

he printed them in
green ink on the back side.

That's why the notes
were called "Greenbacks."

With this new money, Lincoln paid the troops,
and bought their supplies.

During the course of the war,
nearly 450 million dollars of Greenbacks

were printed at no interest
to the federal government.

Lincoln understood who was
really pulling the strings

and what was at stake
for the American people.

This is how he explained his rationale:

A truly incredible editorial
in the London Times

explained the Central Banker's
attitude towards Lincoln's Greenbacks.

This scheme was effective

so effective that the next year, 1863,
with Federal and Confederate troops

beginning to mass for the
decisive battle of the Civil War,

and the Treasury in need of
further Congressional authority

to issue more Greenbacks,

Lincoln allowed the bankers to
push through the National Banking Act.

These new national banks would
operate under a virtual tax-free status

and collectively have the
exclusive monopoly power to create

the new form of money - Bank Notes.

Though Greenbacks continued to circulate,
their numbers were not increased.

But most importantly, from this point on,
the entire U.S. money supply

would be created out of debt
by bankers buying U.S. government bonds,

and issuing them for
reserves for Bank Notes.

As historian John Kenneth Galbraith explained:

In 1863, Lincoln got some unexpected
help from Czar Alexander II of Russia.

The Czar, like Bismarck in Germany,

knew what the international
Money Changers were up to

and had steadfastly refused to let
them set up a central bank in Russia.

If America survived and was able
to remain out of their clutches,

his position would remain secure.

If the bankers were
successful at dividing America

and giving the pieces
back to Great Britain and France

(both nations under control
of their central banks)

eventually they would
threaten Russia again.

So, the Czar gave orders
that if either England or France

actively intervened and
gave aid to the South,

Russia would consider such
action as a declaration of war.

He sent part of his Pacific fleet
to port in San Francisco.

Lincoln was re-elected the next year, 1864.

Had he lived, he would surely have killed

the National Banks' money monopoly
extracted from him during the war.

On November 21, 1864, he
wrote a friend the following:

Shortly before Lincoln was assassinated,

his former Secretary of the Treasury,
Salmon P. Chase,

bemoaned his role in
helping secure the passage

of the National Banking Act
only one year earlier:

On April 14, 1865, 41 days
after his second inauguration,

and just five days after Lee
surrendered to Grant at Appomattox,

Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth,
at Ford's theatre.

Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany,
lamented the death of Abraham Lincoln:

Bismarck well understood
the Money Changers' plan.

Allegations that international bankers were
responsible for Lincoln's assassination

surfaced in Canada 70 years later, in 1934.

Gerald G. McGeer, a popular and
well-respected Canadian attorney,

revealed this stunning
charge in a 5-hour speech

before the Canadian House of Commons

blasting Canada's debt-based money system.

Remember, it was 1934, the
height of the Great Depression

which was ravaging Canada as well.

McGeer had obtained evidence
deleted from the public record,

provided to him by Secret Service agents,

from the trial of John Wilkes Booth,
after Booth's death.

McGeer said it showed that
Booth was a mercenary

working for the international bankers.

According to an article in the
Vancouver Sun of May 2, 1934:

Interestingly, McGeer claimed that
Lincoln was assassinated not only

because international bankers wanted to
re-establish a central bank in America,

but because they also wanted to
base America's currency on gold

- gold they controlled

in other words, put America
on a "gold standard"

Lincoln had done just the opposite
by issuing U.S. Notes � Greenbacks

which were based purely on the good
faith and credit of the United States.

The article quoted McGeer as saying:

Not since Lincoln has the U.S.
issued debt-free United States Notes.

These red-sealed bills,
which were issued in 1963,

were not a new issue from president Kennedy,

but merely the old Greenbacks
reissued year after year.

In another act of folly and ignorance,
the 1994 Reigle Act

actually authorized the replacement of
Lincoln's Greenbacks with debt-based Notes.

In other words, Greenbacks were in
circulation in the United States until 1994.

Why was silver bad for the bankers and gold good?

Simple. Because silver was
plentiful in the United States,

it was very hard to control.

