2002-11-11 14:19:00
The last two chapters of the Relief Mine veer off the story of the mine itself and introduce some of the author's philosophy on the conspiracy and religions matters. This may be of interest to some and not to others. Even so, I am posting the remaing part of the book in this and the next post so readers can have the entire book
I am finishing up chapter 17 and will post it soon. It should be worth the wait.
The Relief Mine
By Ogden Kraut
First Published 1978
Chapter 14
THE MODERN GOLD RUSH
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. (James 5:3)
The course pursued by men of business in the world has a tendency to make a few rich, and to sink the masses of the people into poverty and degradation. (Brigham Young, JD 11:348)
America has a broad and rich history of visionary men who struggled to forge a nation out of wilderness. Through their sweat and blood and out of the humblest of circumstances they have ingeniously developed the world's greatest enterprising system of government and industry. In 200 years these wise and inspired men have established a prosperous and free country to which every other nation has looked with envy.
However, in the last half century America has been the victim of an astronomical debt that exceeds all the combined debts of all the nations of the earth. Her treasury and vast gold supplies have dwindled until they have been lost or mortgaged to other nations. Both the citizens and their nation are in excessive bondage.
What has happened? America has been the victim of an international conspiracy.
Ever since gold has, been used as a standard for money, men have deviously acquired means for stealing it [194] from each other. This plundering still continues--from a few ounces of gold dust to the grand theft of billions of dollars from the treasury vaults of nations. Greater sums of gold, and more subtle techniques for stealing it, are being accomplished today than ever before. Hoarding gold is the prime object of international thieves because gold is both wealth and power. With gold, men can start wars, create financial depressions and make slaves out of millions of people. For this reason the nature and value of gold should be understood by every man who loves his freedom, property and independence. The fate of a man or the destiny of a nation, may depend on the understanding and attitude that men have towards gold.
Gold, being the only universally accepted money, by its very nature, carries a tremendous amount of power. Those who control it are in the position to coerce those who don't. As long as the control of gold is in the hands of the people, we are safe; but when the control of gold falls into the hands of tyrants, we are in trouble. For this reason, dictators, as soon as they take over a country, confiscate all of the gold and silver. Not only do they need these precious metals to finance their wars, but they must also strip the people of their natural wealth. The easiest way to control people is through their pocketbook. (Gold, The Natural Enemy of Socialism, N. Leppert, p. 2)
Men and governments possessing gold are financially sound. They are capable of purchasing their needs, aiding others who are in bondage, or they can protect themselves from natural or mortal enemies. However, paper money, or promissory notes, have been a bad substitute for money. The use of paper money is only a financial shortcut for the convenience of exchange. Thus, men have learned to exchange receipts instead of trading gold. These receipts called paper currency or notes, only indicate that there is gold or silver in the bank, or national treasury, that can [195] be exchanged for that note. The paper is a title to a portion of money on reserve. A promissory note is not money, but an order to deliver money.
Paper currency is used for convenience, but it has been the victim of much abuse. Bankers and goldsmiths soon began to make loans on gold which belonged to someone else. Later they began to make loans, at a high interest, on gold which was not even in their vaults. Government treasuries also have propounded this fraud. Howard Kirshner has written a brief historical outline of the ruinous effect that paper currency has had upon nations:
Thousands of years ago a great civilization flowered for many centuries on the banks of the Nile. When the popularity--seeking Pharaohs became extravagant and spent more than their income, debts accumulated and prices rose. To increase the quantity of money and make possible more spending, they debased the coinage--that is, decreased its intrinsic value, while its nominal value remained the same. The gold and silver coins of ancient Egypt were called in, melted, and recoined with a large proportion of some baser metal, The government then tried to maintain that the part-lead coins were worth as much as the all-gold coins. That was a lie and everybody knew it. The good money was driven out, and Egyptian civilization declined, never to recover its grandeur. The same thing happened in Crete, where a brilliant civilization flourished for many centuries until the rulers became extravagant, accumulated debts, and sought to meet them by debasing the currency. Inflation appeared, people lost confidence in the monetary unit, stopped working and saving diligently, and Cretan civilization disappeared. [196] The gold and silver that fled from Egypt, and from Crete, found a resting place in Greece, where it contributed much to the great culture that flourished there for many centuries. As long as people were frugal and public finance remained sound, these developments continued. But ambitious rulers began to spend more than they received. Once more in accordance with Gresham's Law, the gold and silver fled in the presence of debased money and Grecian civilization declined, never to recover its ascendancy. Rome was the next home of thrift, economy, hard work, and sound money. Upon this solid foundation was constructed the great empire that ruled the known world. Again culture flourished. But the Caesars in their turn sought popularity by pensioning their friends and political favorites. Public money was syphoned off to help this or that group. Free bread, circuses, and extravagant spending sprees created mountain debts and rising prices. The tyrants of ancient Rome, however, were not dismayed. They said, "We know what happened in the other countries, and we're not going to let it happen here. We're going to fix prices so they can't rise." But fixing prices to avoid further rises always results in greater scarcity. If the price of wheat, for instance, is fixed too low to be profitable to farmers, they will grow less wheat and more rye, potatoes, or corn. These in turn must be controlled. There is no place to stop the process short of the fixing of all prices. They made the most savage attempt to control wages and prices ever made outside of modern Russia. But government-managed economy always results in lower production, and eventually the people were starving. (God, Gold and Government, Howard E. Kershner, pp. 63-65)
At the end of the 18th century, France was trying to recover from the economic chaos brought about by "printing press money." The money managers promised to bring [197] prosperity again, but this time the money would be backed by Government owned land. Statesmen who objected to the idea were ridiculed and some were forced to leave France. The news media then denounced gold as necessary to back the money because the government money was always superior to gold-back money. The politicians declared that their printing press money would make them rich overnight, and they could buy all the luxuries they wanted--all backed by the government, of course.
When the first fiat money was printed, a slight burst of prosperity glimmered on their economic stage. Then, "like a wolf tasting blood for the first time, the people and the politicians clamored for more!" Presses rolled again and prices began to rise. Thus when prices started to rise, the cost of living also rose, which in turn created another shortage of money. Thus the presses rolled on again and so did their inflation. Within five years, a bushel of flour increased from 40 cents to $45.00, and sugar went from 18 cents to $12.50 a pound.
Then the government stepped in to set up price controls. They established a legal profit for manufacturers and farmers. This set off a wave of black marketing. Thus the manufacturers and farmers who couldn't make ends meet went out of business which created another financial crash with unemployment everywhere. The entire economy of France collapsed, but there were a few very wealthy people who benefited from it; however, the middle and working class people lost everything they had.
When the Marxist Communist conspiracy finally seized Russia, they first sought to destroy the wealth of the people by printing as many paper rubles as they could. This would enslave the people by making them dependent on their dictatorship. This constant influx of paper money on the market soon caused the cheapest items to be sold for millions. This was all according to the policy of Lenin, who said that the best way to destroy a country is to debauch its currency. This was accomplished in Russia by printing paper money.
[198] After World War I, Germany had a ruinous war debt imposed upon them by John Foster Dulles, even though Woodrow Wilson had promised to reject it. The Weimar Republic began printing fiat paper money to increase their economy. Inflation set in and their paper money became weaker and weaker in purchasing power. Soon the workers literally ran to the factory gates with their pay so that their wives could rush it on to the markets before the prices would change again.
Our Founding Fathers, who had experienced a money that was "not worth a Continental," forbid the printing of such money in this country. In Article I, Section 8, of our Constitution, they delegated to Congress the power "to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin . . . to provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States." Also, in Article 1 and Article 10 they wrote, "No state shall . . . coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any . . . law impairing the obligation of contracts ...." They did not want paper racketeers stealing our gold.
But today America is suffering from an unsound fiat paper money system, huge taxation, and an astounding financial debt. Corruption and subversion have become so deep-rooted within our government that the President, his advisors, members of Congress and the Justice Department have all become victims of the same influences that have destroyed so many governments of the past. Even many huge industries have become corrupted and have sold themselves to this vain mess of "pottage". Big banking and oil cartels have been seduced by mother Babylon.
These strange "secret combinations" have always shown up in the past, and it is no wonder that they would find a place in the last days as well. One man, an "insider", wrote a 1300-page book called Tragedy and Hope on the history and objectives of this present global conquest. His name is Dr. Carroll Quigley, a former professor of [199] Harvard University. However, Dr. Quigley both supports and approves of this combination as though it presents "hope" for the world, but "tragedy" for those who oppose it. He explained how this secret combination has had the power to manipulate, corrupt, coerce and control millions of people and many governments and industries. He writes:
In time they brought into their financial network the provincial banking centers, organized as commercial banks and savings banks, as well as insurance companies, to form all of these into a single financial system on an international scale which manipulated the quantity and flow of money so that they were able to influence, if not control, governments on one side and industries on the other. The men who did this . . . aspired to establish dynasties of international bankers and were at least as successful at this as were many of the dynastic political rulers. (Tragedy and Hope, p. 7)
W. Cleon Skousen also observed that--
. . . these banking dynasties had learned that all governments must have sources of revenue from which to borrow in times of emergency. They had also learned that by providing such funds from their own private resources, they could make both kings and democratic leaders tremendously subservient to their will. It had proven to be a most effective means of controlling political appointments and deciding political issues. (The Naked Capitalist, p. 7)
In Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution, our forefathers wrote, "No state shall make anything but gold and silver coin tender in payment of debts." They were well informed on the necessity of sound money; therefore, they took this particular written means so that Congress would keep the responsibility of a sound money system.