Gold was, and always has been scarce.

Throughout history it has been
relatively easy to monopolize gold,

but silver has historically
been 15 times more plentiful.

With Lincoln out of the way,
the Money Changers' next objective

was to gain complete
control over America's money.

This was no easy task.

With the opening of the American West,
silver had been discovered in huge quantities.

On top of that, Lincoln's
Greenbacks were generally popular.

Despite the European central bankers'
deliberate attacks on Greenbacks,

they continued to circulate in the
United States, until a few years ago.

According to historian W. Cleon Skousen:

It is clear that the concept of
America printing her own debt-free money

sent shock-waves throughout the
European central-banking elite.

They watched with horror as
Americans clamoured for more Greenbacks.

They may have killed Lincoln, but
support for his monetary ideas grew.

On April 12, 1866, nearly one year to
the day of Lincoln's assassination,

Congress went to work at the bidding of
the European central-banking interests.

It passed the Contraction Act,
authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury

to begin to retire some of the Greenbacks in
circulation and to contract the money supply.

Authors Theodore R. Thoren and Richard F. Warner

explained the results of the money contraction
in their classic book on the subject,

"The Truth in Money Book":

"The hard times which
occurred after the Civil War

could have been avoided if the
Greenback legislation had continued

as President Lincoln had intended.

Instead, there were a series of
'money panics' - what we call 'recessions'

which put pressure on Congress
to enact legislation

to place the banking system
under centralized control.

Eventually the Federal Reserve Act
was passed on December 23, 1913."

In other words, the Money Changers
wanted two things:

1) the re-institution of a central bank
under their exclusive control,

and, 2) an American currency
backed by their gold.

Their strategy was two-fold:

First, to cause a series of panics to
try to convince the American people

that only centralized control of the money
supply could provide economic stability;

and secondly, to remove
so much money from the system

that most Americans would
be so desperately poor

that they either wouldn't care or
would be too weak to oppose the bankers.

In 1866, there was $1,8 billion in currency
in circulation in the United States

about $50.46 per capita.

In 1867 alone, $500 million was
removed from the U.S. money supply.

Ten years later, in 1876,
America's money supply

was reduced to only $600 million.

In other words, two-thirds of America's
money had been called in by the bankers.

Only $14.60 per capita
remained in circulation.

Ten years later, the money supply had
been reduced to only $400 million,

even though the population had boomed.

The result was that only $6.67
per capita remained in circulation,

a 760% decline in buying power
in just 20 years.

Today, economists try to sell the
idea that recessions and depressions

are a natural part of something
they call the "business cycle".

The truth is, our money supply
is manipulated now,

just as it was before
and after the Civil War.

How did this happen?

How did money become so scarce?

Simple - bank loans were called in
and no new ones were given.

In addition, silver coins were melted down.

In 1872, a man named Ernest Seyd
was given �100,000

(about $500,000 then)

by the Bank of England and
sent to America to bribe

the necessary Congressmen
to get silver "demonetised".

He was told that if that was not sufficient,
to draw an additional �100,000,

"or as much more as was necessary"

The next year, Congress passed
the Coinage Act of 1873

and the minting of silver dollars abruptly stopped.

In fact, Rep. Samuel Hooper,
who introduced the bill in the House

acknowledged that Mr. Seyd
actually drafted the legislation.

But it gets even worse than that.

In 1874, Seyd himself admitted
who was behind the scheme:

But the contest over control of
America's money was not yet over.

Only three years later, in 1876,

with one-third of
America's workforce unemployed,

the population was growing restless.

People were clamouring for a return to the
Greenback money system of President Lincoln,

or a return to silver money

anything that would
make money more plentiful.

That year, Congress created the United States
Silver Commission to study the problem.

Their report clearly blamed the monetary
contraction on the National Bankers.

The report is interesting because it compares

the deliberate money contraction by
the National Bankers after the Civil War,

to the Fall of the Roman Empire.

Despite this report by the Silver Commission,
Congress took no action.