[200] President Andrew Jackson overthrew the second bank of the United States when he exposed the majority of the stock being held by foreign interests. Such banking he said in his veto message of July 10, 1832, was "unauthorized by the Constitution, subversive of the rights of the States, and dangerous to the liberties of the people."
The economic grasp for financial control of this country was gradually built up through--
. . . two pinnacles of economic and financial powers, of which one, centered in New York, was headed by J. P. Morgan and Company, and the other, in Ohio, was headed by the Rockefeller family. When these two cooperated, as they generally did, they could influence the economic life of the country to a large degree and could almost control its political life, at least on the federal level. (Tragedy and Hope, Quigley, pp. 71-72)
American history has a long tradition of war against central banking ever since Thomas Jefferson's fight against Alexander Hamilton's scheme for the First Bank of the United States.
In 1913 Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, and thus became a central banking system operated by many foreign elements unfriendly to the best interests of this nation.
The Reserve "System" was composed of 12 "National" banks, but only one does the controlling, which is in New York. The President appoints the seven members of the Federal Reserve Board for a 14-year term, but in spite of all this political structure, they act independent of any political decisions. In fact, the President is "advised" who should be appointed to the Board. But what is worse, is the fact that the Federal Reserve Board has successfully been able to avoid every attempt to conduct an audit of its books, ever since its birth in 1913.
[201] The creation of the Federal Reserve system meant that the Legislative Department of government would lose its sovereignty and that the system of checks and balances of power set up by Thomas Jefferson in the Constitution would be destroyed.
Congressman Louis McFadden, who was chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, commented:
It (the Depression) was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence.... The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as the rulers of us all. (Bankruptcy, p. 4)
And Gary Allen adds:
By 1932 the Great Inflation of the Twenties had been turned into the Great Depression of the Thirties, and with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, the banking insiders moved to consolidate their control of our money by arranging to call in gold lest it be used to hedge against any future massive expansion of the money supply by the Federal Reserve. This resulted in the Presidential Executive Order of April 5, 1933, requiring all Americans to take their gold bullion, gold coins, and gold, backed currency to their banks and exchange them for currency that was not redeemable in the precious metal. The banks, in turn, were required to deliver the gold and gold coins to the Federal Reserve Bank. The way was now clear for a decade-long inflationary looting of the economy to pay for a gradual centralization of power through which the United States could be most easily controlled by the powerful men behind the scenes--powerful men who realize that dictatorship is the ultimate monopoly. (Bankruptcy, p. 4)
[202] Under this new system of money management, the United States has been the victim of greater inflations, depressions, world wars, and no-win wars to create more debt to the international banking system.
In 1915 Louis T. McFadden was elected to Congress from Pennsylvania, and he attempted to expose the Federal Reserve Banking System. He accused the officials of the Federal Reserve of deliberately creating the Great Depression by their manipulation of credit and money. He is quoted as saying:
These twelve private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this country by the bankers who came here from Europe and repaid us our hospitality by undermining our American institutions.... They financed Trotsky's passage from New York to Russia so that he might assist in the destruction of the Russian Empire. They fomented and instigated the Russian Revolution, and placed a large fund of American dollars at Trotsky's disposal in one of their branch banks in Sweden.... (Louis T. McFadden)
Representative Patman tried to persuade the Federal Reserve officials to allow the government to audit their books, which the officials vigorously opposed. Chairman Patman said:
I think you've gone too far on this, insisting too much--even objecting to the GAO auditing your books. I think that is going rather far. For 50 years you had no audit by a Government auditor. You have had no independent audit; you have handled hundreds of billions of dollars of Government money, and yet you have had no audit of any kind by Government auditors. (Rep. Patman in The Federal Reserve System after 50 Years, p. 897)
[203] Representative McFadden instigated impeachment proceedings against Federal Reserve officials and certain members of the Treasury Department. He accused them of stripping the U.S. Treasury of billions of dollars. He also charged them with unlawfully exporting gold reserves which belonged to the general public to foreign countries. In his conclusion of the impeachment charges, he said:
Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with the crime of having treasonably conspired and acted against the peace and security of the United States, and with having treasonably conspired to destroy constitutional government in the United States. (Louis T. McFadden)
After this there were two attacks on his life. Then he suddenly suffered "heart failure" after an attack of "intestinal flu" on October 3, 1936--and so did his House Resolution No. 158.
Four things happened with this "Federal" machine:
1. It was owned by private individuals who controlled the nation's issuance of money.
2. It could have at its command the entire financial resources of the country.
3. It could mobilize wars through politicians so that the United States would plunge further into mortgages, inflation and debt.
4. The Board of Governors would be appointed by the Executive Branch which removed the controls out of the hands of Congress.
The further we became engulfed in debt, the more currency inflation was created by the Federal Reserve; thus more interest is obligated to the Federal Reserve Bank who demands gold. At present, the national debt of [204] the United States is more than the combined debt of all the other nations of the world, and the interest is the third largest expense on the federal budget. These internationalists demand gold for payment of the national interest debt.
The gold movement within the U.S. is a cloak-and-dagger operation. Gold is actually moved a few hundred feet from one set of cages in the U.S. Assay Office to another set of cages in the Federal Reserve Bank by expansive armored trucks, merely to be rechecked and restored. (The Gold Swindle, George Racey Jordan, p. 10)
America is secretly and cleverly being robbed of all its gold reserves. Nearly all of our gold has ended up in the Federal Reserve Banks--not in Fort Knox.
No other form of revenue has been so profitable for the Internationalists as the graduated income tax. With this money they have created unlawful bureaucracies in this country, and given foreign aid to build up treacherous powers abroad.
Our American forefathers wanted a home government--one which they could keep their eyes on and their hands on, if it tried to get out of their control. For that reason they composed a union of separate states or governments. The Constitution kept the Federal Government small, but efficient. However, the 16th Amendment changed all that. It enabled the Federal Government to put its hands into the pockets of its citizens and also take their allegiance away from local governments. Their money was now taken to the Central Government, rather than to local authorities over whom they had control.
The economic power secured by the 16th Amendment enabled the Federal Government to bribe state governments, as well as citizens, into submission. Income taxation has weakened the entire spirit and purpose of the [205] Constitution. The enormous revenues pouring into the Federal Government create agencies, bureaus, and powers which only destroy individuals' rights.
The Income Tax Amendment, ... is contrary to the spirit and the principles of the Constitution of which it is a part. For the Amendment gives to the Federal Government first claim upon the earnings of the individual, and so infringes his natural right to own what he produces. With its graduated tax provision, the Income Tax Amendment is a replica of that clause in the Communist Manifesto which provides for the confiscation of all property through the use of just such a tax. Not only is the individual citizen's liberty partitioned by the Amendment, but the several states are deprived of their Constitutional sovereignty, and the central Federal Government is over-strengthened at their expense. This growth of centralized power is a development which generations of Americans fought stubbornly to prevent. (Flyleaf to The Income Tax--Root of All Evil, Frank Chodorov)
Karl Marx was the first advocate of a progressive income and inheritance taxation. He proposed this program as a means of destroying private property. It was published in the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Every socialist party and every liberal Communist sympathizer since then has advocated this platform. Hence, Socialists and Communists oppose the constitutional axiom of an individual's inalienable right to property.
The principal cause of the Revolution was taxation. It was declared that "Taxation without representation is tyranny," and it was an invasion upon their property rights. A people who were willing to go to war for a mere tea tax would certainly not tolerate having their pockets picked by an income tax. The Founding Fathers agreed [206] with John Locke that Government is an instrument for safeguarding private property--not an agency to take it away. Taxing the income has always been opposed by most American citizens and their representatives.
Slavery and involuntary servitude means, essentially, forcing someone, against his will, to work or serve. Thus when an employer is forced to serve as tax collector and bookkeeper for the Government--without payment for his time and expense, and under threat of severe penalty for any error (in a complicated set of rules and regulations) then he is certainly forced to involuntary servitude . . . and that by federal administration. The withholding law also violates that portion of the Fifth Amendment which says that no person shall be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ...."
The final evaluation of the federal tax system is the fruits of its operation. It had been described as "an appalling mess of complicated inequities. It stifles initiative, wastes human energy and resources, distorts the national economy, and has a corrupting effect on both tax payers and tax collectors."
Controlling the finances of a government can be a very profitable business--especially when the bankers control the economy of the country. At every inflation and every recession, the bankers take in profits. All of this was centered upon the theme of which Quigley says [207] and righteousness, but rather in themselves and in their combinations. Their only concern is to gain the economic and political power of the world. In doing so they seek to win the natural resources and the man-power of the entire earth under a totalitarian, Godless dictatorship. We are now witnessing the worst "secret combination" ever perpetuated on earth.
Gold has always been a great power for both good and evil, depending on its use. More often, unfortunately, it has been the means of cankering the souls of men and corrupting governments and nations. Seldom has gold been used as God intended. But in the winding up scene, man will no more hoard, covet, or steal it, because God--through His "strange act"--will see that gold is used for His own purposes.
You can buy Ogden's books by going to: http://www.ogdenkraut.com/orderogdenbooks.html
Copyright 2002 by J.J. Dewey, All Rights Reserved