The next year, 1877, riots broke out
from Pittsburgh to Chicago.

The torches of starving vandals lit up the sky.

The bankers huddled to decide what to do.

They decided to hang on.

Now that they were back in control to a
large extent they were not about to give it up.

At the meeting of the American
Bankers Association that year,

they urged their membership
to do everything in their power

to put down the notion of
a return to Greenbacks.

The ABA Secretary, James Buel,
authored a letter to the members

which blatantly called on the banks

to subvert not only Congress, but the press:

As political pressure
mounted in Congress for change,

the press tried to turn the
American people away from the truth.

The New York Tribune put it
this way on January 10, 1878:

"The capital of the country is
organized at last, and we will see

whether Congress will
dare to fly in its face."

But it didn't work entirely.

On February 28, 1878,
Congress passed the Sherman Law

allowing the minting of a
limited number of silver dollars,

ending the 5-year hiatus.

This did not end gold-backing
of the currency, however.

Nor did it completely free silver.

Previous to 1873, anyone who
brought silver to the U.S. mint

could have it struck into
silver dollars free of charge.

No longer.

But at least some money began to
flow back into the economy again.

With no further threat to their control,
the bankers loosened up on loans

and the post-Civil War
depression was finally ended.

Three years later,

the American people elected
Republican James Garfield President.

Garfield understood how the
economy was being manipulated.

As a Congressman, he had been
chairman of the Appropriations Committee,

and was a member of the
Banking and Currency Committee.

After his inauguration, he slammed
the Money Changers publicly in 1881:

Unfortunately, within a few weeks of
making this statement, on July 2 of 1881,

President Garfield was assassinated.

The Money Changers were
gathering strength fast.

They began a periodic fleecing of the flock
by creating economic booms,

followed by further depressions,

so they could buy up thousands of homes
and farms for pennies on the dollar.

In 1891, the Money Changers

prepared to take the
American economy down again

and their methods and motives were
laid out with shocking clarity in a memo

sent out by the American Bankers Association

an organization in which
most bankers were members.

Notice that this memo called for bankers
to create a depression on a certain date

three years in the future.

According to the congressional record,
here is how it read in part:

These depressions could be controlled
because America was on the gold standard.

Since gold is scarce, it's one of
the easiest commodities to manipulate.

People wanted silver money
legalized again so they could escape

the stranglehold the Money Changers
had on gold-backed money.

People wanted silver money reinstated,
reversing Mr. Seyd's Act of 1873,

by then called the "Crime of '73".

By 1896, the issue of
more silver money had become

the central issue
in the Presidential campaign.

William Jennings Bryan,
a Senator from Nebraska

ran for President as a Democrat
on the "Free Silver" issue.

At the Democratic
National Convention in Chicago,

he made an emotional speech,

which won him the nomination, entitled
"Crown of Thorns and Cross of Gold."

Though Bryan was only
36 years old at the time,

this speech is widely regarded
as the most famous oration

ever made before a political convention.

In the dramatic conclusion, Bryan said:

The bankers lavishly supported the
Republican candidate, William McKinley,

who favoured the gold standard.

The resulting contest was
among the most fiercely contested

Presidential races in American history.

Bryan made over 600 speeches in 27 states.

The McKinley campaign got
manufacturers and industrialists

to inform their employees
that if Bryan were elected,

all factories and plants would close
and there would be no work.

The ruse succeeded. McKinley
beat Bryan by a small margin.

Bryan ran for president again
in 1900 and in 1908,

but fell short each time.

During the 1912 Democratic Convention,

Bryan was a powerful figure who
helped Woodrow Wilson win the nomination.

When Wilson became President
he appointed Bryan as Secretary of State.

But Bryan soon became disenchanted
with the Wilson administration.

Bryan served only two years
in the Wilson administration

before resigning in 1915 over the
highly suspicious sinking of the Lusitania,

the event which was used to
drive America into World War I.

Although William Jennings Bryan
never gained the Presidency,

his efforts delayed the Money Changers
for seventeen years

from attaining their next goal

a new, privately-owned central bank for America.